Top of the crops...

[NPi]

Excuse the misleading title, it always help to rise the eyebrow of the majority of members.

I recently stumbled across a informal study here, that suggests removing krausen can limit hop utilisation. Which isn't in its self surprising, however, it also suggests that in a test this was perseaved as preferable to not.

Other than cropping for yeast harvesting, removing krausen is not something I've come across before. Is this common practice in home brewing. It certainly seems to be in commercial brewing. Funnily enough the article also infers the Burton Union system as being used for this purpose.

Have I just been missing out on all the fun, not cropping my top?

See below the krausen that kicked this all off.

 

[NPi]

Seems like most let it sink so far..

 

[NPi]

Resounding case of letting it sink. Must be a Yank thing...

 

[Cestrian]

I think it depends on the type of yeast you are using. Certain types of yeast like wlp037 and k97 are such strong top fermenting yeasts, that if you scoop all the krausen off, it is back within a few hours. This is a much cleaner way to harvest yeast for the next batch, than letting it sink with the dead yeast and break material, hop debris etc. I use K97 quite a lot. Thing with this yeast is if you let it sink, it will take a long time for the beer to clear, as it remains quite fluffy on the bottom of the fv, whereas if you top crop, then it drops bright after a few days cold crash.

It’s horses for courses. If I am using wlp001 then I let it sink. Also I think a lot of people probably use fresh yeast every time.