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Commercial Brewing advice

MRMARTINSALES

Grandmaster Brewer
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Hi,

I have posed a similar question before in the past but wanted to re ignite it if i may.

I have been homebrewing for a few years now and in the future i want to be able to open a commercial brewery.

One thing i have been trying to do is maintain consisntency in my brew to ensure the same beer everytime.

Im struggling with one thing and that is that when my beer has completed fermentation (Using Safale 04) only afer a few days may i add, most commercial breweries would cold crash straight away to stop it at the desired ABV, however this does not allow for the yeast to clear up its byproducts (Diacetyl) as its basically killing the yeast.

Can anyone, perhaps someone who is a commercial brewer give me some advice on what i should do. and i suppose i should ask, does beersmith calculate exactly the amount of extracted sugar from grains to ensure that the yeast does not overshoot the desired ABV, thus meaning that i could leave another couple of days to clean up without risking the ABV going up?

I think that all makes sense. Any help would be appreciated.
 
MRMARTINSALES said:
Hi,

I have posed a similar question before in the past but wanted to re ignite it if i may.

I have been homebrewing for a few years now and in the future i want to be able to open a commercial brewery.

One thing i have been trying to do is maintain consisntency in my brew to ensure the same beer everytime.

Im struggling with one thing and that is that when my beer has completed fermentation (Using Safale 04) only afer a few days may i add, most commercial breweries would cold crash straight away to stop it at the desired ABV, however this does not allow for the yeast to clear up its byproducts (Diacetyl) as its basically killing the yeast.

Can anyone, perhaps someone who is a commercial brewer give me some advice on what i should do. and i suppose i should ask, does beersmith calculate exactly the amount of extracted sugar from grains to ensure that the yeast does not overshoot the desired ABV, thus meaning that i could leave another couple of days to clean up without risking the ABV going up?

I think that all makes sense. Any help would be appreciated.

Cold crashing doesn't kill yeast, it just puts it to sleep and if you do open your brewery let me know, I've been wanting to open my own brewery for a while but it's too expensive where I live because everything is overpriced in California
 
Thanks CK27 but if it's put to sleep or killed either way it's not able to clean up am I right?

 
MRMARTINSALES said:
Thanks CK27 but if it's put to sleep or killed either way it's not able to clean up am I right?

If it is a lager yeast it would probably be minimally active at cold crash temps ale yeast, I've had beers clean up in fridge so I'm guessing it might be minimally active
 
Greetings MRMARTINSALES - it has been my experience that the best and most effective way to insure good repeatability in your brews is accurate and precise fermentation temperature each and every time.  Regarding your concern about overshooting the target FG, if that happens, it's by slight chance.  Further, I agree with Ck27, cold crashing will not kill the yeast.  Instead it will go dormant and NOT clean up after itself as it should.

If you wish to stop the fermentation, you can stop it by adding potassium metabisulfite (sp?) (Campden Tablets).  However, doing so will again keep the yeast from cleaning up after itself.  Again, overshooting your targeted FG is slim and if it does happen its likely because the original calculations were off or your procedure has changed, i.e the malt grind changed, the mash pH changed or the mash temperature changed, just to name a few possibilities.

Hope this information helps.
 
MRMARTINSALES said:
One thing i have been trying to do is maintain consisntency in my brew to ensure the same beer everytime.

Im struggling with one thing and that is that when my beer has completed fermentation (Using Safale 04) only afer a few days may i add, most commercial breweries would cold crash straight away to stop it at the desired ABV, however this does not allow for the yeast to clear up its byproducts (Diacetyl) as its basically killing the yeast.

Consistently on target beer isn't the same as perfectly identical. At small scale, we have to leave a little bit of wiggle room. Consistency is maintained by using the same methods over and over. Once you have your processes, equipment and ingredients set the same way for each batch you'll find consistency, with acceptable variations. I find the key to consistent fermentation is where oxygenation, yeast pitching rate and starting temperature intersect.

To the point of your question, we don't cold crash right after fermentation. We don't ever stall the beer just because active fermentation has stopped because that leads to unstable beer after packaging. I find that ale yeasts need about another 3 to 6 days to smooth things out. So, temperature is maintained after activity slows down. Over those additional days, the beer drops another half to full point, cleans up diacetyl and generally matures the flavor. We'll crash a beer only after it passes VDK (diacetyl) testing.

The fermentability and baseline flavor development should be baked into the recipe and ingredients. You will find a good amount of difference in extraction and fermentability from base malts. My motto is to find the cheapest one I'm happy with and stick with it. Build flavor with specialty malt.

Good luck with fulfilling your dream. It's definitely a cool and challenging business. You just have to manage your calendar and money as well as you do with your yeast.

 
The cold crashing will not kill the yeast, it just make the yeast loss activity.
Normally after fermentation about 6-8 days, we need to take some wort sample for testing diacetyl until no obviously taste, then cooling down fermentation temperature about 2 degree within 24 hours.
And the yeast can recycle for use, normally it can not beyond 6 generations.
 
Hey, there! I have been looking for a perfect gift for my father who is a hardcore traveler and a Beer Drinker. I can guess that you guys can help me. Any help will be much appreciated.
 
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