Yeast Cake Changes

[bob downe]

Hello,

Up until my last brew, I had always used a seive like wire filter on my boiler outlet. The wort always looked quite clear going into the fermenting bucket. At the end of the fermentation, there was always a thick coherent slab of gunk in the bottom of the bucket.

The last brew, I have moved to a pipe with holes in for the hop filter as the seive filter used to block sometimes. I noticed that a lot more bits of protein etc. went into the fermenter. After fermentation, the yeast cake in the bottom of the bucket is 'crumbly' not a coherent slab as before.

I always keg my beer but have been considering bottling a few. My concern is that the yeast won't form a coherent layer in the bottles and may be crumbly like in the fermenter.

Is this normal. My suspicion is the 'crumbliness' is something to do woth more particulates going in from the boiler?

Any ideas.

Thanks.

[EoinMag]

Hello,

Up until my last brew, I had always used a seive like wire filter on my boiler outlet. The wort always looked quite clear going into the fermenting bucket. At the end of the fermentation, there was always a thick coherent slab of gunk in the bottom of the bucket.

The last brew, I have moved to a pipe with holes in for the hop filter as the seive filter used to block sometimes. I noticed that a lot more bits of protein etc. went into the fermenter. After fermentation, the yeast cake in the bottom of the bucket is 'crumbly' not a coherent slab as before.

I always keg my beer but have been considering bottling a few. My concern is that the yeast won't form a coherent layer in the bottles and may be crumbly like in the fermenter.

Is this normal. My suspicion is the 'crumbliness' is something to do woth more particulates going in from the boiler?

Any ideas.

Thanks.

I'd suspect you're using protofloc or whirlfloc, if they get through into the fermenter, the small sea weed pieces, the yeast tends to floc around the little pieces and you end up with a fluffy yeast. The slotted hop sieves tend to let a lot of those pieces through.

[bob downe]

Ah. Yes I do use Protofloc. That makes sense, perhaps the wire filter kept this out but the 'hole/slot' filter doesn't. The beer had started to drop clear in the fermenter so not a biggie but just wondered why it had happened.

thanyou.