Why does autolysis not occur in secondary like it can happen if you leave beer in primary for too long? I know there is less yeast remaining in secondary, but there is still yeast there and often for much longer than primary.
What am i missing?
I believe that it is due to the amount (larger in prim vs. smaller in sec) of the yeast cake as well as the activity of that yeast cake.
Autolysis can take some time to occur. The lower the aging temp the longer it will take. I make my Oktoberfest in March and have had no issues of autolysis in lagering.
My guess is that it has to do more with the larger amount of yeast in the trub at the bottom of the secondary, combined with the effects of the other components of that trub (break material, hop residue, etc). After racking to the secondary, what drops out after that is mostly just yeast (unless you add other things to the secondary, like dry hops). That having been said, I’ve done some primaries out to 3+ weeks and have yet to experience the dreaded autolysis.
IMO autolysis is extremely rare in the homebrewing realm. Even in the primary.
I left a mead in the primary (5g) for over a year with no defects I can tell.
And a basic ale for 4 months with no issues.
I rarely move beer out of the primary prior to a month. I haven’t had a problem with autolysis.
The longest I’ve left a beer in the primary was 6 months and it turned out fine though the hop flavor had diminished quite a bit, it was an IPA.
I suspect that it’s a bigger issue with commercial brewers due to the weight of a large volume of beer exerting pressure on the yeast after it has dropped. They’ve solved the problem with conical fermenters where they can remove most of the yeast prior to conditioning the beer.
Thanks, you all basically said what i was thinking. I too keep a lot of beers in primary for about 4 weeks and have never had autolysis occur. I always remove after four weeks due to fear of autolysis.
I quit using secondaries because autolysis is so rare in home brewing. I will use a secondary if I’m racking on to something like fruit, spices, etc.
Or if I need to get at that yeast cake for the next beer I’m brewing.
I think I read somewhere that it can take up to 18 months for autolysis to make a noticible difference. Could be mistaken though.
I’ll go out on a limb here and say ales are effectively immune to autolysis. While there may be advantages to moving your brew to a secondary vessel, preventing autolysis really isn’t one of them if you are kegging/bottling within 2 months. Yeast are hardy souls and don’t just finish, die and start to rot. If they were that delicate I doubt beer would even exist. It’s all the other crud in your trub that is the likely culprit of off flavors if left in primary too long. If you are a brewer of strong, flavorful ales I challenge you to taste the difference between a beer that was left on the primary for 5 weeks vs one that was transferred in a week and left in a secondary for 4. Try it and I bet you’ll be like me and save yourself the time of “secondary fermentation” and leave the yeast alone as they go about the task of making our favorite beverage!!!
I mostly rack to secondary because I just seem to suck at racking from one container to another without bringing over too much yeast. If i’m racking to my secondary, i have that buffer against my shitty transfers. Also, i feel like they yeast drops much faster once racked to the secondary.
Keep in mind “dropping faster” might not be such a great thing. You are essentially interrupting the yeast mid-ferment and possibly reducing the attenuation. Have you tried the ported better bottles or bucket fermenters with a valve at the bottom? I LOVE mine and haven’t started a syphon in years. It really makes racking without stirring up anything a snap…
Keep in mind “dropping faster” might not be such a great thing. You are essentially interrupting the yeast mid-ferment and possibly reducing the attenuation. Have you tried the ported better bottles or bucket fermenters with a valve at the bottom? I LOVE mine and haven’t started a syphon in years. It really makes racking without stirring up anything a snap…[/quote]
I usually let my beers sit in primary for three to four weeks so i doubt i’m interupting any primary fermentation.
[quote=“Nighthawk”]IMO autolysis is extremely rare in the homebrewing realm. Even in the primary.
I left a mead in the primary (5g) for over a year with no defects I can tell.
And a basic ale for 4 months with no issues.[/quote]
A home brew shop owner in CA that was home brewer and mead maker of the year in the early days of the national competition reccommends leaving mead in the primary for a year.
[quote=“mppatriots”]
I usually let my beers sit in primary for three to four weeks so i doubt i’m interupting any primary fermentation.[/quote]
I agree after that long. So you’re not really doing a “secondary”, just trying to settle things down after a messy transfer right? For that goal a day or two after transfer should be all you need…
