"Ringwood" Ale Yeast; to filter or not to filter

[Woolsocks]

I've used "Ringwood" ale yeast (Wyeast 1187) for several beers of different styles. It flocs so well that I don't need to filter which is nice. Unlike most of my "regular" gravity beers, I find that unfiltered Ringwood beers tend to get better after 2-3 weeks of sitting in the serving vessel.

I'm wondering if the flavor improvement is due to the yeast settling out of the unfiltered beer or the yeast doing something to mature the beers' flavors.

If it's due to settling, I could accelerate my process with filtration; if it's due to yeast activity in the serving tank, I could prevent the beers from improving if I filter. What to do, what to do?

[v2comp]

why not try filtering a single kegs worth and see what happens?

[seattlefng]

My initial thought was maturation with yeast, which i'm still inclined to believe, with qualification.
After some consideration, it occurred to me that there may be a lot in play here. I personally find some beers, particularly some english styles, don't need high alcohol to age well, to a point.
What temps and time frames are you working with?
-josh

[Woolsocks]

seattlefng,

Typically a 4-5 day ferment at 20°C, 2 days diacetyl rest (also 20°C), crash cool to 2°C, hold 3-4 days, transfer to serving tank, adding finings to the serving tank, then storage at 4°C during serving.

The other thing that may be happening is that fermentation by-products are converting to other substances as the beer ages and that the yeast has nothing to do with it.

[J.M.Martin]

Try splitting the batch. Filter half and leave half alone. That way you have plenty of both prosses over a significant amount of time to decide what flavor profile works best.

Cheers take care

jamie