where does yeast physically reside in the beer/wort?

[dukedog]

This might be a dumb question but I've never really seen it clarified.

I've been reading up on how a lot of people prefer to keep beer on the yeast cake as opposed to moving it to a secondary carboy if they aren't dry-hopping. Why is it so important to leave it on the cake? Isn't the yeast throughout the entire beer? If it wasn't then how would it continue to pressurize after bottling.


So where is it physically at? Is it throughout the beer and then on the bottom as well?

 

[lumpher]

leaving it on the cake means leaving it in the primary, and fermenting where it is. moving it into a secondary for some reason doesn't magically remove it from the yeast. it'll just reduce the amount of yeast to do the job

 

[jonmohno]

There is also a little more risk in moving it. I would just primary-for one you dont have to touch it and two its going to condition faster.Less risk faster ferment what is there to lose- except clairty i guess but you can cold crash too but even clarity has been debated.Thats why alot are just skipping it.

 

[dukedog]

Yeh I'm regretting moving it now, I made the mistake of following the kit instructions as closely as possible.

 

[Nurmey]

Using primary only or secondary are both fine. You are correct that there is lots of yeast suspended in even crystal clear beer.

It is not so much about leaving it on the cake as not removing it from the cake. Instead of rushing it off the cake, we leave it so the yeast can complete its job of eating the complex sugars and waste to clean up the flavor. It's actually more of a time thing that a location thing. Once it has been left on the yeast long enough for the job to get done, it's ready to bottle. There is simply no need to move it.

 

[lumpher]

i leave it in the primary for 3 weeks, then keg (or bottle, sometimes). that's all

 

[thisgoestoeleven]

Does it take longer to carbonate if you did a secondary, and then racked to the bottling bucket than it would if the beer stayed in primary the whole time? I ask because there is less yeast doing the job of carbonating the beer.

 

[jonmohno]

Revvy suggests scraping the yeast on the bottem when racking to get some into the bucket for bottles.My suggestion is to bring it up to a higher temp within the first couple days to get it going also. Or throwing your primer in a little warm to bring the temp up a little, i got mine to 75 degrees so hopefully it got a good start.

 

[Nurmey]

I have bottle beer that sat in a secondary for a year and had it carbonate just fine. The beer was crystal clear and the small cake was solid. It was just the suspended yeast in the beer that did the job. No need to scrape yeast from the bottom unless you like a lot of yeast in your bottles.