sounds stupid i know but i was taking a reading from a pale ale in my corny keg im fermenting in yesterday and i wasnt paying attention and before i knew it i had filled up an entire 30 oz mug of beer. all of it was yeast from the bottom of the keg pulled up from the diptube. the sample i ended up getting seemed to have some yeast in suspension but not the thick yeast cake type stuff. in a week gravity is down to about 1.011 from 1.063 OG on brewday. pitched rehydrated US-05. should i worry about this beer producing any off flavors over the next week until im ready to transfer it to another keg to cold crash and carbonate? i tasted the sample it was definitely on track for what im looking for just a hoppy pale beer and a little boozy tasting. will that heat mellow out without the yeast cake or is there still enough in suspension that i shouldnt worry about the yeast cleaning up?
It looks like the yeast was done and flocculating out. You had no need to re-pitch. Your re-pitch will also cause no problems. The small amount of yeast still in suspension would have cleaned up anything it needed to.
I should clarify I brewed this last Sunday. And I was referring to the original pitch being us05 I didn't repitch but was wondering if that might be necessary for the some "cleanup" time
Yeast that has flocculated isn't doing anything to help your beer anyways. It is the yeast in suspension that will clean up any byproducts of fermentation or finish attenuating your beer. After a week, if you pitched healthy yeast (which it sounds like you did), you should have been at final gravity and had the yeast cleaning up byproducts (and just about done doing so) anyways. I think one of the areas that home brewers are least informed is when it comes to fermentation. I constantly read posts where people say that they have beer almost done fermenting 10 days after pitching, or even longer. If healthy yeast is pitched correctly, ales should be at terminal gravity in 2-4 days. Typically, it only takes 1-3 days after that to clean up any aldehydes or DVK's (depending on yeast strain, abv, and temperature of course). It is typically safe to cold crash beer after that time and start cold conditioning to let your beer clear. I realize that most brewers will not want to crash their beer so quickly at home, but in your case, all you did was pull out yeast that wasn't contributing to the beer anyways.
“If healthy yeast is pitched correctly, ales should be at terminal gravity in 2-4 days. Typically, it only takes 1-3 days after that to clean up any aldehydes or DVK's (depending on yeast strain, abv, and temperature of course).” AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For a healthy fermentation, ale is ready for packaging in 3-7 days (otherwise known as a week)!! I would also provide caveat of moderate gravity ale in the above sentence; when I homebrew higher gravity beers I like for the ale to spend a bit more time in the fermenter on the off chance that there may be a need to ‘clean up’ some higher alcohols (fusel oils). Cheers!
I suspect that a lot of those reports come from homebrewers who are NOT making starters and are pitching old yeast, i.e. not "healthy yeast". I also suspect many of the reports of stuck fermentations from using 3724 come from the same homebrewers.
On the flipside, I dont have a lab to send samples to in order to ensure there is no diacetyl, acetaldehyde etc. So I let it ride for 2 weeks. Why? It works for me, and I do this for fun, not profit. If I dont need to free the fermentation vessel up, why rush it?
Absolutely do what works for you! However in commercial breweries most of us don't use a lab to make sure that we are free of off flavors. Even if we did, results take 2-3 days to come back, by which time the beer is already packaged. Train your senses. Trust your senses more than a lab! I would urge you to do what works for you, but also measure pH. If you see it start to rise, you will know you have gone too far with letting it sit. I can just about guarantee you will be happier with your beer if you pitch healthy yeast and get the beer off the yeast cake soon after letting the yeast clean up off flavors.
I have witnessed pH rise as much as .1 in a day from autolysis. Early on, you may not taste autolysis in its typical flavor descriptors (meaty, rubber, savory, tar, etc.) but what will happen is that pH will rise to be closer to the pH of your saliva. When that happens, flavors become less discernible and they can become more muddled. It sounds trivial, but I believe it to be one of the main factors that people subconsciously can tell when comparing homebrew to commercial. One important thing my to point out when making this argument (although this is just one small part of it) is that you get more hop utilization at higher pH levels when boiling, but you perceive hoppy flavors better at a lower pH level.
yes hop utilization is higher at higher ph but this should be considered irrelevant. never adjust the ph of your wort to shoot for higher utilization, you will get a very harsh, unpleasant bitterness. mash ph is key(which isn't the optimal ph of wort for hop utilization). also autolysis isn't that common and really shouldn't be any kind of a worry in very average, not near optimal, conditions.
Disagreed... Like I said, I've seen autolysis effect pH by .1 in 24 hours. Early on, you might not taste the flavors typically attributed to autolysis, but it is effecting the flavor of the beer regardless.
While I can't directly vouche for @honkey's observation, it is true that autolysis can happen at levels that don't present the classic autolysis symptoms. Autolysis is happening all the time. From day 1.
Never said autoysis doesn't effect ph or doesn't happen. It does both, but at levels that are more or less neglectable and it's very rare where autoysis is ever a major issue unless you've used unhealthy yeast and majorly stressed it out.
Plus you were talking about hop utilization and ph which precedes yeast so autolysis isn't an issue here.
Honestly, I've tasted more commercial beer that tasted "rushed" than homebrew that tasted "autolyzed"...IMHO
I think you're merging a couple of different points @honkey was making. His point about pH in relation to Autolysis was that autolysis increases pH, reducing perception of hoppy flavors. He also mentioned that high mash (and therefore wort) pH increases hop utilization, but that that is not a good reason to go for a higher mash pH, because of the flavor perception penalty. (And there are other reasons too, not mentioned.)
