VDK Test anyone done this?

[Titan]

Was reading some stuff online, anyone do this and how important? Sorry new brewers this might blow the mind a little, it blew mine and have been doing this 5 or 6 years.

[Hairy]

I leave my beer in the FV to clean up and I do my testing by tasting the finished, carbonated product. So I guess yes, I do VDK testing?

[Titan]

Yep been doing the same here with no ill effects. Might be worth a trial though.

[Mark D Pirate]

If I'm doing a beer where diacetyl is a major flaw or can't be hidden behind hops then I do the easy version by heating a small sample in microwave,  usually use my hydrometer sample 

[Otto Von Blotto]

I haven't done it as yet other than tasting the beer when it's ready. Yet to detect any diacetyl in any of them so either it's being cleaned up or I can't detect what is present if anything.

[BlackSands]

I did a diacetyl test once.  A fairly simply test at the end of fermentation that relies on your nose to detect the characteristic 'butter' aroma.  It was clearly present.  I re-tested the following day and it was gone.  Never felt the need to do it again as it seemed that diacetyl was cleaned up pretty quickly -  in a day or so.

 

 

[Beerlust]

I don't have any sexually transmitted ailments or symptoms, so no test required here.

Good luck sorting yours out though Titan. 

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

10 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

no test required here.

I don’t what is scarier - the fact that Lusty thought that, or that my mind went straight to the same dark place as soon as I read the title!

[Beer Baron]

I used cream for my VDK. It went away in a week!!!

[Kegory]

Resurrecting this thread after an interesting discussion I had at the Merri Mashers meeting last night.

WARNING: look away now if you are offended by chemical names or discussion of common off-flavours in beers.

A VDK Test is also known as a Forced Diacetyl Test. Diacetyl is produced by yeast during fermentation and if the yeast aren't given enough time to clean it up at the end of fermentation it will remain as an off-flavour. VDK is a precursor chemical to diacetyl. (And before your imagination runs away with you, no, none of my beers so far have had any detectable levels of diacetyl. Noto Bene: I intend to keep it that way, except, perhaps, for my clone of Working Title Brewing's Take 5 Chocolate Caramel Peanut Butter Cup Double Milk Stout, which is still some distance in my brewing future. It has a powerful butterscotch aroma and I made need some level of diacetyl to reproduce that.)

There are plenty of blogs and articles about how to perform a VDK or Forced Diacetyl Test. Here are a couple: https://escarpmentlabs.com/blogs/resources/the-forced-diacetyl-test; https://spikebrewing.com/blogs/ask-a-pro/an-easy-diy-diacetyl-test. Note, the first one does not recommend using a microwave but the second one does.

My homebrew club friend recommended using hot water in the kitchen sink to heat the sample for 30 minutes. It is a very similar method to the one in this video: 

Of course there are other videos on the subject but this one is short and covers the process pretty well.

Hopefully somebody finds this interesting or useful.