Keg after only 8 days in primary?

[fknizner]

Heres what's going on: I've got a pumpkin ale that's been in the primary for 8 days now. Ended up mashing low (145ºF) because my thermometer was reading ~8º hotter than the actual temp. Not ideal for this particular beer, but not the end of the world. Also, I added a cup of maple syrup at flameout. Lastly, I used an improvised fly-sparging technique (ladling the sparge water over the grains at the same rate that the mash tun drained) and had higher-than-predicted efficiency. Accordingly, my starting gravity was much higher than I expected, at 1.070.

I pitched a 600 mL starter with Wyeast 1056 (that I had churning at ~66ºF on my stir-plate for ~30 hours) into the wort (which I had cooled to 66ºF). I dropped the temp, and let it ferment at 63ºF for 6 days. I took a gravity reading on day 6 and the beer was at 1.010. Ramped the temp up to 68ºF for two days, and then took another reading (today, day 8), and the beer is around 1.006. Never had a beer go this low, but not surprised considering the low mash temp and the high amount of maple syrup.

Not surprisingly, the beer is pretty dry, but has a very clean and crisp taste, just the right hint of pumpkin spice, and a good mouthfeel. Definitely can taste the alcohol, but its not unpleasant. Additionally, there is no diacetyl, and there are no signs of any other off flavors.

Generally I let beers sit in the primary at least 2 weeks before transferring to keg or bottling. However, I've read about homebrewers transferring to keg shortly after FG is reached, particularly in situations like this, where pitching/ferm temps were controlled, there are no off flavors, no diacetyl, and the taste is on point.)

My question is this: Is there any reason why I should not just cold crash this for a couple days and then keg it on day 10?

Thanks!

 

[PGEduardo]

I don't see a reason. If you do run into diacetyl issues I have successfully taken a keg out of the keezer and let it clean up at room temp (still plenty of yeast even after cold crashing and secondary lagering before the keg).

 

[Todd820]

Personally, I would take another gravity reading to make sure it is done unless you do not want it to dry out any more. Since you are kegging, I guess you can package even it is not totally fermented out with no concern if you are happy with the flavor. It is also possible you have diacetyl precursor that you cannot taste now, but may develop. Fortunately, there is an easy test for this. Test it and if you don't detect diacetyl you are probably fine.

 

[Gavin C]

My question is this: Is there any reason why I should not just cold crash this for a couple days and then keg it on day 10?

Thanks!

I'd measure gravity again in this instance in a couple of days. If it's stable, crash cool, (I fine with gelatin after getting the beer to 32F) and keg at about day 13-14. that's a typical timeframe for all my beers, ales, hybrids and lagers to enter the keg.

Keg them at 2 weeks and set and forget force-carbing at the desired PSI. Generally I sample them at 4 weeks. Lagers lager for longer and do improve.

Lagering a lager, who'd have thunk it. A cold serving keg is the ideal vessel for this to happen.

 

[fknizner]

Thanks for the quick responses. No diacetyl precursor detected (that's a really convenient/simple test, btw, thanks for the link). I really don't want it to produce anymore alcohol (even if it is so inclined) so I'm going to crash it so the yeast go dormant. Good to know that I can let it heat back up if I do sense diacetyl later.

No gelatin for this batch; When it comes to ales, I generally only use gelatin in Kölsch or Altbiers. Not too concerned about the clarity in this one. Letting it carb up around 32ºF for a week and a half should, at any rate, knock out some yeast and proteins.

Thanks again for all your help.