Straining yeast cake into secondary fermentation?

[ultimatenic]

I've got a 2.5 gallon batch of Saison that's just finished primary fermentation. I racked it into secondary fermentor and lost about 22oz of beer left in the yeast cake of primary. I decided to strain the yeast cake of primary of all remaining liquid and added it to secondary. Any body ever done this? Should I expect off flavors?

Just curious if this is a dumb idea or not, I guess I will find out in 2 months.

I usually just bottle straight from primary and when I rack into my bottling bucket strain out all the liquid in the yeast cake. I've always done this, I just need to get every last drop of beer. And my beer has always been good, borderline great. Once I start brewing 5 gallon batches I might just stop doing this.

I've been learning more and more and have heard you should not aerate the beer so much when racking it into secondary or bottles, and try not to disturb the yeast cake.

Wondering if this practice(straining yeast cake of all liquid when bottling or racking into secondary) is harmful. Thanks for input!

 

[zeekage]

My biggest worry would be oxygenating the wort by passing it through a strainer. After fermentation oxygen = bad.

One thing I've tried before with some success is putting a wedge under the carboy during primary. The yeast will settle much thicker on one side and very thin on the other. When racking out of the carboy take the wedge out, and put your racking cane down where the yeast cake is very thin. You'll be able to get more that way. Some LHBS even sell carboy wedges but an old towel or tshirt folded up works just as well.

 

[bja]

How do you strain it and keep the yeast out?

 

[Revvy]

Doing that you actually run the risk of oxydizing your beer. at least the stuff that you squeezed out of the yeast cake.

Next time if you don't want to have any loss to trub, and want clear beer, just leave you beer in primary for 4 weeks. In that time the yeast cake tends to compress really nice and tight, giving you most if not all your beer back. When you rack to a keg or bottling bucket you can almost "vaccum" all the beer off the surface of the yeast cake.

This is my yeastcake for my Sri Lankin Stout that sat in primary for 5 weeks. Notice how tight the yeast cake is? None of that got racked over to my bottling bucket. And the beer is extremely clear.

That little bit of beer to the right is all of the 5 gallons that DIDN'T get vaccumed off the surface of the tight trub. Note how clear it is, there's little if any floaties in there.

When I put 5 gallons in my fermenter, I tend to get 5 gallons into bottles. The cake itself is like cement, it's about an inch thick and very, very dense, you can't just tilt your bucket and have it fall out. I had to use water pressure to get it to come out.

My average is 52 bottles from a 5 gallon batch of beer.

You'll find that more and more recipes these days do not advocate moving to a secondary at all, but mention primary for a month, which is starting to reflect the shift in brewing culture that has occurred in the last 4 years, MOSTLY because of many of us on here, skipping secondary, opting for longer primaries, and writing about it. Recipes in BYO have begun stating that in their magazine. I remember the "scandal" it caused i the letters to the editor's section a month later, it was just like how it was here when we began discussing it, except a lot more civil than it was here. But after the Byo/Basic brewing experiment, they started reflecting it in their recipes.

Fermenting the beer is just a part of what the yeast do. If you leave the beer alone, they will go back and clean up the byproducts of fermentation that often lead to off flavors. That's why many brewers skip secondary and leave our beers alone in primary for a month. It leaves plenty of time for the yeast to ferment, clean up after themselves and then fall out, leaving our beers crystal clear, with a tight yeast cake.



Another benefit of this is that I get the barest hint of sediment in my bottles....just enough for the yeast to have done the job of carbonating the beer.

 

[ultimatenic]

How do you strain it and keep the yeast out?

I siphon 95% of the beer through the spigot, last 5% I dump out through the top of bucket, through a strainer into a separate container, I frequently dump the yeast out of the strainer. Then add liquid in container back into beer. (Everything gets sanitized up front)

I've never had oxidized beer, but I do feel that all my beers are really dominated by the yeast flavors. I think its because of this process.

I'm starting 5 gallon batches in a few weeks and I'm going to try longer primary fermentation time, no straining.

This was the first time I've ever done secondary fermentation, not sure where I stand on it yet, I've heard arguments for and against it.