Trube and yeast cake hard packed?

[Billham]

Hello,
I know this may be a silly question, but when i moved my Irish red ale to my secondary (only did it to free up my primary) the yeast cake was pretty packed on the bottom of the primary. I'm not complaining made siphoning easier for my first time. The reason I ask is I helped my neighbor rack his Caribou Slobber and his yeast cake was loose, So I just wanted to know what is usually normal, or like everything else it will vary with the brew/yeast you use?


Thank You in advance
-Bill

 

[flars]

The longer beer is left in the primary the more compact the yeast cake will be. There are some variables. I found with the yeasts I use WY 3711 is a loose cake. That is easily stirred up just by moving the primary. WY1056 and WY1084 form fairly tight cakes.
My primary time is a minimum of three weeks.
Your neighbor probably followed the recipe instructions and racked after two weeks. Good way to get extra sediment into the bottles.

 

[RPCidery]

It varies by yeast type, and like flars said, length of time left to settle. Some definitely flocculate better than others.
If yer gonna bottle condition, it doesn't hurt to stir up a little of the yeast cake when transferring to the bottling bucket.

 

[billl]

As a general rule, an english yeast strain will tend to floc pretty well compared to american strains.

And there is no need to purposely syphon up yeast. Unless you wait an unusually long amount of time or had a very high gravity brew, there will be plenty of healthy yeast in suspension to properly carbonate a beer.

 

[fearwig]

It varies by yeast type, and like flars said, length of time left to settle. Some definitely flocculate better than others.
If yer gonna bottle condition, it doesn't hurt to stir up a little of the yeast cake when transferring to the bottling bucket.

"There's Always Enough Yeast"

I want to forcibly tattoo that on anyone who recommends this. Even if you gelatin and cold crash, there's enough yeast. Always. It might be the difference between carbing in one week and carbing in three, but it definitely means less sediment!

 

[BigFloyd]

"There's Always Enough Yeast"

I want to forcibly tattoo that on anyone who recommends this. Even if you gelatin and cold crash, there's enough yeast. Always. It might be the difference between carbing in one week and carbing in three, but it definitely means less sediment!

+1. I'll cold crash beers for a week at 35*F (which also helps to firm up the yeast cake), leave all the trub behind in the bucket and there's still plenty of yeast left to bottle carb.

 

[Yooper]

As was mentioned, some yeast strains do that and other yeast strains don't.

English strains like nottingham, s04, and wlp002, to name a couple, will form a tightly compacted dense yeast cake. Some non-flocculant or less-flocculant yeast strains don't do that. S05 is one that doesn't really pack down like that until it's cold crashed.

My guess is you used a highly flocculant yeast strain, which clears the beer readily and compacts well into the trub. There are still hundreds of millions of yeast cells in suspension in the beer, so there is no need to siphon or otherwise try to grab some yeast.

 

[Billham]

Thank You all. He did follow the instructions and racked after 2 weeks I wasn't going to rack at all but my son wants to try to make skeeter pee and I only have the one primary. Again Thank You

 

[RM-MN]

Thank You all. He did follow the instructions and racked after 2 weeks I wasn't going to rack at all but my son wants to try to make skeeter pee and I only have the one primary. Again Thank You

Shame on you. Buckets are pretty cheap and will last for years if you take care of them.

 

[RPCidery]

Sorry for the bad advice. I've had a couple of brews that settled for a long time before bottling, and then took forever to carb up. And one that never carbed up. Ever since, I've made a point to just drag the tip of my racking cane through the yeast cake when transferring to my bottling bucket.