Bulk Priming before Largering

[lmccrone]

Well I spose it's good news that I can leave it on the yeast cake, for future brews, this yeast cake is already history.

So given I have already put my crazy plan into action it sounds like my biggest issue is acetaldehyde. I understand from a podcast I listened to on the brewing network that acetaldehyde can be dealt with by adding more yeast. But is it safe to assume that if in 4 weeks no c02 has been produced (there is no pressure in the keg) that the yeast have been asleep and no acetaldehyde has been produced?

 

[Yob]

As a mainly lager brewer you're not really correct with a lot of your assumptions.

1/. Taking the beer off the yeast after two weeks is not desirable. There are two stages to lagering. The first is where the beer is in contact with the yeast as it cleans up fermentation by-products. The second stage is where the beer is very cold, around 1C and proteins and polyphenols drop out of solution. Chill haze can also drop out if present but not always. These processes cross over each other.
2/. Lager yeast will definitely work at 1C albeit very slowly. From Experience. If you add sugar and leave the beer at 1C for a month you have a very high chance of ending up with more acetaldehyde than you would have thought was possibly imaginable. Green apple flavour and it's disgusting.

There is no need to rack to a secondary or a keg. Leave the beer for five weeks from the time you make it in the primary. Then transfer gently to another fermenter, mix in your priming solution and bottle immediately. The least you handle the beer, the better.

Just remember, the brewer makes the wort, the yeast make the beer so treat them kindly.

-Steve

Cant be said much clearer than what Labels has posted mate... Hay it's your beer, hope it goes well.

 

[lmccrone]

Well if not then I may be in the market for some cheap hops to recoup my losses

 

[431neb]

I sorta got lost along the way there but I wonder if pseudo bulk priming might be helpful.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/44202-pseudo-bulk-priming-using-a-syringe/

 

[Black n Tan]

Labels plan for future batches seems on the money. But for this batch the horse has bolted. Taste the beer before bottling. Is it sweet? Green apples? I dont think the sugar will drop out of solution (it doesn't in a bottle of soft drink and that has much higher sugar levels) and I don't think their will be much yeast activity at 1C (In the Yeast book Chris White and Jamil state that not much happens below 4C). So bottle it and see how it tastes in a few weeks.

 

[lmccrone]

Righto

Just in case some one is reading this old post and wondering what happened to my plan here is how it went...

acetaldehyde!!

Yep, heaps of it. Now that it has been bottled for about two months its starting to fade. Apart from that though it worked a treat, bottles are all evenly carbonated and beer is crystal clear. My next brew was a Munich Dunkel and I left it on the yeast cake for the whole 6 weeks and then I transferred to a keg and forced carbed, I used my lovely new blichmann beer gun to fill the bottles.

Much better.