Kettle to keg in 7 days?

I have a party in three weeks and I 'accidentally' kicked the keg that I was planning for it--oops

Anyway, I need to brew a replacement. I figure I should have it in the kegerator to condition and carb for 2 weeks, so that gives me only a week to go from the kettle to the keg. I'm thinking of this Dry Dock Mild clone: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/...-ss-minnow-mild-pro-series-all-grain-kit.html

Any thoughts? Anything I can do to speed the fermentation? Double the yeast? Add nutrients?

thanks!
kman

You should be able to do it. Just make sure that the FG is set before you keg. Yeast nutrients might speed things up a little. A yeast starter will hurry things along if you use liquid yeast. Re-hydrating would be good if you use dry yeast.

There was an article on this in Zymurgy a while back. Their tips: keep the OG under 10.40, and don't brew a beer that minds being cloudy. (Dark ales and wheats are obvious choices here.) Ferment a little warmer than you might otherwise, but not by a huge amount.

The mild looks like a fine choice.

Thanks for the replies. I've never used a starter, but I've seen some protocols on the web that don't seem too complicated. Any tips for a simple starter?

kman

You can get a good carb in 1 week.. 30psi for the first 48 and then 12psi untill you tap it.. I've had good carb after 5 days like that

Make sure your yeast is ready to work.. get a starter going.

3 weeks is plenty for that beer. 1 week to ferment, couple of days to cold crash, and a week to carb, as edmanster says.

A starter is great for getting a lot of yeast going quickly, but so is just pitching more yeast. It's more expensive, but I'd be tempted to skip the starter and go straight to brewing and buy extra yeast.

edmanster said:

You can get a good carb in 1 week.. 30psi for the first 48 and then 12psi untill you tap it.. I've had good carb after 5 days like that

Click to expand...

I agree with this. If you have 3 weeks then use two for fermenting and one force carbing with the first two days 30+ psi

I wouldn't plan your primary schedule at one week - it will more than likely be done, but make sure to taste it (check for off-flavors) when you take a gravity reading before transferring to a keg. If it needs 10 days in primary, you'll be fine if you follow edmanster's advice on carbing. The beautiful thing about 1968/002 is that it drops like a brick, I'm usually drinking lower gravity beers with 002 about 12-14 days after pitching (8-10 days in primary, 1-2 days cold crashing, 2 days carbing in keg).

I'm not sure if you have the equipment, but I've found my beer is much better young since I started injecting pure oxygen prior to pitching.

I'm brewing a beer on Sat 5/5 that I'll enter into a competition on 5/19.
14 days total.
It's an American Wheat and I don't think there should be any problems.
Just saying.
Bull

I don't have the equipment for pure oxygen and don't even oxygenate my worts other than pouring through a funnel. I've been thinking about using a fish pump with a narrow-bore tubing as a cheap way to enhance my process, but just haven't gotten around to it.

kman

Great video on rehydrating dry yeast and the speed of fermentation. The effects of 02 in the wort is shown as well. From BobbyM from NJ. Go to the end for conclusions if nothing else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOrfmzpDmPk&list=UURBBPlmq3OnbhiOm7EshI3g&index=50&feature=plcp