Reading Drew’s article about knocking out a batch and serving within six days.
Now that I have proper temp control his method is more accessible to me. Crashing primary ar the end of the third day; racking to keg on the fourth and continuing to crash; transferring to another keg on the fifth with carbonating and serving on the sixth.
For average strength beers why isn’t this approach considered to be more conventional? Oftentimes people are strongly advised to leave their beer in primary for much longer for conditioning purposes.
While I have turned around beers in less than a week before my habit has been to follow a convention that doesn’t 100% make sense to me. Shouldn’t this approach be taught more?
I agree it seems like it would be beneficial to know both methods(Quick and Traditional) and determine the proper method based on the project at hand. I’ve rarely heard anyone talk about doing a quick batch, and almost never seen a reference guide on the process.(Outside this recent article)
In the last month or so I have brewed two batches of something that might be called an ordinary bitter or possibly a mild ale and been drinking on day 8. I think with some styles it works great and others really benefit from the extra time even at a low gravity. Beligan pales comes to mind as the yeast throws so much character at the begining that it is good to let it clean up after itself a bit.
My batches were
1st one was second runnings from a barley wine. Brewed on sunday morning/afternoon. The whole grist (10lbs for 1 gallon of BW and just under 4 of small) was mashed at 148 for 90 minutes and then the tun drained and capped with .5 lbs of carastan. sparge water, 20 more minutes and drain second runnings. I pitched 1 smack pack of 1968 to that one and kegged it the next saturday and started drinking sunday evening with dinner. It was yummy. I think better at first than a week later honestly
2nd was a bitter as a starter for the next weeks BW. again brewed sunday. 6.5lbs munich and .5 crystal 40 mashed at 158 for 60 minutes and pitched with 1 smack pack of 1098 ( I think that’s the right number) kegged the following saturday evening and tapped that sunday for dinner again.
I will say that for this style I will very likely always follow this method from now on. the taste is so fresh and good.
Interestingly they both came out at 1.008. I suspect the difference in mash temp was offset by the relative attenuation of the yeasts.
What I wrote about in that article is stuff I’ve learned watching the pros do it. Those guys have to carefully balance that time in tank for aging vs. money / production space.
It’s totally inappropriate in some cases, but otherwise I have feeling there are times as homebrewers that we dawdle too much.
BTW nice article and I hope it inspires more people to try it.
Drew I was thinking of the pro’s actions as well. You are replicating what a large brewery does on a small scale. They certainly cannot afford to have beer sitting in the fermenters for the length of time we are accustomed to. So the balance is giving the yeast enough exposure to the beer to finish the job and then removing them from the picture as quickly as possible. At least that’s how I have always believed.
Dawdle. ;D I need to rack and brew. Somehow some other task presents itself…
I think people would by kits that said “bottle after x days”, folks would do this and make crappy beer.
So then all the advice was to let it sit for longer time frames. Which resulted in the “I let all my beers sit in primary for at least a month and they are sooooo much better”. So now people think it’s impossible to have quick turn over.
Somehow the “don’t transfer to secondary” advice morphed into leave it in the primary for what I would consider much longer then necessary.
Well, it’s a lot easier as a homebrewer to say, “I think it’s done, but since I’m not 100% sure, I’ll just let it sit another week.” Pros can’t do that. I do agree that we probably dawdle too much at times, especially if you know you have a large, healthy amount of yeast, proper aeration, and control of your fermentation temps. If you’re not convinced you have control of those factors, continue dawdling.
Decided to give this a shot with a small twist, to see what happens with WLP001.
I know, I know…Low flocculation, as the article stated.
I made the following:
11/11/11 Ale
5.25 gallons
3.5# Munich I
4# 2-row
1.5# Corn
1/2 oz 8.5% Northern Brewer - 60 min
1/2 oz 8.5% Northern Brewer - flameout
2 vials WLP001
1.049 OG
I’ll crash & use gelatin, after the krausen falls.
Hope to be drinking it, on Thanksgiving.
Here’s hoping the cold crashing + gelatin do the trick.
This is my first time using gelatin.
Gelatin was added 24 hours after the fermenter was placed into the cold.
I am drinking a Brown Ale.
It went from 1.052 to 1.012 in 4 days. Safale SO4
Kegged it after 9 days
did the quick carb thing, and was drinking it that evening. ;D
I tend to use a British yeast, my usual is either Thames Valley or Essex (seasonal). I would recommend against Ringwood, but that’s my general recommendation since I hate that yeast. The standard White Labs British strains work great as well.
Thanks, Drew. I’ve been thinking about Thames Valley anyway. Hey Tom, I’ve used 1028 plenty–a house fav. Used 1084 lots, too. Guess I’ll have to play with 1098 now as well. I have not experimented with the different strains enough. Left that as my constant when dialing in other stuff.
