[Attik]

Hello people,

We are having a discussion whether the right thing was done or not and we wanted to know your opinion.

We have been fermenting an IPA in our conical fermentor for 4 days. It´s gone down from 1055 to 1006 already, understanding that fermentation is more or less finished. One of us decided to dump some yeast first and then add hops to dry hop. There was no krausen anymore.
We have several points of view as one says it's fine as there is plenty of yeast still inside and the purpose was so the hops dont sink inside the yeast at the bottom and to get a cleaner and clearer beer.
The other member said it was a bad decision as beer wont finish off fermenting correctly and will produce of flavours (green apple or vinegary) and that yeast will be on top of the hops as it is still floculating.

The beer will ferment a total of 10 days. 4 initial days + 6 days (dry hopped).

We would like to know your opinion around this decision.

Thank you!

Is the yeast dump going to affect in any way (good or bad) to the beer?

[HoosierBrew]

Did you verify that the beer was @ FG (identical hydrometer readings over successive days) ? If so, dry hopping away from most of the yeast is what I do - works well. But your friend is right in the sense that, if fermentation weren't totally finished, you could have taken away the yeasts' ability to clean up after themselves, ie., reducing unpleasant yeast compounds. I'm betting if it's @ 1.006 that you're done. Always good to verify first, then you're good to go.

[troybinso]

If you dropped the yeast out of the bottom of the conical that means it had flocculated and fallen down there. It does this when it is done fermenting. There is still a bunch of yeast in suspension after only 4 days of fermentation, so any last bit of cleaning up will still take place. The stuff at the bottom has basically fallen asleep.

[erockrph]

If you dropped the yeast out of the bottom of the conical that means it had flocculated and fallen down there. It does this when it is done fermenting. There is still a bunch of yeast in suspension after only 4 days of fermentation, so any last bit of cleaning up will still take place. The stuff at the bottom has basically fallen asleep.

Plus, if the yeast is out of suspension at the bottom of the fermentor, it can't contribute much to fermentation. It's not in contact with the bulk of the beer to ferment or break down byproducts.

[tesgüino]

If you dropped the yeast out of the bottom of the conical that means it had flocculated and fallen down there. It does this when it is done fermenting. There is still a bunch of yeast in suspension after only 4 days of fermentation, so any last bit of cleaning up will still take place. The stuff at the bottom has basically fallen asleep.

So, you're saying that transferring from a primary vessel to a secondary vessel before or just as fermentation has stopped is good practice because the yeast in suspension will do the job of cleaning up off flavors or finishing fermentation?

I don't think that just because yeast has flocculated means it's dormant.

[troybinso]

No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that if you are using a conical, the yeast at the very bottom of the cone is dormant. The OP said he had dumped some yeast, so I assumed that he didnt dump it all.

[brewinhard]

One thing to keep in mind too, that just because a yeast has reached its potential final gravity does not mean that it is necessarily done cleaning up after themselves (conditioning). Leaving the beer on the yeast 2-3 days after fermentation is usually a good idea to allow the bulk of the yeast to properly clean up any off-flavors produced during fermentation. I am not saying that the beer won't properly condition if the flocced out yeast was separated from the beer, but rather that it will probably happen faster in the presence of more yeast available to perform the processes.

[Attik]

Yep, I dumped some yeast, not even close to all. Our next debate is wether to cold crash or not, as apparently cold crashing makes the hops leave grassy flavours. Any opinions on that?

[troybinso]

You really need to cold crash it if you hope to keep the hop pellet floaties out of your finished beer. You only need to dry hop for a couple of days (or less) to extract the flavor you want, then get it as cold as possible. It usually takes a couple of days at cold temperatures for the hops and yeast to drop down to the bottom of the tank, but you don't risk extracting off flavors at cold temperatures. Well, I suppose if you left it in the tank with hops and yeast for months then it might be bad, but for a few weeks you should be fine. After the stuff has fallen, dump the yeast and hops out of the bottom until beer starts flowing, and then package it.

[HoosierBrew]

+1.  I'd take with a grain of salt that any specific dry hopping procedure will definitely give you grassy/vegetal character. I dry hop in the keg and leave the hops in, and don't notice any grassy character ever. I think hop character is pretty subjective, both in aromas/flavors perceived and in 'grassiness/vegetal' character.

[brewinhard]

Just as a quick data point for you....

I brewed a Double IPA a few weeks back and due to the use of of a lot of hops in the kettle, only ended up with about 4.75 gallons into the fermenter. Added 8 oz of dry hops for 3 days, cold crashed overnight and with a couple gentle swirls at two different points throughout the cold crash, I was able to get all 8 oz of pellet hops to drop to the bottom of the fermenter. I then kegged the 4.35 gallons of clear beer.

[erockrph]

Just as a quick data point for you....

I brewed a Double IPA a few weeks back and due to the use of of a lot of hops in the kettle, only ended up with about 4.75 gallons into the fermenter. Added 8 oz of dry hops for 3 days, cold crashed overnight and with a couple gentle swirls at two different points throughout the cold crash, I was able to get all 8 oz of pellet hops to drop to the bottom of the fermenter. I then kegged the 4.35 gallons of clear beer.

Interesting. I've never thought to swirl during cold-crashing. I always try to keep it as still as possible in fear of kicking up what I'm trying to drop out. But since the whole point of cold crashing is to get things to clump up so they drop out better, it makes perfect sense to do a gentle swirl. I'll be trying this out soon.

[brewinhard]

I usually don't have to, but with that much dry hopping going on, I wanted to be sure there were no floaters at packaging time. A very gentle swirl a few hours into the cold crash, and one the following morning about 8 hours prior to kegging seemed to drop everything out just enough.

And just an FYI, no yeast kicked up at all when I did this since there was already a nice layer of hop pellets covering the cake.