Pasteurising?

ChilliMayne

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Is it fair to say i have pasteurised my brew simply because I have boiled the wort and cooled it down quickly with an Immersion chiller? (ie excessive heat and rapid cooling).
Or is pasteurising a process to rid a liquid of yeast and so it comes after fermenting?
 
If I understand these things correctly, I think it's fair to say you've sterilised your wort by boiling it. Of course, once you add yeast that's no longer the case.

Pasteurisation is the process of heating something to the point where enough micro-organisms are killed to result in an extended shelf-life, which doesn't necessarily mean boiling it (milk I think is pasteurised at about 70c). I think I've read elsewhere that it would be enough to kill all the potential bugs in beer just by heating your wort up to about 90c - the act of boiling is more to do with releasing hop bitterness and hitting a target gravity.

Removing the yeast from beer I think falls into the category of filtration.
 
So just before I bottle my brew I could heat it to 70C for 20mins or so , allow to cool and then bottle?
Has anybody else tried to pasteurise?
Does it take from the flavour?
 
ChilliMayne said:
So just before I bottle my brew I could heat it to 70C for 20mins or so , allow to cool and then bottle?
Has anybody else tried to pasteurise?
Does it take from the flavour?

Why are you wanting to kill off the yeast? You need them for bottle conditioning. If you are worried about contaminants in the finished beer, remember, to bottle condition after pasteurization, you would have to add fresh yeast with the prime. This creates the possibility of introducing further contaminants. Besides, yeast is your friend. It will continue to work in the beer after conditioning, and that's a good thing. Some big breweries may pasteurize their beer, but that is for insuring long and stable shelf life for a packaged product that is shipped great distances and handled in unpredictable ways. They also force carbonate, eliminating the need for yeast in the bottle. We are home brewers, and on this level, if you sanitize well during the brewing/fermenting/bottling/storage process, then your packaged product will be fine.

You ask if it will effect the flavor, and without actually trying it , I would assume that it could, as heat effects the hop oils in solution, and aromatics would be driven off. Also as previously stated, the yeast is not done at bottling time. It continues to work on the beer for some time after. So after all you have done to perfect a recipe to get a beer that tastes like you want, trust your process, and trust the yeast to do its job.
 
Nice one ChessKing!
Ill continue to keep the faith!
Brewers yeast I believe contains quite alot of vitamin B too! ;)
 

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