Yeast(?) on bottom of bottles?

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seven77

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I've noticed a sediment on the bottom of my bottles after a week or two of aging. I'm assuming this is yeast, after doing a little research. Is there any way to avoid this buildup? I'm assuming there must be some way, as commercial beers do not have this layer of yeast (or whatever it is). All my beers taste fine, in fact the last one I brewed tasted excellent! --so I don't think it's anything to worry about, it's just a little annoying to tell my buddies "Oh don't drink from the bottle or it'll taste bad!" then have to tell them to pour very carefully as to not disturb the sediment.

I don't mind pouring into a glass, being the wintertime. When summer rolls around it might be a different story as one of my favorite pastimes is to camp, bbq and drink at the lake for a few days. I envision taking home-brew to the lake, but with all the dirt and sand... needing a glass will become, well, dirty!
 
ya ya it's yeast mate.

you can avoid it somewhat by transfering to a secondary fermentor and letting it age a while, then siphon it off the yeast cake in the secondary without disturbing it.

i know what you mean about the bottles in the summertime, nothing like a cold cold bottle of beer... they're fun to throw too, but now i'm trying to save them, so i only throw the ones with the twist tops ;)

seriously though, the sediment at the bottom of some of my bottles don't move unless you really slosh it around, so i reckon you can throw a few back, in a gentle sorta way.
 
Unless you add your carbonation with a very expensive carbon bottling system, you do like the rest of us and add that priming sugar right before you bottle. That sediment is more from the "bottle conditioning" then it is by not doing a secondary fermentation. There are some commercial brewers that also add the carbonation in by "bottle conditioning" their brews and they even add on the bottle that "settling will occur". Some connoisseurs of these fine brews will even roll the bottle around on the table before opening to shuffle the sediment around and add character to the beer. I for one am not a fan of this method. As long as you don't shake the bottle up a lot while you are tossing it back, you shouldn't disrupt the sediment too much. Besides, after getting to the bottom of a few bottles you won't care much what's at the bottom. :D

hth, dp
 
Hmm.

a - It's yeast so who cares? Not me. Drink it right out of the bottle. Sierra Nevada has yeast in the bottle. Its good for you...seriously.

b - If you are bottle conditioning - that is naturally carbonating in the bottle - you will ALWAYS have yeast settle to the bottom of the bottle. that is because a short second fermentation occurs inside the bottle to generate the CO2, and that yeast has to end up somewhere.

c - Carbonating in other methods isn't really all that hard or expensive at all. Here's what thos of us who keg do, which is very much like what commercial breweries do:

When the beer is clear in the secondary, and has aged as long as you want, you siphon it into the keg. You seal the keg and chill it. Commercial breweries usually filter their beer before this step, but it isn't necessary.

Once the beer is chilled, it can absorb a lot of CO2. That is, more CO2 dissolves in the liquid if it is cold. So you hook your CO2 tank up to your keg at about 40 PSI and leave it there for a day or so. That carbonates the beer.

When you're ready to pour it, you relive most of the pressure leaving just enough to keep it fizzy and pushing out the tap. A keg is just like one big bottle. So, it probably has some yeast settle to the bottom too. But the cool part is that you pull a half pint or so off and get all the yeast in one go, and the rest of the keg is clear.

Now, if you want to bottle that, you just get a counterpressure bottler. It's just a little gizmo, probably $100 or so and it keeps the beer under pressure while you bottle it. So you pump beer from kegs into bottle under pressure and quickly cap them. It's a two person job and a bit tricky at first, but works great. It's exactly how breweries bottle only on a much smaller scale.

Basically for a couple or few hundred bucks depending what parts you can scrounge up, you can get kegs, tank of CO2, regulator, and, if you like, a counterpressure bottler, anf you're dispensing like the pro's with no yeast worries :D

Janx
 
Yes, I don't worry about it. I love Bell's beers and ales (http://www.bellsbeer.com) and they are all bottle conditioned and have sediment in the bottom. To quote owner Larry Bell himself, "If God had wanted us to filter our beer, he wouldn't have given us livers." ;)
 
The yeast sediment is also vitamin B which is healthy for you.

If you don't want a cloudy beer then just pour slowly (leaving the yeast in the bottle) then swirl the bottle a bit and drink the yeast right from the bottle.
 
With my first batch I have noticed sediment but it looks like unfermented sugar stuck to the bottom. Is this yeast build up or sugar? When I pour the beer into a glass none of the sediment pours out of the bottle. When I rinse the bottle so I can reuse it it takes quite a shake to loosen the sediment.
 
Ryan329 said:
With my first batch I have noticed sediment but it looks like unfermented sugar stuck to the bottom. Is this yeast build up or sugar? When I pour the beer into a glass none of the sediment pours out of the bottle. When I rinse the bottle so I can reuse it it takes quite a shake to loosen the sediment.

How are you priming your bottlet beer? Pouring granulated sugar directly into the bottle or making a sugar or extract solution and priming the whole batch en masse?

If you are NOT adding sugar directly to the bottle then the sediment is yeast that has settled pretty well or it could be sterile junk that was in the bottle before you bottled.
 
AHammer16 said:
How are you priming your bottlet beer? Pouring granulated sugar directly into the bottle or making a sugar or extract solution and priming the whole batch en masse?

If you are NOT adding sugar directly to the bottle then the sediment is yeast that has settled pretty well or it could be sterile junk that was in the bottle before you bottled.

I've completed the priming method both ways and have notice the same buildup on the bottom of the bottles with both. So it's not sugar sinking, it's just a by product of the carbonation process.

The most recent batch I completed, I had to bottle prime due to and unfortunate combination of brew "accidentally" contacting the "un-rinsed" chlorinated contents of the carboy.....WHOOPS.....I noticable about a gallon into the transfer. So I would screw up the priming process and have exploding bottles or under-carbonated beer, I decided to prime each bottle.

Igor
 
I saw more of this some batches where I added sugar to each bottle... not a method advised nowdays. So far at any rate I have seen that it does not take a long time for it to sink. That is if you shake it around a bit and then just let it sit for a few minutes the yeast will settle to the bottom. I guess this depends on just how much is in the bottle... I never have that much as I have always used a secondary. You will certainly have more if you go from primary to bottles.
 
I've heard from a couple of people that you shouldn't drink the sediment because of the 'laxative' affects it gives.

Is this true or an urban brewing myth?
 
denimglen said:
I've heard from a couple of people that you shouldn't drink the sediment because of the 'laxative' affects it gives.

Is this true or an urban brewing myth?

I think it's a matter of personal preference. Most people try to leave it in the bottle so their beer is clear, but some like to drink it. There are some types of beers (some Belgians I think) where it is traditional to stir up the sedement and drink it.
 
the directions on the back of a bottle of Fraziskaner Hefeweizen instruct you to pour most of the bottle into a glass, swirl around what's still in the bottle to kick up the sediment on the bottom, and then pour that into the glass as well.

I find that my homebrew has a pretty solid sediment on the bottom after several weeks conditioning. I don't even have to think about it when I pour one into a glass... the sediment simply stays stuck at the bottom.

I've had friends drink the HB straight from the bottle, and the repeated tipping while they drink causes it all to get back into suspension and they end up drinking it.

I've heard it can have a laxative effect, but it's never hit me at all. One thing I do consistantly get is Thunder Gas(TM). I can rattle the windows after a night of drinking homebrew.
 
AHammer16 said:
How are you priming your bottlet beer? Pouring granulated sugar directly into the bottle or making a sugar or extract solution and priming the whole batch en masse?

If you are NOT adding sugar directly to the bottle then the sediment is yeast that has settled pretty well or it could be sterile junk that was in the bottle before you bottled.

After drinking some more after time and observing the sediment it has got to be yeast seddling out. It looked like sugar at first, but is now more yeasty. The longer I let the beer sit the more sediment there is. I do like the fact that it sticks to the bottom of the bottle. I can pour the whole thing and none of it ends up in the glass.
 

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