Totally Confused!

[tsewong73]

Alright. I'm having trouble with filtering and it's already cost me dearly in lost batches. I have a plate and frame filter and I've been using HS-2000 sheets. Up until a week or so ago, filtrations have been going fine. I was using Irish Ale yeast from Wyeast. However, I started having problems filtering our brown ale and ended up having to filter it twice to make it bright. We're a brand new brewery and we're only brewing two beers right now. The brown ale was the only one giving me trouble. So, I switched to British Ale II yeast from Wyeast, which is a high-flocc yeast. Problems actually got worse and now I'm having the same trouble with our amber ale. I filtered our amber ale recently, thinking it ran clear, but I ended up having to sewer the batch because about a week after filtration, it started to taste like buttered popcorn. After dumping, I discovered a thin layer of dead yeast on the bottom of the bright tank.

Obviously, I'm having a problem with autolyzed yeast and I'm making changes to our post-fermentation procedure for chilling the beer. I've also contacted a yeast supplier for some advice which I'm going to follow. So, I think that part of the problem is solved.

The more immediate problem is the beer I have to filter right now. I know that if I don't filter that dead yeast out soon, I'm going to lose another batch. However, half-way through the second filtration of this amber ale, the beer started to run cloudy again and eventually there wasn't any difference between the beer going into the filter and what was coming out of the filter. I managed to score some HS-1600 filter sheets from a local brewpub for this filtration, but it's not helping. I know I'm filtering correctly because nothing has changed in the procedure from before and I've been running our transfers pretty slowly.

Shouldn't I be able to filter out that autolyzed yeast without so much trouble? Could the cloudiness be from something else? I'm not detecting any kind of infection or off flavors right now, and I'm sure I would considering how cloudy this is. I'm pretty sure it's not a protein or chill haze because of what happened to that batch that I dumped and finding the dead yeast. I don't think there is anything wrong with the filter itself, but I'm going to inspect all the plates more closely tomorrow. Is there anything I'm overlooking?

I need some real help, real soon.

[Jephro]

A few Questions?

I filtered our amber ale recently, thinking it ran clear, but I ended up having to sewer the batch because about a week after filtration, it started to taste like buttered popcorn. After dumping, I discovered a thin layer of dead yeast on the bottom of the bright tank. .

My first thought is that you are not letting your beers finish fermenting (ie crashing too soon), and possibly not crashing long enough.

"Buttered Popcorn" = Diacetyl
Are you doing a Diacetyl Rest? Even if you do not taste it in the FV the precursors can be there which will cause it to show up later in the BBT.

A thin layer of yeast is normal in BBT's, as long as it does not smell meaty, it's probably not autolyzed yeast.

What is your fermenting regime?
What temp? how long?

D rest? When? What temp? How long?

[GOOSE]

It sounds like you are getting bypass through the filter.
Filter sheets are not absolute, you could get and absolute cartride filter and see if it filters out the haze.
I've been in your shoes....not fun.

Hang in there..its always the simplest answer!

Cheers
GOOSE

[tsewong73]

Thanks for the responses.
To answer Jephro's questions: I've been fermenting at 68 degrees down to about 3 or 3.5 degrees balling. I believe the fermentation has been complete. If there is any bubbling in the airlock bucket, it's one bubble every few minutes. I've been crash cooling to 35 degrees and that usually takes 12 hours or so. I don't believe I've been doing a proper diacetyl rest, which is one of the things I talked about with the yeast guys. I allow the crash cooling to go on for two days. I pull yeast at the end of the first day. After the second day, I rack off the racking arm - not the bottom of the cone. I think you're probably right about the diacetyl precursors in that bad batch. There have been thin layers of yeast at the bottom of bright tanks before, but that time the yeast was that dark brown color and kind of gritty-looking which led me to believe that it was a problem with the yeast and filtering. It may be an entirely different problem with diacetyl.

That fermentation procedure has been the regimen since we started brewing back in December and problems have only begun to arise in the last few weeks. The only thing that has really changed has been the yeast strain which caused me to think that's where the problem is. However, since to talking to a few other people, I believe the problem is with the filter itself. I think Goose might be right because the more I think about that filter, I think there maybe a by-pass occurring somewhere. Like I said, I'm going to take a close look at the plates tomorrow morning and see if there's some kind of blockage that's forcing the beer to take a short-cut through the filter.

Goose, you're also right about the simplest answer. I'm probably going to find the simplest and stupidest damn thing wrong.

And then I'm going to kill myself.

[Jephro]

Goose, you're also right about the simplest answer. I'm probably going to find the simplest and stupidest damn thing wrong.

And then I'm going to kill myself.

Once upon a time I started at a new brewery and spent 3 weeks banging my head against walls trying to figure out why my filtration's were taking sooo friggin long....
i had been putting the pads in backwards
After getting over the initial shock of being a complete numskull, i was very relieved.

[tsewong73]

I can appreciate that. I've done that a few times at my previous brewing job. This time, I'm sure the pads are right. However, I'm not sure about the plastic plates. I'm going to see if I got those things turned around, upside down or inside out.

[liammckenna]

The 'buttered popcorn' reference. The layer of 'yeast' in the bright tank reference.

Infection springs to mind. Unless you do microbial evaluation (plating/incubation/culturing)(not just direct microscopic evaluation) at various stages, difficult to comment on your problem.

Are you pitching new yeast every time? Are you aerating with oxygen or air?

A couple of dozen other questions and comments spring to mind.

One of which is that, in an ideal world, your filter system should be capable of dealing with whatever you throw at it. I'm not suggesting that your filter should be the 'catch all' for all of your problems/issues, however, if 'the problem' is not presenting 'flavour' issues (yet), your filter (assuming a 'bright' presentation) can save your butt sometimes.

One thing I would suggest as opposed to a diacetyl rest when you're brewing ales is a minimum of 24 hours with the same gravity reading (+/- 0.1oPlato) prior to crashing the tank. More than that is a matter of taste. For ales it is a baseline minimum for me. Any attempt to have any simple sugars available post primary for me (other than very strong beers and/or pasteurized beers and/or bottle conditioned beers) has ended in disaster.

Pax.

Liam

[tsewong73]

I know what you mean about the "dozen other questions," Liam. And I think you're right that the plate/frame filter should be able to clear out autolyzed yeast or even chill haze. It has in past experiences.

I think what has happened here is a combination of problems. Number one, I think I definitely have an autolysis problem and I'm making some changes to correct it. Liam, your suggestion about leaving the beer alone for 24 hours at it's lowest gravity reading makes sense to me and I'll work that in and see what happens. I was trying to stop fermentation to retain some of the sweetness, but...well...that's not really working out, is it?

Number two, there was definitely a problem with the filter. After further thought and consulting some other folks (thanks Guy and Terry), I figured out that I may have been cranking the filter too tightly and compressing the filter pads enough to choke off the flow of beer. This resulted, I think, in the beer by-passing many of the filter sheets and not doing a decent job. The rubber gaskets are pretty worn out and I was overcompensating by cranking the hell out of it. I'm also kind of a big, dumb man who doesn't know his own strength like Lenny from "Of Mice and Men," or Mongo in "Blazing Saddles." I'm going to replace those gaskets and try taking it easy on cranking the filter closed and maybe I'll get an easier, more even flow through the filter.

Of course maybe I should just close the brewery, find a friend named George and go start a rabbit farm somewhere.

And I'll tend the rabbits.

Thanks for all the help, guys.

[monkeybrewer]

bad pads

one thought...the HS-2000 pads were mentioned not to long ago about being mislabeled by a number of forumites. According to the forums some HS-200 pads (probably pharm. use) were labeled as HS-2000 (suitable for yeast and protein filtration for bright beer). It might be that your using filter pads engineered to make you insane. If you have the option, try another lot of the same pads either from the same distributor or a local brewer friend. Hopefully its a misnomer problem. Good luck
Cheers

[tsewong73]

No, it's not that, Monkeybrewer. That would be too easy. I bought some HS-1600 from Terry at the Bullfrog Brewery and they didn't do any better for filtration than the HS-2000.

[GOOSE]

I sold filter sheets for a while and it isn't too hard to blow one of them out if you go nuts with the pre-filter hot water sani stage. Backflushing also pushes out some of the filter media...

[lhall]

What we do when we use our sheet filter, is sanitize with oxine, cool water. Then push that out with the beer and start the filter. Our pump won't go much higher than 30 psi so that's as high as the differential ever gets. We use Scott pads, around 7 microns I think.

Mike, I think it's not a good idea to try to stop fermentation that way to try to get residual sweetness. Better idea is to tweak your recipes and mash temps, or switch to a less attenuating yeast.

[tsewong73]

Yeah, I won't be doing that anymore, Linus, and I am switching to a less attenuating yeast.

After much discussion and reflection, I'm going to allow fermentation to go on for a few more days - at least one day after the gravity readings stop falling. Then bring temperature down to 55 degrees for one day. I'll pull yeast, then drop temperature to 35 degrees and let it sit for about two days. Then I'll filter and hopefully everything will be happiness. This is all based on advice from the yeast guys at Brewing-Science Institute (who are shipping me a fresh culture of British Ale III), other brewers and some of my own experiences.

The problem with the filter is still a puzzler, though. I've been sanitizing with hot water, running cool water, then pushing through with beer. Not at high pressures either. This worked fine and dandy for the first five or six transfers out of the fermenters. Then, all of a sudden things have gone wrong in the past two weeks, roughly the last three transfers. The only thing really different in the last three transfers is that switch from Irish Ale yeast to British Ale II.

[Moonlight]

Buttered popcorn and autolysis and filter leakage could all be somewhat related. The diacetyl flavor most commonly comes from either unhappy yeast or lactic acid bacteria. Unhealthy yeast is more prone to autolysis, and autolysed yeast is a huge contributor of the nutrients that lactic acid bacteria need to grow. Plus, the unhealthy yeast won't "finish their meal" and will leave crumbs for the bacteria to feed on. Lactic bugs are much smaller than yeast and may either slip through most filtrations, or at least may cause some pads to blind more quickly. Autloysed yeast is yeast that has a ruptured cell wall and all the "guts" and stuff have been thrown loose into the beer. Filtration that would normally remove whole yeast cells is less likely to remove the smaller shredded bits of yeast.

[tsewong73]

Happy days are here again!

Wow. I'm so happy to catch a break on this problem I think I might cry.

I'm running a transfer right now of an amber ale I was having trouble with and it's been running clearly out of the filter since the start. So, the problem with the filter has been solved. Most importantly, I think, is that I've eased up on the tightness of the filter press. No more Magilla Gorilla on the crank. Also, I started the transfer with a painfully slow flow of beer, then picked up pressure as it moved through. Right now, it's running slowly, but that's fine with me because the beer is clear, godammit.

Also, I've changed the procedure with the beer that is finishing in the fermenter now. I cooled to 55 degrees, pulled off the yeast after 24 hours, then crashed it to 35. I've been dumping yeast from it every few hours. The beer is already looking much more clear and I'm anticipating a successful filtration tomorrow morning.

Thank you all so much for the help and advice - both on and off the thread here. I'll keep posting on the progress.

Cheers!