My friend asked me if I had 5-10gal of beer he could have to serve at a fundraiser. The kicker (aside from the issues surrounding homebrew at a fundraiser) is that the event is Sept 7 and he asked me last Friday! So I have exactly 3wks to go from grain to glass. I told him not likely, but then decided to take it as a challenge. So Saturday I brewed 18gal of cream ale, 75% Belgian pils 25% flaked corn with just a touch of light crystal and a little wheat malt. Bittered to just under 20IBU with a 30min addition of Perle. Watered the wort down to 1.042 to keep it light and reduce ferm time. Fermenting with a generous charge of San Fran yeast cake from the 10gal batch of Cali Common we kegged just the day before. I’m fermenting at 68F under pressure in the Brewhemoth so I’ll have a leg up on carbonation when kegging time comes. My biggest concern is clarity, and I might add some finings towards the end of fermentation.
Think theres a snowball’s chance this will work? If not I’ll donate a case of wine. I probably should’ve used a different yeast but this cake is the freshest and most plentiful thing I have, plus I’m assuming this is a BMC crowd so the recipe is sort of a light beer substitute.
I have no experience with the San Fran yeast but I think you’ll be fine. Not sure if this is helpful but I recently had a couple kegs freeze while conditioning. Not freeze solid, but they got slushy. One was a table strength saison and the other, a blonde. Neither suffered any ill effects, no carbonation loss, but both had absolutely brilliant clarity upon thawing.
My guess is it should be good! Assuming you are going to keg, get it to serving temp and add some gelatin for the last few days and it should clear nicely while you force carb it.
I havne’t had really good luck with gelatin for some reason. I’m thinking I might use a two part fining agent like Superkleer. The stuff reacts and drops fast, might strip a little flavor but with this beer that could be a good thing. Freezing is tempting as well, I do want to get it good and cold before I send them the kegs.
I figure I’ll just tell him to call it “homebrew”, that might get people to drink it more than calling it a cream ale.
I thought about a wheat beer, but figured this would be more universally appealing.
Three weeks is enough time to get most session strength beer carbonated into bottles (if you don’t cold crash) so if you are kegging it shouldn’t be a problem.
But Lennie, I brew like this all the time. I’ve gone through about 25 gallons in the past couple of weeks just by brewing saisons, pale ales and ESBs for parties. 10 day ferment, force carb via shake method and boom, fresh beer in two weeks! 8)
I’ll look for Biofine, I’ve heard of it but never tried it. If I can procure it in time I’ll give it a go. I already have the other stuff (Liquor Quick) for my winemaking efforts.
Amanda, glad to hear the testimonial.
I’m fermenting in the Brewhemoth and I had CO2 after 24hr, put the spunding valve on and running at 8psi for a few days, then I’ll crank it to 15psi. Hopefully this will keep the krausen down, this 18gal batch is the most I’ve done in the Brewhemoth that holds 22gal. I’m assuming thats to the very top.
I had a full quart of slurry we harvested the previous day. I really don’t have a good sense of how fast the San Fran lager yeast goes, normally when we run a 10-15gal batch through the Brewhemoth we aren’t in a hurry.
Three weeks is a lot of time. I have made several beers that were kegged and served exactly one week after they were brewed: hefeweizen and bitter. Its all about the yeast: WY3333 and WY1968.
Cream ale, though, is a poor choice for a three week beer as it benefits from cold conditioning.
I wouldn’t say that a cream ale is a poor choice for this exercise. I’m brewing another one for a quick turnaround with US-05 in the next few days, seems to work just fine for me. I’m sure Lennie will be just fine. 8)
Although, I’ll say that most beer benefits from cold conditioning. Seems that the last pint of the keg is always the best! ;D
I think the pressurized fermentation helps keep the esters down. We’ve brewed Cali Common a couple of times now in the Brewhemoth and its pretty clean as far as esters. At least its on the order of US05 as far as ester profile.
I’ve been thinking of making a fermentation chamber for the Brewhemoth. I could go with a commercial upright freezer but that is a bit pricey. I have the cooling coil attachment but I think you’d have to insulated the tank itself for it to do much good. I’m thinking of making a small room in the garage where there is a small window, and putting a small AC unit in the window. Insulate the box with 2" foam board. Then I could put the conical in there as well as kegs and stuff. Probably look redneck as heck but its only the garage and we don’t park cars in it anyway. In fact this is going to be done in conjunction with my putting a brewstand out there so I can just brew and pump the beer over to the fermentors.
I think you are fine on all counts - if it doesn’t fine out, then just serve in opaque cups! As to the garage foam room - great idea; I was thinking the same thing when I had another chest freezer drop into my lap, so that solved that - I ferment in 60L Speidel’s and similar plastic containers, so they fit in the chest freezer, though lifting them is a bear!
Thought I’d provide an update now that we’re close to the event (Saturday afternoon). I ran the ferment at 15psi all week and its been producing gas until just today. Filled a couple of cornies tonight, the beer is still fairly cloudy but it tastes dry, esters are low and no off flavors. All in all a decent neutral brew for the BMC crowd. Hope they like it. I bumped the pressure to 20psi and will lager for 36hr and serve it up. There still another 7gal in the Brewhemoth, I’m going to let it sit and clear another week before kegging it. Harvested yeast last week so I can do this again if needed.