Acetolactate - Can you get rid of it (or almost) without finings?

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JaimeTheLimey

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Seems the only style I can't brew consistently is a big fat hoppy IPA. Anything else under the sun is not problem.
My IPA's are all fine during fermentation, fine at FG, fine at dry hopping, fine at kegging. About a week after kegging it just turns into a D-Bomb.
As careful as I am purging everything, there's got to be re-oxygenation of acetolactate that is going on and converting to diacetyl.

There are a million threads on combating diacetyl, but not so much on acetolactate. Anyone got any experience/input/tips for a guy that just wants a decent IPA? Is there a way to reduce the acetolactate production or residual in the finished beer?
 
Acetolactate will be present in the finished beer and can be tested for before racking. Take two samples of the beer, and heat one of them. The oxygenation happens faster at higher temperatures and so you should be able to tell a difference between the heated and unheated beer (a heated sample containing acetolactate will get buttery) if there is acetolactate present. If there is, don't rack, let your yeast keep working in there. Maybe rouse and warm up a few degrees.

The only solution I've found to work for diacetyl post-fermentation is to pitch another starter of yeast at high krausen to clean up the remaining diacetyl.

Also, what yeast are you using. British yeasts known for throwing diacetyl require lots of oxygen to work properly. Any hints of butter in my beers disappeared when I went to pure O2. If you're getting butter from a yeast that's not known for it, I would suspect bacterial infection. Remember- pedio and lacto can both throw diacetyl pretty strongly.
 
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