Fastest fermentation yet

[worlddivides]

Most beers I brew ferment in 3-5 days, usually closer to 3 days. I've had a few finish in as little as 48 hours, especially with some English and Belgian strains. But I just brewed a beer with an OG of 1.056 that had machinegun airlock activity and I had to put 4 two-liter bottles of ice to keep it within a reasonable fermentation temp range. And then just suddenly, all airlock activity stopped and it stopped giving off heat. I believe this might be the fastest fermentation I've ever had. The fermentation basically finished within 24-30 hours. So it feels so weird that I'm basically waiting 2 weeks of seemingly no fermentation before packaging. Now, I do imagine it probably fell a few more points after that first 24 hours, but it's been 4 days since I pitched the yeast and I'm pretty sure it's at its final gravity. I just don't want to waste 250ml of beer for a gravity sample until at least 7 days have passed, even with such a fast fermentation. It's making me tempted to bottle sooner than 2 weeks. For some further info, the fermentation started at 66F (18.5C) and ended at 68F (20C). It's not the most violent fermentation I've had. That would probably go to WLP530 Abbey Ale yeast, which plugged my airlock with krausen multiple times. But that had airlock activity for quite a few days, as far as I can remember.

Anyone ever had an active fermentation that ended faster than 24-36 hours?

 

[day_trippr]

I don't think I've ever had a batch go quiet in fewer than 5 full days from the pitch - and even that is very unusual for the yeast strains I typically use. Most brews take a good 10 days for the krausen to fall. But all my ferments are under tight temperature control the whole way.

What is your usual batch size?

 

[mashdar]

S-04 krausen drops in ~48 hours for me. The only Belgian strains I use are 3787 and 3724, both take a little longer.

What yeast was it? And what style?

If it ran hot, a few extra days might hopefully clean up fusels/aldehydes/etc.

 

[worlddivides]

I don't think I've ever had a batch go quiet in fewer than 5 full days from the pitch - and even that is very unusual for the yeast strains I typically use. Most brews take a good 10 days for the krausen to fall. But all my ferments are under tight temperature control the whole way.

What is your usual batch size?

13 liters (about 3 gallons packaged). I definitely wasn't say it was ready to package as soon as the airlock activity ended (I'm still planning on bottling 2 weeks after yeast pitch). I'm sure there were still several more gravity points left to ferment and it still needed to clean up. If I had to guess, probably 95% of the fermentation was done within 24-30 hours, but I don't have a Tilt or Rapt in there to check.

 

[worlddivides]

S-04 krausen drops in ~48 hours for me. The only Belgian strains I use are 3787 and 3724, both take a little longer.

What yeast was it? And what style?

If it ran hot, a few extra days might hopefully clean up fusels/aldehydes/etc.

Yeah, S-04 is usually about 48 hours for me too. This was Windsor, which I've used before, but never on its own (so far always combined with something else), for a London porter.

I have a temperature prob in a thermo-well, so I was able to make sure it never ran hot, but I did have to put 4 two-liter ice bottles in my temperature chamber at one point to keep the temperature from rising. Even then, though, with a full 8 liters of ice in there, the fermentation temperature at the time just dropped from 68F to 66.5F.

It's also interesting because normally the temperature difference between the probe and the temperature stickers on the outside of my fermenter is only about 1F (which could be on each side of it, depending on whether the heat of fermentation making the probe higher or the ice bottle being close to the sticker making it lower), but this time, there was a full 4F difference with the sticker reading 64F at the time the probe read 68F.

 

[mashdar]

Oh, Windsor cheats. It only eats the easy stuff and then gives up. I've never used it, but I imagine consuming maltotriose is what takes other strains longer, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Windsor is super fast.

"lower attenuation due to an inability to metabolize maltotriose"
https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/en/united-states/products/windsor-british-style-beer-yeast/

 

[Zadkiel]

I just don't want to waste 250ml of beer for a gravity sample

sorry for the small tangent, but I have to ask, what are you using for gravity samples that needs 250ml? All the hydrometers I've seen have 100ml jars.

 

[Zadkiel]

Anyone ever had an active fermentation that ended faster than 24-36 hours?

Not personally experienced it, but read that Kveik used in the 35-40C range finishes in 24-48 hours.

 

[worlddivides]

Oh, Windsor cheats. It only eats the easy stuff and then gives up. I've never used it, but I imagine consuming maltotriose is what takes other strains longer, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Windsor is super fast.

"lower attenuation due to an inability to metabolize maltotriose"
https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/en/united-states/products/windsor-british-style-beer-yeast/

For sure. It's like S-04 speed but with maltotriose removed, which probably cuts the time in half.

 

[worlddivides]

Not personally experienced it, but read that Kveik used in the 35-40C range finishes in 24-48 hours.

I completely forgot about how fast I've heard Kveik can be at the upper range. I HAVE heard that can finish a fermentation in around 24 hours or so.

 

[worlddivides]

sorry for the small tangent, but I have to ask, what are you using for gravity samples that needs 250ml? All the hydrometers I've seen have 100ml jars.

My old hydrometer jar probably contained about 100ml, but it was weirdly melted. I'm not sure why, but the fact that it was melted meant that it was slanted to the side, which REALLY made hydrometer readings hard to read since it would make the hydrometer drift to the side. And, as we all know, a hydrometer that is touching the side of the jar is COMPLETELY unreliable and can be 2-6 points off. So I bought a new hydrometer jar, but it's a lot wider and fits something around 350ml, but the highest mark on it is 250ml, so that's usually how much I fill it to. Depending on how low the gravity goes, I can get away with only filling it to 200ml.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

All the hydrometers I've seen ...

Homebrewing equipment will vary based on location (US vs UK vs AU vs ...)

 

[Zadkiel]

Homebrewing equipment will vary based on location (US vs UK vs AU vs ...)

sure, I was just curious about that the variation was. Thanks @worlddivides for taking the time to explain. I have to say that jar you have sounds very wasteful though! I begrudge losing 100ml to mine!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Simplest thing possible (for hydrometer 'losses'): target a guaranteed volume at packaging time- i.e. scale the batch size to include two hydrometer samples in addition to the desired volume at packaging time.

Also, for those looking into minimizing oxygen ingress, there was discussion on a technique for basically "fermenting in the hydrometer tube". No need to open / uncover the fermenter to take a sample at the end of fermentation. If current/future readers are looking for more information, I can provide details (or maybe find the links).