Trying to understand cold crash & force carb

[Marsdude]

We have a couple of local microbrewery's, and several brew pubs. I was surprised to find that they can ferment and force carb in (sometimes) less than two weeks!

I was talking with a local home brewer and he told me he will be done with fermentation of some beers around three days. He will then cold crash and force carb his beer for a week in the keg. I have not tasted his beer but his friend said it was really good. He said he makes a yeast starter and oxygenates his wort very well before pitching and that gives him the shorter fermentation times.

Is this correct? I have been considering going to a kegging system mostly so I could cold crash the beer and force carb. Suggestions?

 

[TipsyDragon]

having adequate aeration, yeast pitch rate, and temp will speed fermentation. and cold crashing will drop the yeast out in a hurry when your done with them.

i often wonder how the big boys can serve their beer so quickly. i let mine sit for 3 weeks in the carboy. then another 3 in the bottle. granted i can cut that last 3 weeks by force carbing but still.

 

[Reelale]

We have a couple of local microbrewery's, and several brew pubs. I was surprised to find that they can ferment and force carb in (sometimes) less than two weeks!

I was talking with a local home brewer and he told me he will be done with fermentation of some beers around three days. He will then cold crash and force carb his beer for a week in the keg. I have not tasted his beer but his friend said it was really good. He said he makes a yeast starter and oxygenates his wort very well before pitching and that gives him the shorter fermentation times.

Is this correct? I have been considering going to a kegging system mostly so I could cold crash the beer and force carb. Suggestions?

All I can say is if beer is "good" after 3 days fermentation and 1 week cold crashing/carbing, it will be great with a normal 10-20 (or longer) day primary fermentation followed by a 2 week cold-crash/aging/set and forget force carbonation. I like to use the set and forget method in conjunction with the cold crash. I think that giving the beer this bright tank type treatment really helps it out. IMHO, beer is still way to green after 3 days.

 

[Hammy71]

It has a lot to do with the ingredients used as well as the original gravity. A beer like BM's Cream of Three Crops can go from all grain pot, to tap in 2-3 weeks with crash cooling/gelatin/kegging. But a beer like my double chocolate oatmeal stout can easily take 3-4 months before I consider it perfect. General rule: The lighter the ingredients, (the lower the OG), the quicker the brew will be ready. Hence why the big boys can make a lager in weeks. See: Bud 55

 

[Marsdude]

I don't disagree with the previous posts, however the beers that I have been talking about are not BMC beers. New Belgium is made locally. So is Odell's. I was told by the guy who runs my LHBS and attached brew pub that New Belgium can bottle a beer in just about a week! Now I understand that NB has equipment that a homebrewer would not have. But both NB and Odell's create award winning beers in this fashion.

I was just thinking it might be an interesting experiment and was wondering if anyone else was doing a short fermentation.

 

[Budzu]

I myself have not experimented with it, but no doubt if you are serious about seeing how short you can go, the move to make is filtering. It will do what the cold crash can do (and more) without the time involved. It isn't the same as aging of course, but similar in that you do remove alot of the stuff that makes a beer taste "green". Things are removed like suspended yeast, proteins, polyphenols, but NOT acetaldehyde or diacetyl. So, good pitch, big oxygen, controlled ferm temp, filtering, force carbing likely will be your shortest path.
I wouldn't doubt that new belgium is filtering if they are bottling in 1 week.

 

[Bobby_M]

High pitch rates, fine temp control and filtering. What's the hurry again?

 

[Marsdude]

High pitch rates, fine temp control and filtering. What's the hurry again?

Point taken.

I just thought it might be fun to fool around with this method.

 

[Hethen57]

In my experience, I have not had a hoppy IPA taste like really good beer in less than 6 weeks (they taste like potentially good watery beer). However, my Creme of 3 Crops Ale tasted watery at 2 weeks, carbed and OK at 3, and great at 4 weeks. Like others have said, there are many variables, but if you are going to all the effort of brewing and fermenting, wait til it's ready.

 

[bfeucht]

I agree with the beer only gets better for the patient. That being said nothing wrong with cold crash and force carb if you fridge is empty and you're thirsty. Just make sure you keep the fementor full so you can get a few more weeks on it next batch.

 

[OldManHouston]

I know this thread is a little stale but I just came across it after tasting the hydro sample from an IPA I brewed 6 days ago. This 6 day old beer tastes like something I would like to drink a couple glasses of! I still plan to rack it and dry hop it so I'm going to keg and carb it up just yet... but it is tempting. My kegerator is full right now anyway so I'm in no hurry.

I would think that the beer tasting this good after just 6 days with zero noticeable off-flavors is attributed to pitching the proper amount of yeast, pitching at the proper temperature, and holding the temperature steady throughout primary fermentation. I recently started making yeast starters and cooled this wort down more than I usually do before pitching the yeast (my DIY immersion chiller was made from only 20 ft of copper so I have a hard time cooling properly).

So to echo the statements above, pitching the proper amount of yeast and holding proper fermentation temperature are probably the biggest factors in getting great tasting beer in the shortest amount of time.... that being said, my strategy is to brew as much as possible to build up a proper pipeline so I never feel the need to rush a batch.