Fermentation...

[Lee Brown]

I have brewed a Belgian golden ale (maybe even a blonde). It has gone from 1.063 to 1.010 in 5 days. I have sat it on the yeast cake for another two days, Is there any benefit to leaving it another week on the yeast cake?

I started the yeast pitch at 17c, then went up 1c per day. Now sitting 23c, at which temp I will keep it for however much longer I keep it in the FV.

Any advice?

 

[chrisb8]

Have you tasted the sample you have taken? It's only been in the fermenter for 7 days and I would want to check for off flavours like diacetyl. I have checked my pale ale this evening after 10 days in the fermenter and there is diacetyl present. If this wasn't the case then I would have started the cold crash. I usually end up leaving my brews in the primary fermenter for 14-21 days including cold crash.

 

[Zephyr259]

If the gravity is stable then probably no benefit. There's often thought of yeast "cleaning up" the beer by sitting on the cake for a while longer but from what I've read and heard on podcasts the yeast won't be doing anything if they're done fermenting, it's all anecdotes either way though from what I can tell. As mentioned above, if it tastes ok and gravity is stable then should be good to bottle.

 

[Lee Brown]

It tastes good to me and I can’t detect any butterscotch/popcorn flavours

 

[Lee Brown]

I am planning to cold crash for a couple of days, transfer to keg and then prime and condition for a few weeks. Just looking to cut down time!

 

[Lee Brown]

Just a thought: I’m kegging tonight. Prime and warm condition for a few weeks, or force carb for a week at 9psi and continue to leave in the fridge for several weeks?

 

[Hoppy]

Lee, as Zephyr say says, if the fermentation has stopped, get it off old yeast, it's not anecdotal its fact.
Yeast a the bottom is finished older larger cells.
Yeast that is is still in suspension is younger active yeast that is more capable of absorbing 'undesirables', cleaning up your beer.
If you are getting reliable, consistent final gravities for a certain beer, then crash about 1-1.5 deg sac above final, this will negate the need to prime.
This is the biggest difference between home brew and cask/commercial brewing.
BR
H

 

[Lee Brown]

Thanks, my man. Yeah. It has been same FG for few days so I took it off last night and racked almost the whole lot into keg. I only managed to get the beer down to 3.5c, as I wanted to package last night due to commitments tonight and weekend. I used some sugar for priming, though, as I am now going to leave it to condition at 22c for 2 weeks and then back in fridge to chill down for a week, before putting Co2 on for dispensing.

I did throughly purge remaining headspace. It tastes decent so far, a little green, but hoping a few weeks maturity will transform its character.

 

[Lee Brown]

So, it is 2.5 weeks into natural keg carbonation, at 22c, and there's barely a bubble. Is this because I need to chill to 1.5c for couple of days to get the C02 to absorb? Or should I force carb it and just treat this phase as a secondary conditioning phase?

 

[Drunkula]

How are you checking there are no bubbles if you're doing natural carbonation? Do you mean bubbles visibly rising in the beer or something?

I did quite a few sugar primings in the keg then realised it's super not worth it - let's look at the costs:

Carbonating 20 litres with sugar would cost about 6.5p
Carbonating 20 litres with co2 would cost about 15.3p
Carbonating with Wilko brewing sugar (£2.75/kg) 29.9p

The additional cost for the serving gas is 25p. Costs based on £18.99 for 6.35 kg and 2.1 vols of co2.

So you're saving 10p using sugar - but you're adding extra time and you're adding extra yeast so the first pint is going to be gunka crapola - is an extra pint worth 10p? Fekk yes.

I'm actually force carbonating a beer with sugar right this second. Yep, force carbonating. I've got a 2 litre pop bottle with 150g of sugar in it fermenting with the co2 piped to the beer. Is it worth it? For experimental value yes, and it's worked damned well, easily as good as set and forget.

Will I do it again? Hell no. If I'd run out of gas and couldn't get any for a while then yeah, and it's fun rocking the keg and hearing the gas bubble in just like a normal force carb, but it's mostly novelty because I had to know if it could be done.

Upshot, force carb if you can. It uses less gas than you think because of the residual co2 already in the beer, and you get an extra glug of booze out of it.

 

[Lee Brown]

Bubbles: I mean a carbed beer, basically. It's been 2.5 weeks priming and I just tried a sample (warm admittedly) and it's flat after 2.5 weeks.

I am thinking you are spot on. It's my second kegged beer and first I force carbed. This Belgain I wanted to mature longer so I thought I naturally carb it with priming sugar. Anyway now I've just set the PSI to 10 and gonna leave another week as it chills to 1.5c. Pray for me.