Dogfish Brew timeline- 4 weeks?

[geer537]

Morning all-

I am not going into whether you like the Brewmasters show on Discovery. I think the 55 and counting page thread has everyone's opinon on the show (hey if you like Ace of Cakes on Food Network and you like beer, you should love it, right?) My question is with the timeline. It seems they go from Brew to bottle in about 4 weeks. Then they have a huge release party and it is drinkable.

Is this common of the big breweries? what are they doing to get a good tasting beer in such a short time?

Sorry if this has been answered. I am pretty new to this and have a hell of a time building up a pipeline.

 

[BrewNinja1]

Very common. They brew under pressure, which reduces the time it takes to complete a batch. Some people are doing the same thing by fermenting under pressure in corny kegs, but I dont know how well that works or not.

 

[geer537]

Thanks! I'll have to just lay off my beer and let the pipeline build. Damn that is hard unless the beer turns out poorly.

 

[remilard]

Very common. They brew under pressure, which reduces the time it takes to complete a batch. Some people are doing the same thing by fermenting under pressure in corny kegs, but I dont know how well that works or not.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/71956273@N00/2975714601/

As of October 2008 they did not ferment under pressure (hint, blowoff buckets). In any case, the vast majority of commercial breweries do not ferment under pressure and turn beer around in under a month. Plenty of homebrewers do as well.

 

[brettwasbtd]

Also, they have the equipment to filter, carb and bottle on the same day! Most of us homebrewers leave our beers in the primary for 3 weeks to improve clarity. If you pitch the correct amount of yeast, fermentation only takes a few days. If we could filter, carb and bottle in one day, we could easily pop out standard gravity brews in 2 weeks or less

 

[TheCarnie]

The pressure comes from the weight of the beer on itself. Kind of like ocean pressure, but on a much smaller scale.

 

[scottland]

Correct. Large conicals create tremendous amounts of pressure on the yeast. They have to dump their yeast frequently, as autolysis is a real concern for brewers with large conicals. For us hombrewers, our yeast settles in a thin layer at the bottom of a wide vessel, very little pressure.

Truth be told, Breweries go from grain to glass so fast because

A. They're beers are clean. By that I mean their methods are sound, and repeatable, and they don't have to deal with off-flavours that need to settle out.

B. They Filter. Filtering beer will make beer drinkable MUCH sooner. It's no secret.

 

[jfr1111]

They also need to turn beers around that fast, wich is always an incencitive to have it in bottles as soon as possible. They simply cannot afford to dick around for 8 weeks before drinking like some of us do.

Some of their beers might benefit from aging a bit more but are still bottled early. It isn't all about technique (altough their process allows them to do so). For some styles of beers (low gravity, low carb level), homebrewers can have just as fast a turn-around if they choose a high flocculation yeast. I brewed a stout a month ago with S-04. It's now ready.

You can go even faster if you keg. Orfy confessed to drinking his mild mannered ale at something ridiculous like 8 or 9 days if I remember right.

 

[remilard]

The pressure comes from the weight of the beer on itself. Kind of like ocean pressure, but on a much smaller scale.

That's not what fermenting under pressure means.

 

[remilard]

Correct. Large conicals create tremendous amounts of pressure on the yeast. They have to dump their yeast frequently, as autolysis is a real concern for brewers with large conicals. For us hombrewers, our yeast settles in a thin layer at the bottom of a wide vessel, very little pressure.

Truth be told, Breweries go from grain to glass so fast because

A. They're beers are clean. By that I mean their methods are sound, and repeatable, and they don't have to deal with off-flavours that need to settle out.

B. They Filter. Filtering beer will make beer drinkable MUCH sooner. It's no secret.

Homebrewers can do A and B. Even if you don't do B, neither does Russian River and they serve you 3 week old Pliny. Filtering might be necessary for a 5 day beer, but by no means is it necessary for a 30 day beer.

 

[92greenyj]

why is everyone so shocked by this?
My normal timeline for most of my beers is 2 weeks. 1 week in primary. one week in secondary, 3 days in the keg to carbonate and i start serving it. Only exceptions are big beers like imperials or barleywines. those get a longer secondary. anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 weeks depending on the beer and desired ABV

lagers also. they get a 2 week primary and a 2 week secondary

 

[Revvy]

There's already at least 2 threads discussing this based on last weeks show.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/dogfish-head-brewmasters-2-weeks-ship-207721/?highlight=Brewmasters

 

[geer537]

I don't think I am shocked. There is a lot of info out there and a lot of people have opinions on how to do it correctly. I like posting on this website because a dialog is created and I can get a lot of home brewers opinons

...and most of the time all of my questions are answered by the search feature.

1. I'll admit I was lazy and didn't do much research before asking
2. Where's the fun in posting if all of my questions are already answered?

Seriously though. Sorry I was lazy on this one Revvy