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Author Topic: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest  (Read 6813 times)

Offline majorvices

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #30 on: November 11, 2015, 02:06:00 pm »
I know that there are many folks who do use that method successfully, I am trying to give him a simple method that works for a great majority of us lagering brewing folks here on the forum. I have been brewing lagers for 15 years and have never gotten isoamyl acetate by pitching cold. I also brew commercial lagers that are distributed across two states using this method (though, at a much larger scale) and it is a tried an true method that works.

Mark, I'd love to have your deep understanding of microbiology and chemistry and I hope to hire a guy someday who has that knowledge but for homebrewers the method I have described works.

It's just that telling a home brewer that he/she needs to pitch 2 vials of yeast into 4 liters of wort for a 5-gallon batch is extreme overkill.  That is a 5-to-1 step, which is higher than I use in an aseptic setting when growing yeast from a slant.  There is a lot more that can go wrong when working with a culture that small than working with one or two cultures that started out as 100B cells.  The difference between pitching one vial and pitching two vials is 90 minutes of propagation time at room temperature, that is, as long as there is enough carbon, volume, and dissolved O2 to support the growth.


The number one mistake that home brewers make when propagating Saccharomyces pastorianus (a.k.a. lager yeast) is propagating at lager fermentation temperature.  Low temperatures suppress metabolism, and anything that suppresses metabolism suppresses biomass growth.  All starters should be propagated at room temperature.

For those who want to understand more about yeast growth, please take a minute to read the following entry from my blog: www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/saccharomyces/yeast-cultures-are-nuclear-weapons

But, wouldn't the amount of vial he or she needs to be pitched into a starter be dependent on the viability of the yeast in the vials? As a commercial brewer I am lucky enough to know that my pitch when I receive it overnighted from WYEAST is near 100% viable. With vials and smack packs there is now way to tell exactly how viable the yeast is in even a 4-6 week old pitch of yeast.

Online ynotbrusum

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #31 on: November 11, 2015, 02:28:49 pm »
shaken like I needed bail from a brother-in-law who owed me money

ROTFL!  May I use that one?

Please do - visualization in this instance provided extra vigor!
Hodge Garage Brewing: "Brew with a glad heart!"

Offline wmsouthworth

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #32 on: November 12, 2015, 10:49:02 pm »
Just want to thanks the folks who responded to my questions. After reading all the responses I think I will stick with Ales for a while before trying another lager. I'm trying to keep life simple. I'm thinking about using a clean tasting ale yeast (like 1056) and making ales with hops typically used in lager, and the doing extended cold conditioning in the bottle. Just play around with it and see what happens.

RPIScotty

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #33 on: November 13, 2015, 04:37:52 am »
I know that there are many folks who do use that method successfully, I am trying to give him a simple method that works for a great majority of us lagering brewing folks here on the forum. I have been brewing lagers for 15 years and have never gotten isoamyl acetate by pitching cold. I also brew commercial lagers that are distributed across two states using this method (though, at a much larger scale) and it is a tried an true method that works.

Mark, I'd love to have your deep understanding of microbiology and chemistry and I hope to hire a guy someday who has that knowledge but for homebrewers the method I have described works.

It's just that telling a home brewer that he/she needs to pitch 2 vials of yeast into 4 liters of wort for a 5-gallon batch is extreme overkill.  That is a 5-to-1 step, which is higher than I use in an aseptic setting when growing yeast from a slant.  There is a lot more that can go wrong when working with a culture that small than working with one or two cultures that started out as 100B cells.  The difference between pitching one vial and pitching two vials is 90 minutes of propagation time at room temperature, that is, as long as there is enough carbon, volume, and dissolved O2 to support the growth.


The number one mistake that home brewers make when propagating Saccharomyces pastorianus (a.k.a. lager yeast) is propagating at lager fermentation temperature.  Low temperatures suppress metabolism, and anything that suppresses metabolism suppresses biomass growth.  All starters should be propagated at room temperature.

For those who want to understand more about yeast growth, please take a minute to read the following entry from my blog: www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/saccharomyces/yeast-cultures-are-nuclear-weapons

But, wouldn't the amount of vial he or she needs to be pitched into a starter be dependent on the viability of the yeast in the vials? As a commercial brewer I am lucky enough to know that my pitch when I receive it overnighted from WYEAST is near 100% viable. With vials and smack packs there is now way to tell exactly how viable the yeast is in even a 4-6 week old pitch of yeast.

The amount grown prior to pitching, if I have been following on with what Mark has been saying in the last few months, would be dependent on the starter medium size. The initial amount of cells would dictate the amount of time spent replicating to get there.

Offline majorvices

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #34 on: November 13, 2015, 05:16:21 am »
Just want to thanks the folks who responded to my questions. After reading all the responses I think I will stick with Ales for a while before trying another lager. I'm trying to keep life simple. I'm thinking about using a clean tasting ale yeast (like 1056) and making ales with hops typically used in lager, and the doing extended cold conditioning in the bottle. Just play around with it and see what happens.

It's too bad. Because this is exactly what happens when we try to make things too complicated. I have been brewing lagers in the manner I have stated above for over 15 years with fantastic results, and so have many others who have used similar methods on this forum. If you have temp control and the ability to make a decent size starter you can make fantastic lagers at home. It's simple, really. I feel bad that we tried to show you the forest but seems like the trees got in the way. Regardless, if you change your mind, try the method I proposed. It's simple and it works.

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #35 on: November 13, 2015, 05:16:37 am »
I know that there are many folks who do use that method successfully, I am trying to give him a simple method that works for a great majority of us lagering brewing folks here on the forum. I have been brewing lagers for 15 years and have never gotten isoamyl acetate by pitching cold. I also brew commercial lagers that are distributed across two states using this method (though, at a much larger scale) and it is a tried an true method that works.

Mark, I'd love to have your deep understanding of microbiology and chemistry and I hope to hire a guy someday who has that knowledge but for homebrewers the method I have described works.

It's just that telling a home brewer that he/she needs to pitch 2 vials of yeast into 4 liters of wort for a 5-gallon batch is extreme overkill.  That is a 5-to-1 step, which is higher than I use in an aseptic setting when growing yeast from a slant.  There is a lot more that can go wrong when working with a culture that small than working with one or two cultures that started out as 100B cells.  The difference between pitching one vial and pitching two vials is 90 minutes of propagation time at room temperature, that is, as long as there is enough carbon, volume, and dissolved O2 to support the growth.


The number one mistake that home brewers make when propagating Saccharomyces pastorianus (a.k.a. lager yeast) is propagating at lager fermentation temperature.  Low temperatures suppress metabolism, and anything that suppresses metabolism suppresses biomass growth.  All starters should be propagated at room temperature.

For those who want to understand more about yeast growth, please take a minute to read the following entry from my blog: www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/saccharomyces/yeast-cultures-are-nuclear-weapons

But, wouldn't the amount of vial he or she needs to be pitched into a starter be dependent on the viability of the yeast in the vials? As a commercial brewer I am lucky enough to know that my pitch when I receive it overnighted from WYEAST is near 100% viable. With vials and smack packs there is now way to tell exactly how viable the yeast is in even a 4-6 week old pitch of yeast.

The amount grown prior to pitching, if I have been following on with what Mark has been saying in the last few months, would be dependent on the starter medium size. The initial amount of cells would dictate the amount of time spent replicating to get there.
Yup. 50% viability would mean an extra ~90 minutes. Though I think there may be some other complexities at play here. In other words, I don't think they go from awesome to dead with a flip of a switch.

Offline narcout

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #36 on: November 13, 2015, 10:30:16 am »
Just want to thanks the folks who responded to my questions. After reading all the responses I think I will stick with Ales for a while before trying another lager. I'm trying to keep life simple. I'm thinking about using a clean tasting ale yeast (like 1056) and making ales with hops typically used in lager, and the doing extended cold conditioning in the bottle. Just play around with it and see what happens.

I hope you will post an update once the beer is packaged and ready to drink. 

I'm curious to hear whether you even end up with any off flavors.
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Offline wmsouthworth

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #37 on: November 13, 2015, 12:21:24 pm »
Just want to thanks the folks who responded to my questions. After reading all the responses I think I will stick with Ales for a while before trying another lager. I'm trying to keep life simple. I'm thinking about using a clean tasting ale yeast (like 1056) and making ales with hops typically used in lager, and the doing extended cold conditioning in the bottle. Just play around with it and see what happens.

I hope you will post an update once the beer is packaged and ready to drink. 

I'm curious to hear whether you even end up with any off flavors.

At the end of lagering I will give it a taste with my wife ( she has an excellent palate) and decide if it's worth bottling and will report back. I will be purchasing a stir plate before my next attempt, and shooting for a higher cell count, and pitching colder, and.......... :)

Online ynotbrusum

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #38 on: November 15, 2015, 05:30:03 pm »
I bet it will be good.  The thing about pitching yeast, though, is the vitality of the yeast, as far as I understand it.  The number of cells is a factor, because the more cells, the more likely you have significant numbers of vital cells.  However, the greater the number of very healthy cells, the better the pitch.
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Offline wmsouthworth

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #39 on: December 27, 2015, 07:40:42 pm »
I bet it will be good.  The thing about pitching yeast, though, is the vitality of the yeast, as far as I understand it.  The number of cells is a factor, because the more cells, the more likely you have significant numbers of vital cells.  However, the greater the number of very healthy cells, the better the pitch.

Well The banana ester or whatever is was is gone. I did let it come back to fermentation temp for a few days before tasting it. So your hunch was right, thankfully. Time to bottle. :D

narvin

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Re: Banana ester in my lager after diacetyl rest
« Reply #40 on: December 27, 2015, 08:35:04 pm »
Chilling lagers after pitching is going to be an extremely hard to replicate procedure, especially across different homebrew systems.  Your batch size, fermenter size/shape, and chilling power will all affect the cooling rate.  That doesn't even take into account that fermentation will progress at different rates because of things like pitching rate, yeast health, and aeration.

I'm sure it can be done, but it's not easy or foolproof.  So why recommend it to a new lager brewer?