Belgian Strong Ale Grain to Glass in 4 weeks?

Is it possible?

I would like to do a Belgian Golden Strong Ale for my 5th brew but looking for the shortest time possible. I have seen some good recipes but can't wait months. Anything out there close to the time frame?

Maybe grain to bottle/keg in 4 weeks... IF you have a fermentation chamber, pitch the proper amount of yeast, give it a good amount of O2 before pitching, etc... If you bottle, it's extremely unlikely that you'll have something ready for bottles in 1-2 weeks, giving it 2-3 weeks to carbonate/bottle condition.

Better to not try to rush a brew. Give it the time it needs to be ready for drinking. Trying to rush your brew to completion is just not a good idea IMO... Sure you might get something you can drink, but you probably won't enjoy it all that much. Give it the time it needs, and you'll really enjoy drinking it.

I'm going 7+ weeks from grain to glass right now. That's for lower OG brews (under ~1.065 OG). Bigger brews get much more time (as they need) before being bottled and then however long they need to carbonate.

BTW, what ABV level are you looking for? Remember, bigger beers need more time...

The general rule of thumb is that the bigger ABV beer, the longer it needs to mature. You might be able to get a beer in 5 weeks if it were a light to medium beer... For a bigger beer, you are looking at at least 2 to 3 months before it tastes good, if not longer... Granted, even with a big beer, it will be fully fermented and can be carbed in 5 weeks, but it will taste VERY green... If you need a beer done in 5 weeks, go for a lighter beer... Just my recommendation....

If you were force carbing in a keg it would be possible for it to be conditioned and drinkable in that time frame. However I would be worried about hot alcohol flavors that young.

As the previous poster mentioned, aerate well and pitch a healthy amount of yeast. I also like to wait until 3 or 4 days into fermentation before adding the sugar. It ensures that the yeast don't get lazy off of that sucrose before they can eat the majority of the maltose.

Why rush it? In the end you'll be disappointed with the end result.

The Belgian Strong Ale I did recently did not stop bubbling away in the fermenter for 3 weeks. It just kept chugging away. It has been 5 1/2 weeks in the fermenter now and I plan on bottling next week. Then I am guessing about 5 weeks more to even carb up.

4 weeks , grain to glass, I seriously doubt it can be done with a strong ale.

ops forgot to mention that I would be kegging it.

I was just hoping on having one ready in a shorter time frame. I think I saw a recipe on my searches out there done in 5 weeks. Yeah, I just don't want to have my keg full of something that needs to sit for too long. The fridge I have can only accommodate 1 keg right now.

I totally would not do this with a high OG beer.

I have done 6 weeks a few times but even then it tastes much better if I just wait a few more weeks.

definitely possible. Just ferement at a little higher temp than normal and it will give your yeast a boost. it will also give a little for of the Belgian flavor.

It can be done but:

1. you might have a lot of hot alcohol flavor; and

2. it may not be fully carbed in four weeks.

I keg (and drink) beer all of the time at 4 weeks- BUT there are about three-four styles I don't see that happening in. One is a Belgian strong. Others are barleywines, oaked beers, and lagers. Sours, too, of course but I don't make those.

I'm making a tripel in a few weeks, and even though I have room in my kegerator for 5 kegs, I'm going to bottle the tripel. That's definitely a beer that needs some time so that it's not "hot", the ester/phenols are balanced, and the beer has time to condition.

Lots of beer styles can be ready in 4 weeks or less. IPAs, APAs, ambers, English milds, bitters, pale ales, even stouts, often get put on tap at week 3. But I would never even try with a Belgian strong ale.

I did come across a guy who did an "AHS Strong Ale" Partial Mash on Youtube that was grain to glass in less than 3 weeks?



Not golden nor All grain like I wanted but seems interesting.

Hey Yooper, I did your fizzy yellow. That came out great. I'm actually doing it again right now. It's just hit 1week in primary.

I was thinking. Do you think it would work if I added some sugar in it to jack it up to a strong ale type hybrid?

billman said:

Hey Yooper, I did your fizzy yellow. That came out great. I'm actually doing it again right now. It's just hit 1week in primary.

I was thinking. Do you think it would work if I added some sugar in it to jack it up to a strong ale type hybrid?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't add more than maybe a pound of sugar- it's already pretty light.