Yeast skimming

[Kronos]

How many of you take off the yeast head during fermentation. Some books advise this and some don't.

I have not done this as yet but is it something I should consider?

 

[Slid]

How many of you take off the yeast head during fermentation. Some books advise this and some don't.

I have not done this as yet but is it something I should consider?

I re-use yeast from the trub regularly and understand that skimming is a better bet as you are selecting the more flocculant yeast cells. Have never skimmed as I generally leave the beer between weekends for time pressure reasons.

 

[Pheqit]

I consider this to be an advance technique so it`s something I`m always going to do but not got round to. Plus without knowing what I`m doing I hate to disturb the FV whilst fermenting so by the time I look in there it`s all sunk.
One day though! It`s definately on the to do list for some of the yeasts I prefer.

I used to read in books about regular skimming but for no other reason than to remove the krausen. Never understood why they would do that and seems that practice has pretty much disappeared.

 

[JapanBrew]

They're the fresher cells. Yeast turn cannibal and work on dead yeast. So when you collect from trub, which I do, you get a mix of dead and live cells. But top cropping is mostly living cells. You get a better batch to work with.

 

[Personal91]

They're the fresher cells. Yeast turn cannibal and work on dead yeast. So when you collect from trub, which I do, you get a mix of dead and live cells. But top cropping is mostly living cells. You get a better batch to work with.

Nasty lil buggers!