One of the surprises for me getting into home brewing is the amount of time from the brewday to the drinkday. I have read that one of the common noob mistakes is to get impatient and rush the process. I have a beer (a Belgian Imperial IPA) sitting on the yeast, a week after hitting FG–two weeks after fermentation began, waiting for it to drop clear.
So we have weeks in the fermentation vessel, and weeks to months in lagering / cold conditioning to make a good beer.
How in the world to pro brewers get the quick turn-around that they do. Is it possible for the homebrewer, and if so, what would it take? Is the only down side money for the equipment, or does a quick turn-around also effect quality?
There are a lot of ales you can make that can be consumed in under 3 weeks. There is another thread right now about drinking Pale Ales Fresh or Green. One week ferment, crash cool, bottle and you are drinking it in 3 weeks. Main thing is using a solid pitch of a fast fermenting and clean yeast such as 1056/001/05.
As long as it is reasonably clear (doesn’t need to be crystal clear) get it into bottles. It will take a bit longer to carb than standard strength beers, but 2-3 weeks should be fine. After that, a day or two in the fridge should get it to drop clear.
I don’t think ales need to be in the fermenter for longer than 2-3 weeks (depending on flavor, let the beer talk to you). and then 2-3 weeks in the bottle, and you are ready to drink. If you keg, its that much quicker.
AFAIK, pro-brewers get quicker turn-around times (but not by too much) because they have more advanced control, and can push the yeast to finish a bit quicker, cold crash quicker, and dump the yeast before kegging. Talking to a few pro breweries, and they are finishing beers only a couple days faster than I finish a similar beer.
Keep in mind, this is all for ales. I haven’t made a lager, and wouldn’t know what I am talking about.
Pro-brewers can be very sure of their process because they brew the same recipes day after day after day. Excellent yeast health and fermentation control can let yeast quickly ferment a beer and not produce as many off flavors that need to be cleaned up. A pro might also avoid yeasts that will need time to clear or cold crash to force clearing. Many of these things can be done by homebrewers, but they all take time and/or equipment.
There are beers that can take that long. There are a great many that don’t. Makes some ales and play with a “big” recipe or 2. You can get the best of both worlds.8^)
For most home brewers, the only difference is not having a cylindroconical fermenter. That doesn’t accelerate fermentation though - it only facilitates crashing. Another thing most home brewers do is under-pitch (though on the AHA forum we know better, of course ;)). That WILL make a big difference in fermentation times.
A typical timeline for an average-gravity ale in a brewpub would look something like 3-5 days to reach FG, three days of warm conditioning, three days to cold crash, rack to bright with fining agent(s), let settle three days (while carbonating), then serve. That’s a 12-14 day turnaround, and still pretty conservative - you could shave off 2-3 days most of the time.
All those steps can also be done at home as long as you’re kegging and have some means of temperature control. If you’re bottling and need to naturally carbonate, that adds at least another 7-10 days, and there really isn’t anything you can do about that.
another thing to consider that one of my pro friends claims is one of the big ‘time savers’ is that they use very fine filters - this allows them to move beer quicker to kegs rather than having to wait for them to settle naturally.
I have long believed that after a certain point, and this is quite early on in the process that any “unconditioned” or odd flavors reside in the suspended particles and yeast rather than the beer itself. And when I say early I mean really early. That being said, filtering on the homebrew level is an uncommon process though there are people who use this approach. There are those that use plate filters (primarily intended for wine) and even some brewers who run their beer through whole-house filters. Reports are quite positive and encouraging concerning the effectiveness of the 5 micron house filters.
Conversely we are left with gelatin fining and cold crashing which can take time and doesn’t have the potential for quick turn-around that filtering does.
For me, moving to kegs was the real time saver. Most of my beers are done fermenting in a week at average temps and I usually leave another week min to get them cleaned up (but not always). Then right into the keg, carb and chill for 2 days, fine with gelatin if I think it needs it and I can be drinking a decent beer in 14-16 days. Bottle conditioning adds signficantly as an overall percentage of time spent in the process.
Type of beer also matters. I am truly brewing lagers now with the intent that they won’t get drank until June. That’s the reality of lagers. Same for Kolsch that takes forever to clear. So if you want to be top of the season, you’ve gotta think ahead for the season. But, for pale/english ales that I drink most of the time it doesn’t take that much forethought.
I think the real problem for most of us is that we don’t brew enough. Pro brewers likely brew on a pretty set schedule to accomodate production and shipping goals. For me, if I only brewed a few times a month, I’d be finding myself out of beer and the wait for the next batch can seem longer than it should. I brew at least weekly, often more than that so that I can try get beer ahead. Waiting for beer to clear is not an issue when you’ve got more to drink. I’ve also gone to a 5/10 gal rotation meaning that all my yeast gets put into a starter appropriate for a 5 gal batch but then I re-pitch that 5 gal into a 10 gal which speeds things up a lot. Plus, I try to plan ahead so that if I want to brew a new beer next week, I get the starter going this week as part of this weeks brew day.
We’ll never be as good as the pro’s when it comes to expedience and efficiencies because the corporate world lives and dies by margins and process efficiencies make them money. But, we can make beer that’s just as good (and often better) and that’s what’s important to me.
I disagree with that. Average gravity lagers can be turned around only 2-3 weeks longer than an ale. I make a lot of lagers and primary them for 3 weeks and lager around 4 then off to the taps. (most pros are 2 primary, 2 lagering, then packaging or less).
And not bragging, but to illustrate it ain’t just my tastebuds that think so, I just got a 43.5 and a bronze medal for my oktoberfest at the Sunshine Challenge with 774 total entries and that beer was lagered for only 3 weeks and was on tap for 2 before I bottled some off the tap and sent.
that is, unless of course you want the oxidized flavor that many folks confuse for maltiness since that’s what they taste in imports. in that case, yeah, you’ll need to wait 6 months or so ;D
All I’m getting at is that lagers take some time and you gotta think ahead if you want them ready for a particular time. I’m sure I don’t do as many lagers as you do but for me I figure about 8 weeks start to finish. 3 weeks in primary and 5 weeks or so lagering. I’m sure you can do it better and faster, that’s just what is working for me. I’m making lager now for next summer because I have the right temperature conditions to do so. I’d rather do a whole bunch ahead now than screw around with temperature controls and stuff like that.
gmac - you’re actually saying you do the same thing as i do (8 weeks give or take a week).
I always have to mess with temperature control down here so it doesn’t matter if I brew an ale or a lager ;D probably if i lived in the cold, where i could brew lagers without fermentation control I would brew them like crazy in the winter and vice versa with ales.
didn’t mean any offense or to be snarky, but I feel there is a myth that circles around out there that lagers need FOREVER to be ready and for a dunkel, pils, vienna etc. it simply isn’t the case. Now doppel…
Great conversation! Thanks to everyone. I am brewing a Baltic Porter with Lager yeast sometime around Christmas, so this is particularly timely. I am also having a Navy reunion at my house next July, and one of the beers I want to have on tap is a Kolsch, so again very timely.
No worries. That’s the beauty of having a forum like this. If everyone thought the same thing we’d only need Denny
I can see where my comment could imply you need six months, like I said, I was just trying to say you need to plan ahead.
My three main points for new brewers that want to keep up are:
1. Plan ahead and know what you want and when you need to have it ready
2. Learn to re-pitch so you have lots of healthy yeast ready and work it into your brewing schedule
3. Brew more often than you think you need to
To the OP. I make a lot of Kolsch and that is one yeast that takes a long time to drop clear. Even with gelatin finings I often don’t get it crystal clear for several weeks. For your navy reunion, I’d make a good starter and get started about 8 weeks ahead of your event. If I want 5 gals of nice clear Kolsch for an event, I do two 5 gal batches and leave them sit and then fill a clean 5 gal keg with the top 1/2 of each batch (and then I drink the other 5 gals myself). That keeps me from accidentally bringing in yeast again.
It’s my understanding, although I have no direct experience, that filtering will also take out some of the hop flavor. Though I suppose you may also get that with fining. I don’t know if one or the other has a greater impact.
A lot of this idea that you need to take 3-5 weeks in primary followed by weeks and weeks in the bottle is interwebs myth perpetrated and perpetuated to convince new brewers who are rushing the process to slow down and to make those who don’t follow proper procedures (e.g. pitching rate, aeration, etc.) give their beer time to hopefully clean up off flavors on their own. The problem is at some point that somewhat reasonable advice became a mantra that proper brewing procedures don’t matter as long as you take months to brew, you must take months before you even taste a beer and no matter how bad of a job you did with a beer more time always fixes it. None of those are categorically true.
