Delayed Racking Experiment

Just like there’s more than one way to skin a cat (or so I’m told), there’s more than one way to brew great beer. The September issue of Brew Your Own featured the first in a series of collaborative experiments with Basic Brewing Radio. This first experiment focused on the impact of leaving beer on the primary yeast for an extended period of time.

Diacetyl Molecular Structure

One of the twelve homebrewers that participated in this experiment was Abnormal Brewers club member, John Chubick. John brewed an American Pale Ale using Safale US-05 yeast. John found out about this experiment from Chris Colby during a recent Basic Brewing Radio podcast. John said that it was easy to participate in the experiment and enjoyed the chance to put “conventional wisdom” to the test.

The results of the experiment showed that leaving your beer on the primary yeast for a moderate amount of time does not ruin it. The beers in the trial showed subtle flavor differences but no brewer reported that the beer was marred by excessive off flavors. There were slight changes in character. Some actually preferred the beer that was left on the yeast.

I asked John if he would change how he brews beer based on the results of the experiment. He said,  “I don’t know that I’ll change what I do but I certainly won’t get overly anxious about having to rack beer off primary. I still try to rack off primary after the first week but I just don’t worry about it if something comes up and I can’t get to it for another week or more.”

John advised, “In addition to BYO magazine, I highly recommend the Basic Brewing Radio podcast. I know I’ve mentioned it numerous times in meetings but I’ve learned so much listening to the show. James Spencer covers a wide variety of brewing topics. He interviews many prominent people in the brewing community and shares recorded audio from some of the keynote speeches at homebrewing conferences.”

The next experiment being conducted by BYO and Basic Brewing Radio is: How does pitching rate affect beer character? For more details on this experiment, please see Chris Colby’s blog.