Too much yeast in the bottle/glass

[Chris-18]

Hey all,

I recently made a hefe and an ipa, and they both suffer from the same problem. The hefe especially has a lot of yeast in the bottle and subsequently in the glass. It leaves a residue on the side of the glass when you drink it. The color and appearance is pretty spot on for a hefeweizen, and so is the flavor, but I haven't had a beer that leaves such a large residue.
Should I transfer it to secondary in the future (didn't this time) or is it a consequence of the yeast strain?
Or should I try and filter it somehow?
Also I don't think a ton of yeast is good for the stomach :smack:

 

[eadavis80]

You'll probably get a zillion people who will immediately tell you to NOT transfer to secondary for fear of oxidation and infection. I am guessing the amount of yeast is because you're transferring too much yeast from the primary into the bottling bucket. When you rack into the bucket are you starting with the siphon towards the top of your primary and moving it down as the transfer continues? Or, are you just putting the siphon at the bottom of your primary and therefore, siphoning a lot of trub into your bottling bucket? If your bottling transfer is decent, I would try racking into secondary. However, if you have not been racking as I suggested, I'd go that route first before going secondary. I've had fine beers with and without secondary. Do some experimenting and see what works for you. Good luck!

 

[phendog]

Are you sure it's yeast and not grain residue? Being yeast I would think taste and smell would be off - being very yeast forward. If it is yeast, I hope you didn't got too heavy with the priming sugar - you may have some bottle bombs just waiting to shoot off. :-(

Some yeast take longer to flock out than others - what kind did you use? The other part missing in your post is how long did leave your brews in the fermenter? If you are getting excess yeast in the bottle I sense you either racked to soon (too much yeast in suspension) or siphoned too much off the bottom of the fermenter. I am not a huge fan of secondaries, except in specific use cases, as it introduces unnecessary risk of contamination/aeration with little benefit. That said, with proper cold conditioning, it should settle to the bottom - just pour carefully - but you may get some off flavors over time. Good luck.

 

[Brewmasher]

You didn't mention if you bottle or keg. In either case, about a week of cold conditioning should settle a good amount to the bottom of the vessel.

Hefe is meant to be cloudy. the traditional way to drink it is to carefully decant the cleaner portion into a glass. The remaining dregs can either be discarded, or swirled into solution and added to taste.

Depending on the strain used for the IPA, this should clear out nicely. the longer it sits, the harder the yeast cakes on the bottom.

Brewers yeast is actually very high in B vitamins. However for some, consuming a lot turns them into trombone players, if you know what I mean. ipe:

Racking into another vessel does deem to coax yeast to drop out, and helps keep dregs from making it to the keg/ bottle. Gently stirring in some dissolved gelatin during secondary fermentation will help floc out the yeast further/ faster.

Also, what you clean your glass with can have an effect on what sticks to it. Some purists will not use a glass that has had milk in it before for beer, no matter how many times it has been washed.

 

[Brewmasher]

Darn duplicate

 

[Chris-18]

You'll probably get a zillion people who will immediately tell you to NOT transfer to secondary for fear of oxidation and infection. I am guessing the amount of yeast is because you're transferring too much yeast from the primary into the bottling bucket. When you rack into the bucket are you starting with the siphon towards the top of your primary and moving it down as the transfer continues? Or, are you just putting the siphon at the bottom of your primary and therefore, siphoning a lot of trub into your bottling bucket? If your bottling transfer is decent, I would try racking into secondary. However, if you have not been racking as I suggested, I'd go that route first before going secondary. I've had fine beers with and without secondary. Do some experimenting and see what works for you. Good luck!

When siphoning, I start at the top and gradually move the siphon down to the bottom, but maybe I tried to get too much beer out of the fermenter now that I think about it.
Maybe I should leave more next time.

Thanks for the advice