Keeping beer in the fermenter for days on end

11 months ago | Hamish (Moderator)

I've always considered it to be good practice to rack the beer off the trub at the earliest opportunity.

I've noticed the latest trend seems to be to keep the beer in the fermenter for days on end so that the yeasties can 'clear up after themselves'.

Why?, I don't get this. Surely it is better to get the beer off the dead yeast, trub and various crap soonest. Surely there will be enough yeast still in suspension after it has been racked to do the 'clearing up'.

Planning: Wheat beer fermented with Schneider Weisse yeast, a Stout, lots of hoppy pale ales
Fermenting: Summer pale ale
Maturing/Conditioning: Marynka pseudo-lager
Drinking: Wheat beer, ESB, Vienna lager & shop bought stuff

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Responses

Nath:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

I know, I know. This is why my yeast tips post never got off ground. There is a lot (and I mean a lot) of conflicting info about yeast in general and especially the "leaving in primary" area.

Yeast contributes to such an amount of what the final beer tastes like its just mental - you'd never thunk it!

Without directly quoting from the yeast book written by the bloke from white labs (who really knows about yeast) he was brought into a major brewer who was having problems with off flavours in one of their beers that has always brewed fine in their other brewery. Turns out that all they had to do was leave it on the cake for longer and hey presto - all is sorted.

They state in a paragraph in the book that beer will always do better the longer its left on the cake, they dont mention how long, but then Ive taken beer off after 3 days into secondary and Ive also left it for 3 weeks on primary. Im not gonna say the one in primary for 3 weeks tasted better but it certainly made no difference (plus they were both different recipes and yeasts).

Also there are people on da net who claim to leave their beer in primary for months without a problem, but then the breweries Ive been to have been a straight 3-4 day fermentation at 20c then straight to maturation tank for 2 days and then into cask.

Conradiction......Much?!?!??!?!?!?!

Drinkin' - nowt, it's all gone

Plannin'-
Loads a beer after an upgrade!

nathbrew@gmail.com

Hamish:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

The White labs chap might know about yeast but what does he know about beer?, it is after all just one blokes opinion.

This is the trouble with t'internet, too much info!.

I suppose its another one of those 'if it works for you' things.

Nath:

Posted 11 months ago by Moderator

Yeah, information overload but that book is really informative and although yeast is his thing it is yeast for beer. They provide much more than yeast for homebrewers, they are a massive lab which helps commercial breweries that may come across problems & more.

But like weve both said, so much info that contradicts itself.

Drinkin' - nowt, it's all gone

Plannin'-
Loads a beer after an upgrade!

nathbrew@gmail.com

Greg:

Posted 11 months ago by Admin

I think you have to find what works for you. There are several factors which will influence the fermentation - yeast strain, oxygen levels, pitch rate, temp, size and shape of fermenter so it will be different for everyone depending on how and what you brew.

Personally I leave to ferment in one fermenter for 2 weeks, the last few days I allow to cool down and I've been using isinglass a few days before kegging. I don't think there is any benefit in moving off the yeast cake after a few days. Its a pain and also likely to introduce oxygen and I'm not really sure there are any benefits.

I know there is talk about off flavours from dead yeast but I can't see it happening that quickly and there are also plenty of live yeast in the sediment, in fact some yeasts are bottom fermenting any how. There is definitely dodgy flavours left in your beer if you don't allow the yeast to clean up after primary fermentation is complete.

Who knows. If what you do is working then keep doing it.

Yeast and fermentation is definitely a testing subject for sure.

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