Quickie Butt Crack Ale

An experiment in shortening the brew cycle. This was more of one of those "can i do this" rather than something I'll repeat.

Quickie Butt Crack Ale
(my take on the Cream of Three Crops, name is my brother's nickname and he prefers the nice light beers, i never make it the same way twice)
7.25 lbs 2 row
2.0 lbs flaked corn
1.5 lbs minute rice
.75 oz Willamette (4.5%)
.5 oz Northern Brewer (7.8%)
S-05 yeast

Experimental batch trying a bunch of new things and mostly to try a “quicK” brew session. Also virgin voyage of my new Speidal fermenter.

What I was trying to do….
No sparge Mash
30 minute mash
30 minute boil
Partial no-cool (used IC to get to 120 then into the fermentation chamber to drop to 70)

I finished in exactly 2.5 hours. That is from having nothing ready to all clean.

My timeline
11:30: Start heating strike water. In parallel weigh out grains and get out the rest of the brewing stuff.
11:50: Water at 170 degrees and poured into mash ton. Lots of water.
12:00: Dough in. Then realized that I should have lowered my strike temp since my mash will be very very thin. 160 degrees. Added about .5 gallon cold water. Mash temp at 158. Well that is as much as my tun will hold. So this will be an interesting cream ale.
12:10: Start of mash
12:40: drain into kettle with the fire already started. Hops added. Got 6.5 gallons @ 1.034 pre-boil. About what I was hoping. Targeting 5.5 gallons in fermenter @ 1.040. So with .5 gallon boil off and another .5 gallon loss for boil kettle geometry should be close.
12:56: Boil started
1:26: boil off, IC on
1:45: In fermenter at 120 degrees. About 5.5 gallons @ 1.039.
2:00: finish clean and put away.

subed to see how this ends

Use this to calculate strike temp next time: http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

I've found it to be pretty accurate.

Very interesting indeed. Would be nice if you can go from brew to bottle in a week. Or keg so you can drink faster.

casualbrewer said:

Very interesting indeed. Would be nice if you can go from brew to bottle in a week. Or keg so you can drink faster.

Click to expand...

Honestly, with relatively low OG brews, correct ferment temps and good yeast health, you can definitely go from brew to bottle in a week. I usually allow 10 days, but most beers I make are at FG within 3-5 days, then add a couple of days to "clean up" and you're golden. If you're going with OGs of 1.060+ this certainly changes...

I should be pitching the yeast in about an hour. My guess is I can have this on tap for next Sunday. Still curious on the result of the high/short mash. I'll update in an week. And below is what a FULL mash tun looks like.

Yep, that's a full mash tun Should be good on keeping temps, though! Good luck with everything, and let us know how it comes out!

paulshe said:

12:00: Dough in. Then realized that I should have lowered my strike temp since my mash will be very very thin. 160 degrees. Added about .5 gallon cold water. Mash temp at 158. Well that is as much as my tun will hold. So this will be an interesting cream ale.

Click to expand...

I learned this the hard way! Since then, I always hold back at least a gallon of strike water and keep a gallon of cool water available, to fine tune mash temps.

So a little poker weekend got in the way but I kegged this fella tonight. Pretty uneventful. It finished at 1.018 which is high for this usually but of course the high mash temp (158) probably accounted for most of this. Bad side of this is that it amounts to about 3.5% alcohol. Normally this would come in around 1.010 and hit around 4.5%

I would force carb tonight but alas my backup gas had a leak of some sort so that will wait.

Taste sample seems clean but certainly not as dry and crisp as this one usually turns out. We'll try again when I get some bubbles in it.

So as an experiment where I changed about 4 or 5 variables who knows what contributed to what. I'd say that probably the high mash temp was the big game changer. The no chill (or partial no chill) did not seem to have any adverse effects. I have not done the exercise to check the efficiency of the no sparge.

I'll check back in once carbed and conditioned a little. Maybe the racking to keg will kick off a little more fermentation.

Update. So I've had this on C02 since I brewed it. Last night drew a pint and decided it was worthy to be moved form the shed fridge to the serving kegerator inside.

It's an interesting brew. Very clean (no off flavors). Sweet. and I think my calculation says something like 2.5%. I think it needs a name like Sweet Creme Ale. Served super cold this is not a bad beverage and is certainly a unique style.

I'd also suspect the short mash alongside the temperature for the high fg. Incomplete conversion will definitely do that. If you are going to attempt a short mash, do an iodine test to check conversion before you run off.

A high water/grain ratio might also throw your mash pH off, reducing conversion rate and efficiency.