sh%$ sh%$ SH%# the diacetyl!!!!

For how long did you keep it @ 73? Was it near terminal gravity before you ramped it up?

 

Is in in bottles at this point? If it's kegged, krausening would be a viable option. I did this with my first lager I ever made and it cleared the diacetyl up. I underpitched, waited too long to do the diacetyl rest, and didn't do a forced diacetyl test prior to kegging so all things considered it turned out well and I learned several lessons. You make get have some of the aromatics stripped from the beer and may be a slightly muted if you krausen, but it sure beats buttered popcorn.

 

What was the pitching rate?
OG?
Starter?
Was the yeast mishandled/out of date?
Was it shipped by mail during a time where it may have gotten cooked in a delivery truck for example?

It doesn't seem like you should have diacetyl given your fermentation schedule if the yeast was healthy and pitched at a proper rate.

 

Of course weak yeast or rushing fermentation are not the only sources for diacetyl. How's your sanitation?

 

Do you keg? Bottle? If you had an aggressive fermentation I am just not buying that this is yeast derived.

 

There are three pathways to obtain perceptible diacetyl in beer:

· Fermentation (insufficient time in the fermenter)

· Infection

· Oxidation of alpha-acetolactate into diacetyl in the packaged beer

There are more details here: https://beersensoryscience.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/diacetyl-1/

Cheers!

 

FWIW, the first and third are the same chemical pathway. It's just a matter of when the oxidation happens. (I assume by the first one you mean diacetyl that formed in the fermenter, but wasn't cleaned up. But insufficient time in the fermenter can also allow the formation of diacetyl in the packaged beer. Same pathway.)

The biggest and potentially most damaging mistake people make when thinking about diacetyl is the (mistaken) assumption that yeast produce it directly. Or that all the diacetyl is formed, followed step-wise by cleanup of all the diacetyl.

 

I am unsure of the timing of diacetyl formation for infection vs. oxidation but if you are noticing the diacetyl after only one week’s duration I would be inclined to think your diacetyl was a result of the third bullet of my above post: Oxidation of alpha-acetolactate into diacetyl in the packaged beer.

Cheers!

 

Yeah, for it to happen that fast in the bottle, I'd bet a paycheck that there was still some unconverted (unoxidized) precursor in your beer when you bottled. Seems kind of fast for an infection.

 

I think vikeman was the first to post this, but: http://www.winning-homebrew.com/diacetyl-test.html

 

Plus there is always this product
http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...l-drop-time-is-tooo-long.225751/#post-2947393

 

It happens to the best of us pardner! Drink a tall can of Bud and you won't feel like your beer tastes so bad

 

Let it bottle condition maybe it will smooth out. You know sometimes it's drinkable sometimes it's bad. We have a local brewery who makes a Pilsner and there is so much DMS yet a few people find it drinkable. Just leave it around awhile and see what happens.