Speed Brewing?

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Orfy

For the love of beer!
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Does any one have any tips comments suggestions on doing a speedy brew?

Do you stick to 1,2,3 time scales?

1 week primary
2 week secondary
3 week bottle?

I have done 10 day primary and 10 days in a keg for a session beer at around 3%.

Is there a viable way to kick out a quick beer?
 
I make a pale ale that spends a week in the primary, is kegged and then force carbonated. I am drinking it in less than two weeks. It would surely benefit from a secondary, but is very drinkable.
 
To be honest, my pipeline dried up and I have kegged both an IPA and a stout straight away following primary fermentation and applied the CO2. The IPA was drinkable as soon as it carb'ed, but predictably became much better in the following couple of weeks. I'm sure given a proper schedule it would have been great out of the gate.

The stout was brewed later and is still carb'ing, but samples indicate that I will also drink it as soon as it's ready, though I'm sure it also will improve with age if it survives.

Had my pipeline not dried up I wouldn't have known, but it did so I do. I'll get back to my secondary carboy step with my rye PA.

The bottom line to all this rambling is that it's possible with any normal beer, but with substandard (albeit acceptable) results. I don't brew anything below around 4.5% (intentionally, anyways) so can't say on those (nothing against 'em, I just don't brew them).
 
When I saw the topic of your post, my hope was that we would discuss time saving tips for brew day. Right now, I do back to back 10 gallon batches and it takes a good 8-9 hours. I really should try batch sparging.
 
I can do an AG in around 5 hours

Cleaning, prep, set up 30 minutes.
Mash 90 minutes
Sparge 20 minutes
Boil 80 minutes
Coil 30 minutes
Pitch 10 minutes
Clear up 30 minutes
 
orfy said:
I can do an AG in around 50 hours

Cleaning, prep, set up 30 minutes.
Mash 90 minutes
Sparge 20 minutes
Boil 80 minutes
Coil 30 minutes
Pitch 10 minutes
Clear up 30 minutes
Sounds about right.
Questions:
You boil for 80 minutes? Does that include the time to bring a batch to boiling? I boil for an hour and it takes about 40 minutes to get there (10+ gallons).
Sparge 20 minutes? Must be a batch sparge. My fly sparge takes close to an hour and that is where I think I can save significant time.
 
Yup, 20 minutes to boil (7g) 60 minutes from 1st hop addition.

I batch sparge. Makes for simple equipment, less work, never had a problem with the wort gravity.
I either add a little more grain or just take the ale a little lighter or sparge with a little less water.
 
Lower ABV ales will almost always be ready faster. Browns and Milds lend themselves to faster brewing. I'd shoot for <4% and use a huge starter. Keep the temperature near the middle of the yeast's range. Even so, four weeks is about the minimum.
 
Well, this was a fast one, thanks to the abnormal virility of the yeast.... but, took the usual five hours to go from grind to fermentor, active fermentation within three hours.... (go figure!)... then, fermentation (also abnormally huge!) seems to have stopped after three days. (SG 62, TG 17). Keg. Artificial carbonation and settling- two days. Draw first pint (yeast laden and quite yummy, and for myself of course, so's not to poison my wife or friends) on the evening of the sixth day after brewing. The rest is bliss.

This is not normal. But, in a pinch, I can usually get a batch out and into the pint glasses within two weeks.... The beer's a bit green, I guess, and is better after three or four weeks, but who can wait that long?

Most batches- three weeks- brew to consumtion.

cheers, cheers, p

ps. I'm intrigued by those who can brew a batch in 4 hours... how long a mash? how long a boil?
 
cha ngo said:
Sounds about right.
Questions:
You boil for 80 minutes? Does that include the time to bring a batch to boiling? I boil for an hour and it takes about 40 minutes to get there (10+ gallons).
Sparge 20 minutes? Must be a batch sparge. My fly sparge takes close to an hour and that is where I think I can save significant time.


Just edited!!!! 5 hours not 50 hours.
 
orfy said:
Just edited!!!! 5 hours not 50 hours.
I figured.
I am trying real hard not to correct people who make obvious typos.

Also - Perry: Right on brother! Who can wait 4 weeks for their beer to age?
Brew fast, drink young.
 
Last weizen I did took 1 week to ferment, then I put it in to keg and primed with leftover wort. Let sit for another week and had fresh on tap in 2 weeks. Nice easy beer. Gearing up for another brew day tomorrow.
 
My next brew is going to be a hefeweizen, which should be ready in two weeks (one week in primary, one week conditioning/carbonating). I'm not going to add any priming sugar when conditioning - the last ale I conditioned straight from primary without sugar carbonated a treat after a week - guess it's classed as a "real ale" if carbonated without sugar?
 
I brewed a 10 gallons of mild on Sunday with an OG of 1.033. I plan to have this in the corny by the weekend. Beers of this OG only take a week to brew; no need to wait 4 weeks for mild unless you're bottle conditioning.

Blighty, it's still "real ale" as long as it's secondary fermented in the cask/bottle it's served in.

BYO did a nice article on this:

http://***********/feature/1476.html
 
As far as shaving time off your brew day, you can always turn your water heater WAY up and basically mash in first thing. The dial has a little knob on the back and if you remove that you can get 170 degree water out of the tank. Obviously you have to be very careful, warn the family, make little signs for all the faucets and remember to turn it down, but it works great. Just calibrate it the first time so you can know what you are doing.

Also, if you heat your kettle during the sparge that cuts some time. Cleaning and pleping while other things are going on helps.
 
The simple definition of real ale for me is.

Brewed from malted grain, hops water and yeast. (With adjuncts)
Carbonated naturally with the addition of wort/malt (or maybe even sugar) on bottling/casking/kegging.
The addition of CO2 to dispense only.

That is "cask conditioned beer". (It may well be distributed in a keg)
It can be served from the keg by a hand pump and no CO2 pressure. Or with help from CO2 from a tap

The same beer force carbonated is "Kegged beer"
Served from a tap.
 
Does any one have any tips comments suggestions on doing a speedy brew?

Do you stick to 1,2,3 time scales?

1 week primary
2 week secondary
3 week bottle?

I have done 10 day primary and 10 days in a keg for a session beer at around 3%.

Is there a viable way to kick out a quick beer?

Hi Orfy,
I know this is about 7 years later than your original question, but BYO had an article in May/June 2006 about Speed Brewing written by Chris Colby.
http://byo.com/stories/techniques/article/indices/19-brewing-tips/1429-speed-brewing

I brewed it today. We'll see!
 
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