Yeast Autolysis - Is it an overblown issue?

[puakz and phu]

ahhh=)

the current batch we're making means a dumping of 5kg of cherries into the existing 18.6l of fermenting wort. so that reduced the entire headspace to about 2.5 inches below the mouth of the better bottle carboy itself, and we used a blowoff pipe into a glass of pear vodka cos we kiasu. the krausen has been exploding out into the vodka since yesterday! so... there is no spoon... haha!!

[htkm]

Ah your making fruit beer. Just to be clear. You put 5kg of raw cheeries into the primary fermenter?

For fruit beer the fruit should be added at secondary. Why at secondary and not at primary? This is to reduce the risk of infection to the beer. Also if it's possiable take the skin out otherwise it could in part flavor to the finish fruit beer.

FYI: If you brewing fruit beer the base beer should be something simple. Example: Pale Ale or Wheat beer.

HT

ahhh=)

the current batch we're making means a dumping of 5kg of cherries into the existing 18.6l of fermenting wort. so that reduced the entire headspace to about 2.5 inches below the mouth of the better bottle carboy itself, and we used a blowoff pipe into a glass of pear vodka cos we kiasu. the krausen has been exploding out into the vodka since yesterday! so... there is no spoon... haha!!

[Hairy]

since we are at the topic of fruit beer... It's one of my favourite since I hooked one up at Brewerkz. I have tried to boil oranges in my primary and in the end the beer tastes, like what the homebrew club tasters had described, tangy. Decided to move away from that direction at the moment and focus on how to make beer properly first before I start playing around with ingredients. But fruit beer is definitely one of the stuff I want to try my hands on.

[puakz and phu]

haha no no!!!!

Firstly we cant put fruit in the boil; the cherries will, like other fruit gelatinize and become jam and badly cloud the beer. If we want to use fresh cherries there's a delicate process of pasteurising (which we dont mind, its for the fun, but 5kg of fresh cherries costs a bomb). And agree fully with the problem of wild yeast and bacteria if we don't pasteurize, noted!

Target is 2.2 abv for the base beer, which is more or less a wheatbeer, very light, and using a (belgian) wheat ale yeast so as to hopefully get the desired fruit and cherry-ish esters. in one week the attenuation phase completed, and we transferred to another carboy, in this secondary we placed 5kg of canned pitted cherries in heavy syrup, lightly smashed up in a sanitized blender. This was done five days ago...

The cherries will sit another 2 weeks and hopefully add about 2.3-2.7 abv to the whole brew (fermentations with multiple additions of complex yeast food is difficult to measure with a hydrometer.) After that the whole thing will be transferred out into another carboy again(3rd time), this time for clearing of the beer and lowering yeast count to minimise autolysing later on, while beiong dry hopped at the same time with light noble flowery saaz...

thanks to alemaster keat for advice which helped shaped the above...

realised that the cherries change the colour to something more like a deep amber/reddish hue, so i dont know what the SRM will be either.

i think for the oranges likewise they should not be boiled, due to the gelatinization issue.


My best noob guess for an ORANGEBIER would be a light base beer as HT said, Belgian wheat yeast for the fruit esters.

Hops: Centennial for FWH and bittering, Aromatic Cascade for end of boil, and maybe a noble hop (saaz)for a dry hopping to a nice finish.

Smashed pasteurised oranges introduced in the first secondary transfer(seeded or not? for cherries, +seeds means nutty aroma.) Orange peel/curacau in the second secondary transfer(keg possible also, like dry hopping).
When i said all the above i imagine the:

Initial refreshing, powerful Spice and citrus Cascade/bitter Spicy floral Centennial entrance which blends with orange peel bitterness;

Followed by a medium body but with well blended orange peel and orange esters plus fruit esters with lingering citrus hops ,

Lastly a smooth transit to a delicate and flowery exit from citrus fruit by Saaz blended with light pleasant orange peel (can i say light tannins?) **yUm=)** shall we zeng this idea to a plausible recipe with all you folks' experience?

For one, w.r.t. the thread on olive oil taking over oxygen requirements, i think that this may serve its purpose in the first transfer when the beer is racked and orange put in because i can imagine the osmotic shock plus low oxygen environment plus greatly lowered yeast count at that point in time. WORT AERATION: ALTERNATE METHODhttp://www.ibrew.com.sg/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=823

Any mash gurus wanna add detail to this?=)) should aim for a dry finish?(omg suddenly tastes like a CHinese New Year-isque beer.) My two cents for the mash would be just a bit of dark caramel malt/chocolate at mashout for a bit of melanoidins to stabilise the beer in the long run, and let a bit of the first runnings in before vorlaufing for proteins to settle out and make beer as clear as possible (hell knows what the oranges will do to the visibility of the beer/wort for our yeasty friends.)

[Hairy]

The fruit gelatinize issue wasn't as bad as it seems when i did it. I guess it doesn't matter to me whether the brew is cloudy or not. There was no jam like stuff or anything close. So the whole thing abt the brew becoming a 20L batch of jam is a little overblown. Granted,it may affect the clarity, which may or may not be a big deal depending on how you see it.

Well, I am glad someone actually tried a fruit brew. Would like to hear about its outcome though. Sure sounds good!

[Hairy]

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2-3.html

Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most canned kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.

Happen to see a discussion on this on another forum. 3 weeks a really a little too long for me. Anyone of u guys actually allowed the beer to sit in the primary for that long and skip the secondary totally?

[Hairy]

http://www.byo.com/component/resource/a ... -your-beer

This is an experiment conducted by various brewers to test the effects of delayed racking on the beer. Very surprising results really. If you guys are lazy to go thru the article, just skip to the conclusion. The most important part:

The results of this experiment are clear — leaving your beer on the primary yeast for a moderate amount of time (two to four weeks) does not ruin it. In our experiment, the flavor difference between the trial beers was very subtle and no brewer reported that the beer left on the yeast was marred by excessive off flavors.