Head Pressure and Yeast Autolysis

[Augusto Sotero]

Hi guys!

Just started fermenting in corny kegs for the advantages it brings it with it, but started getting worried about yeast autolysis.

I don’t ferment under pressure, just plug a blow off tube and lock the keg towards the end of fermentation.

Aiming to reduce steps, my plan is to either drink the beer from the same keg it has been fermenting or bottle the beer from there with a counter pressure filler. I have trimmed the liquid dip tube.

Point is: as the yeast cake is still in the vessel and the keg gets pressurized, should I fear yeast autolysis and off flavors ?

Any technical input or anedoctal evidence of that ?

Thanks guys, cheers

 

[mongoose33]

I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Yeast in commercial fermenters is under great pressure. Further, one approach to low oxygen brewing is to allow the beer to finish fermenting in the keg (with about 5 points of gravity to go). That puts the yeast remaining in the keg under that pressure, and I'm unaware of any evidence that this results in autolysis of a significant amount.

Further, hard to see how this is much different than what you get as bottle dregs when bottle conditioning. That layer is yeast; if it were a significant issue related to autolysis, would people still bottle-condition?

Brew on!

 

[Augusto Sotero]

I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Yeast in commercial fermenters is under great pressure. Further, one approach to low oxygen brewing is to allow the beer to finish fermenting in the keg (with about 5 points of gravity to go). That puts the yeast remaining in the keg under that pressure, and I'm unaware of any evidence that this results in autolysis of a significant amount.

Further, hard to see how this is much different than what you get as bottle dregs when bottle conditioning. That layer is yeast; if it were a significant issue related to autolysis, would people still bottle-condition?

Brew on!

Thanks for the input!

Thing is exactly that. I was worried because of the amount of yeast. In this method of LODO brewing, people normally transfer the beer still with 5 SG point left to ferment in another keg thus leaving behind the majority of the slury.... same with the bottles, little yeast (proportionally) in comparison with the full yeast cake from the entire fermentation still in the keg....

That’s why I started to worry, basically because of the quantity.

 

[McKnuckle]

I have just started fermenting and serving from the same keg using a top-draw system. There are two available, Clear Beer Draught System and this product from William's Brewing.

I Googled this practice and didn't find many people talking about it, but I did find one person who posted to Brulosophy that he had more than 20 batches done this way, to no ill effect. I figure it's well worth a try. It's certainly super easy to do and has the benefit of zero O2 exposure post-fermentation.

So far I have 3 batches in my experiment; one is ready to drink and the others are still conditioning. So far so good.