Maintain a pipleine?

[Cranny04]

Hey all,
I'm a noob so go easy on me if this is a dumb one..

How do you maintain your pipeline?

I'll be brewing my third beer (DFH IPA) on sunday

I have a British style mild, that has been fermenting for two weeks, that will be bottled on Friday.

And I brewed and bottled an ale Oktoberfest type beer which is almost gone..

So I dropped the ball on the pipeline.

So I ask again: How do you maintain your pipeline?

 

[Walker]

I brew 5 gallons every two weeks, because that matches my household consumption.

On brew day I:

- make a new batch
- rack the two week old batch to secondary
- keg the four week old batch
- drink from a full keg of the 6 week old batch
- drink from a half keg of the 8 week old batch

 

[lumpher]

walker has a good schedule . i just keep some quick beers, some slow beers, but always keep enough quick 1's made so i can replace them when they go dry

 

[passedpawn]

Brew often. Increase your batch size. Get more fermentors.

 

[metaltim]

it's just me and the woman here so we don't go through it too quick. however, i drink a variety, not the same keg until it's empty. I have 6 kegs, 4 for me, 2 for wife, she's even slower than me. so sometimes when i run out of one keg, my other 3 are probably getting close. so i'll end up brewing 4 times in a month, so they all get full again.

 

[Walker]

it's just me and the woman here so we don't go through it too quick.

My house is just me and the woman, too. She actually drinks more than I do.

 

[lumpher]

it's only me in my house, wife doesn't drink. of course my neighbors know i brew, and they get thirsty

 

[metaltim]

My house is just me and the woman, too. She actually drinks more than I do.

well yall are drinking 25 beers a week according to what you said.. that's much more than us.. i've cut down on weekday drinking lately, gotta prevent beer gut from getting any bigger. plus we go out 4-5 times a month, so that's a weekend night that I'm not drinking at home.

Of course, if we have people over it will put a dent in a keg or two..

 

[Walker]

well yall are drinking 25 beers a week according to what you said.. that's much more than us..

I'm going to debate your math here. 5 gallons of beer is 40 pints. We go through 80 pints in four weeks.

20 pints per week, split between two people, makes 10 pints per person per week.

We each have a pint of beer with dinner every night. That takes care of 7 of those 10 right off the bat. That leaves me 3 "flex" beers per week outside of the ones I have with my meals.

Without ever putting on the slightest buzz, we can easily drink 10 pints each per week.

 

[Pilgarlic]

Here's your surefire method: First, accumulate way too many bottles. Then, rather than managing toward the goal of keeping your pipeline from drying up, manage toward keeping that abundance of bottles full.

 

[Homebrewtastic]

Early in the year I like to brew heavily so that I have a good stock pile to get me through the spring and summer. Right now I'm brewing a batch every week or so.

Then during the summer months I'll brew heavier batches less frequently that are best with age on them so that they're ready to drink during the colder months.

As it stands I currently have around 15 cases of beer ready to drink, and about 5 cases aging. By April I should have around 25 - 30 cases of beer ready to be consumed.

I like to keep a lot of styles on hand. I just bottled a rye ale, a saison is fermenting and a dark mild is on deck. The next round is witbier, oktoberfest and belgian pale ale.

Ready to drink I have some kolsch, pale ale, tripel, porter, breakfast stout, Belgian IPA and soured saison.

Aging I have mead, barleywine, golden strong ale and a dark strong ale.

For me, the best way to go about it is to plan out three beers ahead and make yourself a brew schedule. When you're half way through consuming those three beers plan your next three and get those going as soon as possible. It also helps to have more than one fermenter.

 

[matpat]

My brew days are similar to Walker's except that I am trying to brew a 5g batch twice a week using quick turn-around recipes like Centennial Blonde. I prefer Pale Ales but the Centennial Blonde is going to make an excellent pool side quaffer this summer so I am brewing a lot of it now.

On brew day I:

- make a new 5g batch
- rack the 4 day old batch to secondary to cold crash/clarify for 3-4 days
- keg the 7-8 day old batch and carbonate for a week
- drink from a keg of whatever I have or some microbrew to stock up on bottles.

I currently have 5g of Centennial Blonde and 5g of Nierra Sevada on tap with another 5g of each in either primary or secondary. Since I only have two 6.5g carboys, two 5g carboys and 6 cornies this schedule is working out nicely for me so far. I hope to be able to keep up this schedule for the rest of this month then up-size my equipment in early March so I can make 10g batches each week alternating the Centennial Blonde with a Doggy Style Pale Ale clone, Oktoberfest and Porter. I'm hoping this will give me a nice stockpile of Centennial Blonde and Doggy Style (our favorite Pale Ale) for the summer months and some nice Porter and Oktoberfest for when fall rolls around. I plan to keg half of the 10g batches and bottle the other half...at least that is the plan for now.

 

[metaltim]

I'm going to debate your math here. 5 gallons of beer is 40 pints. We go through 80 pints in four weeks.

20 pints per week, split between two people, makes 10 pints per person per week.

HAHA ok well I'm going to challenge your UNITS!

A beer IMO is 12 oz. just like 90% of the beers you buy, and is what I was referring to (surprised you couldn't figure that out.. half a keg a week, 25 beers..)
I don't know what size all of the brewery glass I've collected over the years are, but when i used to pour my 12 oz. bottles in them, it would fill up perfectly, with about 1" of head..

So you drink 25 12 oz. beers a week, or 20 pints a week. there's two ways to skin a cat. Either way, that's more than us is all I'm saying. We drink about half that, with very few weekday drinks. I didn't say anything about getting a buzz.

 

[crypt0]

The biggest thing that helped me maintain a pipeline is upscaling to 10G batches. double the beer, same amount of work. I don't even do it all the time, just when the pipeline starts getting low

As others have said, having a couple spare fermenters kicking around doesnt hurt either.

 

[Walker]

HAHA ok well I'm going to challenge your UNITS!

A beer IMO is 12 oz. just like 90% of the beers you buy, and is what I was referring to (surprised you couldn't figure that out.. half a keg a week, 25 beers..)

90% of the beer I buy is on draft in a bar, and comes in a 16oz pint glass.

 

[brodie113]

Do you have the ability to keg? That helps since it cuts down on the carbonation time and you can just have full kegs on deck. For my household, consumption varies a lot from week to week and month to month so I tend to have a few carboys full of finished beer so when the kegs are getting low I have time to react.

Basically, I think you'll be fine once you build up a little stockpile. It is like the opposite of losing weight - you need to brew more than you are drinking for a little while and all of a sudden you'll have more than you can drink!

 

[RugenBrau]

I'm finding that the more I brew, the more visitors I have. I don't know if keeping the pipeline full is a possibilty right now.
I am tryingto put half of what I bottle away so that I can build up an inventory and then go from there. Right now I'm brewing about every ten days.

 

[tekknoschtev]

For me, what made it easier was the kegging setup. Having four kegs on tap (or the ability to have four kegs on tap) helped motivate me to brew more frequently. I've got 9 kegs, and having any empty is motivation enough for me to want to brew. Too bad things get in the way and I can't get them all full, but that's why I'm moving toward doing at least a few of my common recipes as 10-gallon batches. Filling 2 kegs from one session of brewing, without having to clean everything between batches sounds like a good ROI to me.

 

[jmf143]

I brew 5 gallons every two weeks, because that matches my household consumption.

On brew day I:

- make a new batch
- rack the two week old batch to secondary
- keg the four week old batch
- drink from a full keg of the 6 week old batch
- drink from a half keg of the 8 week old batch

This sounds like the makings of a story problem from junior high -

"If Walker is travleing on an east bound train brewing 5 gallons every 2 weeks . . . "

 

[Mongrel]

90% of the beer I buy is on draft in a bar, and comes in a 16oz pint glass.

Probably about 70% in pints at the bar for me. The rest comes in 1/2 gallon growlers or 22 oz bottles. Rarely buy 12 oz bottles.

 

[MikeMayhem]

I had a hard time keeping any kind of pipeline when I first started because originally homebrewing was something I went in doing with 2 other friends. The bug bit me much more than it bit them and I ended up being the guy who housed all the equipment, read all the material, and was dubbed the brewmaster on brew day. But even with all of that I still had to split the ales in thirds with them. I love those guys, but i've since phased them out of many of my other batches (and they don't mind too much, they join when they want). it's been a slow process but i'm trying to get a backlog going!

 

[TheMan]

I find it pretty simple. After you've been brewing a while you just know when you need to brew something to keep up with demand. It helps to know what you like and just keep some of that available at all times.

I try to keep an IPA, stout/porter, and pale/cream/blonde on tap at all times. This encompasses my favorite styles. When I notice my IPA is about a gallon left I brew another. By the time that keg is empty the fermented one is near ready. I don't often have more than one glass of the same brew in one night, so that last gallon is just enough for fermentation time. I keg, but you can follow this same idea with bottles just as easily.

Anything that needs extended aging or is experimental gets brewed when my kegs are pretty full and then bottled. I probably brew once a month, occasionally 2 to 3 times depending if more than one keg goes low.

I am planning a lager soon, so I know I need to have a healthy stock available since my fermentation freezer will be lagering and not suitable for most ales. So I brewed a couple extra in the past two weeks to be ahead of the game. While lagering I have a fresh keg to tap when something goes dry. Plan ahead and you'll keep plenty of brew on hand.

Oh, and I got started with this method:
Brew a couple batches and keep track of your stock. I set a 4 case minimum when I was new to this. When I only had 4 cases full of beer I knew I needed to brew.

 

[Acoma]

I plan on brewing more beer than I can consume. Much more in fact. Some of my buddies can throw them back like theres no more tomorrow.