Yeast Washing
I came across this link while browsing BeerAdvocate at lunch. Wyeast's Yeast Washing Guide. I'm getting ready to rack Clark's Manners to secondary, and my mind is already racing ahead to bottling. I've always thought ill of the process of "priming" home brews with sugar to generate CO2 at bottling. I'm no Bavarian purist, but that sugar charge seems like a cheap short cut. I'd rather just spike the beer with co2 with a cold industrial injection. Of course, I don't want to buy a C02 system right now, so that's out. Kent's Manners and Kimble's Scottish ale will be sugar primed, but I will use an alternative means of carbonation.
The traditional procedure, called krausening, calls for an addition of freshly fermenting wort to provide carbonation. This step is easy in a brewery setting, but few home brewers crank out a batch of the same beer every month. However, through the wonders of refrigeration I can trick my brew into believing that it is popular, loved, and continually produced. The folks at the 7 bridges cooperative have done the math on injection of unfermented wort, or gyle.
The goal of this process is to introduce fermentable sugars into the beer, and allow them to ferment in a sealed environment. Co2 is a key fermentation by-product. During primary and secondary fermentation, so much C02 is produced that homebrewers must vent their fermenters, through air locks, or blow tubes, just to keep the carboys from exploding. Bottles can explode too, so sugar additions must be controlled so that they provide enough pressure to yield fizzy beer, but not shards of glass. The math is simple with corn sugar, as most of it is fermentable. 3/4 cup seems to be fairly standard. It's safe and consistent, but isn't expected to produce fresh tasting beer. There's a lot more guesswork when using wort as some sugars are fermentable, and other large molecules aren't. Gravity readings lend some insight, and I'll use them conservatively.
I'll refrigerate my wort until the bottling day, and add some of the preserved yeast to start some freshly fermenting wort and a real krausening.
The traditional procedure, called krausening, calls for an addition of freshly fermenting wort to provide carbonation. This step is easy in a brewery setting, but few home brewers crank out a batch of the same beer every month. However, through the wonders of refrigeration I can trick my brew into believing that it is popular, loved, and continually produced. The folks at the 7 bridges cooperative have done the math on injection of unfermented wort, or gyle.
The goal of this process is to introduce fermentable sugars into the beer, and allow them to ferment in a sealed environment. Co2 is a key fermentation by-product. During primary and secondary fermentation, so much C02 is produced that homebrewers must vent their fermenters, through air locks, or blow tubes, just to keep the carboys from exploding. Bottles can explode too, so sugar additions must be controlled so that they provide enough pressure to yield fizzy beer, but not shards of glass. The math is simple with corn sugar, as most of it is fermentable. 3/4 cup seems to be fairly standard. It's safe and consistent, but isn't expected to produce fresh tasting beer. There's a lot more guesswork when using wort as some sugars are fermentable, and other large molecules aren't. Gravity readings lend some insight, and I'll use them conservatively.
I'll refrigerate my wort until the bottling day, and add some of the preserved yeast to start some freshly fermenting wort and a real krausening.
posted by Unknown at
2:08 PM
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