I am looking for suggestions, hints, tips, tricks to go from brew day to glass as quickly as is possible while still making great beer. Obviously small beer will help but what else? Any methods you incorporate to streamline the process?
Gravity
Pitching rate
Fermentation temps
Yeast strain
IBU content
Color
Water chemistry
Wort oxygen content
It’s all on the table…have a few ideas already, but I don’t know everything.
Cheers!
The main thing to do to be sure youve got beer ready is to keep brewing. Get a schedule going. I like to start the year off with several big beers that I can age untill the fall and winter times. Then in February I’ll brew some smaller beers like pale ales, saisons, cream ales, etc… Things that will be ready for spring and summer. Then I brew those all the way through summer when I start making things like porters, stouts, etc…
I would recommend yeast PITCHING RATE (not necessarily the strain), and temp control. Also, kegging and quick-force-carbing. I turned around a steam beer from grain to glass in 13 days with a lager yeast (WY2206)fermented @ low ale temps (60*), which turned out great. I probably could have gone even quicker with a ord. bitter or other style that is more estery.
Using Mr Malty pitching rate calculator, basically up the yeast by a factor of 1.2, since you don’t want to heavily over pitch. If it recommends 2 billion cells, pitch 2.4 billion cells. Also, the morning of your brewday, pitch your yeast into a 1000ml starter of 1.030ish gravity wort…not to grow more yeast, but to get the current pitch of yeast active.
After 2-3 days of active fermentation at your desired temp, ratchet it up by 3-5 degrees. Potentially do that once more after another 2 days, depending on the style. This will clean up diacetyl and other unwanted compounds (and do it quickly!)
With this one, I crash cooled it for 2 more days, gelled it, racked to keg, quick force-carb, and had brilliant, clear, highly-rated-amongst-the-masses beer 13 days after it was brewed. FWIW its one of my favorite beers that I’ve brewed in just under 50 batches.
I do about the same as Pietro does, except I don’t use gelatin. I think IBU, color, and water affect other things, but not the turn around of a beer. It really comes down to your fermentation:
Pitch Rate
Temp Control ( which really slows it down, but gives better flavor)
Oxygen
Yeast Health
The only yeast strain that I have noticed that is very fast is WLP007. It ferments fast, and drops out fast. :cheers:
I flipped an APA from grain to glass in 15 days recently, I started my ferment at 60° then after 4 days bumped it to 70° for 6 days. I was rushing it for a friends party but ended up not taking it, at three weeks out it was pretty green and bitter tasting but just a week later it really started to smooth out, now at 6 weeks it’s fantastic. In hindsight I should have brewed something less hoppy like a bitter or wheat beer, it probably would have been more presentable.
+1 to this, hop-forward (esp American Hoppy beers) are not easy to turn around quick.
I did an Innkeeper in 9 days. I fermented it in the upper 70’s which produced a refreshing, fruity brew. On day 7, I force carbed and drank on day 9.
Thanks for the solid suggestions everyone.
Pietro, thanks for the pitching rate increase percentage. I will calculate the starter size and compare it to what I normally pitch. Just might have to try it.
Beerginer, you read my mind with 007.
The quickest that we have ever kegged a beer was four days. It was a medium hoppy pale ale. It was drinkable at four days but green as mentioned. The cool part for us was sampling the beer as it aged in the keg. If I remember right the last glass turned out to be the best.
I am wondering if a colder wort at pitching has any effect on how soon a beer clears.
Mashweasel has some recipes that he’s brewed on Monday and was drinking on Friday yes five day recipes with OG of less than 1.040.
kegging helps.
Gotta ask… why in such a hurry?
Scogin, not really any beer shortage here. Just been reading about brewing today and that got me wondering…how long is beer at a commercial brewery sitting around before its bottled.? How fast could I do it? Not wanting to cut corners is key for me…and I do prefer fresh beer when hoppy beers are involved. Mostly I am looking for a clear, clean beer with the right flavor profile. I suppose its just a mental exercise as much as anything.
at the brewery i work for, we can get the beer out pretty quick. when fermentation is complete between 1 and 3 weeks, crash the temp (a day or two), and transfer to a conditioning vessel in the refrigerated room. Then we add gelatin, or biofine to clear the beer (24-48 hours). Durring this time, we carbonate, which only takes a few hours. After that we keg it up, and are ready to sell. a regular gravity beer can be out the door in under 4 weeks if we have a steady turn-over and enough empty kegs.
Recommendations:
-brew medium to low gravity beers (under 1.055)
-Pitch adequate amounts of yeast (http://www.mrmalty.com has a great pitching calculator)
-ferment ales at 65F-70F (personally i prefer 60F-62F, but it takes a little longer)
-Keg, drop to serving temperature, and force carbonate
-If you want clear beer. store bought ‘unflavored gelatin’ works wonders. and there are lots of threads about how to use it.
I once brewed a dry Irish stout and was drinking it in 11 days. Carbonated in the bottle and everything. Irish ale yeast 1084 ferments FAST!
My Hefeweissen (OG 1.054) gets kegged 72 hours after pitching. Combine that with 80psi on the regulator and shaking the keg while it’s in an ice bath, and I can be drinking it within 4 days of mashing. I’ve heard rumors of somebody putting a stirbar in the keg and setting it on a stirplate to keep the yeast from settling. With that, it could be carbed in under an hour.
For most beers, I’d brew dark (it hides imperfections), pitch enough yeast from a starter at high krausen, use a fining agent, keg it up, and steer clear of oak and spices.
Do you guys ever perceive any flavor or aroma loss from gelatin? My understanding is that the finings (bone) clings to proteins that cause haze, but not to volatile oils which contribute to flavor and aroma.
The cal common i brewed above had a great hop and malt profile (both in aroma and flavor) and I hit that with finings immediately after crash cooling.
Just curious as to any findings on a commercial level, as I’ve had pretty good success with gelatin, but want to make the best beer possible!
I do a 2 week turn around with all of my beers. In less then a week they are usually done fermenting, I give them another week to clean up after themselves, then I crash cool them for 24 hours, then keg them 24-48 hours later im drinking them. Sometimes they do get better after a week or two on them though.
Yeast starter.
Yeast nutrient.
Proper temp control.
[quote=“S.Scoggin”]at the brewery i work for…we carbonate, which only takes a few hours.[/quote]How do you do this? I’d like carbonate faster but I’m not much for jacking up the pressure and shaking the keg, seem like I always over carbonate doing that. It usually takes ~5 days when I just set the regulator to a temp/pressure chart and let it do it’s thing, it would be nice to cut that to 1-2 days and have proper co2 volumes.
I just turn it up to 30-35 psi for a two days and im good to go. I dont shake it.
If you get the keg to the temp on the chart, you can set the pressure to the desired carb level and shake without worry of overcarbing. You’ll just be doing a lot more shaking.
Do you guys ever perceive any flavor or aroma loss from gelatin? My understanding is that the finings (bone) clings to proteins that cause haze, but not to volatile oils which contribute to flavor and aroma.
The cal common i brewed above had a great hop and malt profile (both in aroma and flavor) and I hit that with finings immediately after crash cooling.
Just curious as to any findings on a commercial level, as I’ve had pretty good success with gelatin, but want to make the best beer possible![/quote]
Never noticed any flavor changes. But we havnt done a side by side test. The results from Biofine vs geletin seem to have the same impact on flavor/aroma (if any at all). i suspect that if they do affect flavor/aroma, It’s not very noticeable
