Serving Beer Directly From The Fermenter

A recent Brulosophy post motivated me to write something here about serving beer from a pressurized fermenter, as many of us do here at Seasons Of The Brew.

From Brulosophy.com:

While most brewers recognize the importance of not transferring fermented beer off of trub too early, extended contact time is also believed to increase the risk of off-flavor development. With the rapid rise in popularity of pressurized fermentation vessels, the idea of serving directly from the fermenter has become something many have considered, though it’s often avoided due to concerns related to trub contact time. Interestingly, tasters in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish a Kölsch that was in direct contact with trub for 4 weeks after fermentation from one that had minimal trub contact.

So they basically brewed a Kolsch-style then split it into 2 batches. One was transferred to a serving keg after fermentation while the other was left on the trub and served from the same vessel. At 4 weeks out, the two beers tasted identical.

It seems to me there are pros and cons to serving off the trub:

PROS

• Little to no risk of oxidation

• Just easier leaving it alone after pitching yeast

• Floating dip tubes make it an easy method

• Allows for pressurized fermentation and easy sampling

• Less cleanup

CONS

• Risk of yeast autolysis and off flavors at some point past 4 weeks

• Less volume of beer due to headspace needed for fermentation

• Can't move the keg around, gets cloudy very easily

For me, I generally brew 2.5g batches and ferment in a 3g keg. I consider the risk of oxidation to be more of a problem in the final product than possibly getting a yeasty off flavor. I would say I have not generally experienced this issue and most of my beers drop fairly clear. In the old days, we would transfer to a keg or bottle via a siphon and pretty much every beer we made was oxidized and tasted horrible. Nowadays it's not too complex to do a closed transfer into a purged keg but it's quite a bit more work and there is still a small risk of some O2 exposure.

For me, the less complicated the hobby is, the more I will likely enjoy it. So I plan to continue serving beer off my fermentation kegs. What are your thoughts?