Why Take so Long to Ferment your Beer?

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Brewmegoodbeer

Brewmegoodbeer

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I have seen many threads on here discussing appropriate time that it takes to ferment. Many say that they primary ferment for 2 weeks, then secondary ferment for another 2 to 3 weeks. For those who bottle, they’ll wait another week for if to bottle condition. 6 weeks to brew a beer?? I can go grain to glass in 2 weeks without off flavors. With all the science and experimentation on brewing (look at brulosophy.com) there is proof that some of you are taking way too long and can brew 3 times during your duration that you take to have 1 beer hanging out at the public bus terminal without money. If you make a starter and pitch the right amount of yeast, if you control the temperature appropriately, if you have a fermenter that allows a small surface contact of yeast cake to beer, if you keg and force carb, and if you don’t transfer to a secondary (a fastferment is like 70 bucks) there should be no reason to not be able to drink that beer within 2 weeks (unless you are brewing a very high gravity beer like 1.080+ or are soaking your beer in a whiskey barrel). I have a 1.060 milkshake ipa that I double dry hopped and added 4 pounds strawberries to that will be finished in 2 weeks. Look at the science behind beer and stop relying on methods that are outdated to brew. Rant over. Cheers :)
 
Well, maybe that's OK for the beers you brew, and maybe you're OK with the flavors that are produced.

I've had grain to glass in less than 3 weeks, and one of the best beers I've ever brewed was exactly that.

But many of my beers need conditioning time: at 2 weeks, green and sharp; at 3.5-4 weeks, wonderful. I have a pils on tap that is just wonderful but it needed lagering time.

Again, if you are OK with the flavor profiles of the beers you brew and drink within 2 weeks, that's fine. I wouldn't advise anyone that yours is the only way or even the best way, because my experience suggests it's not.
 
I try to match my process to one of a brewery as close as possible. a brewery would be out of business if they took 4 weeks to brew a standard beer. There is no “wrong” method but with understanding the appropriate methods to streamline your process and to make it the most efficient, there is no reason to take so long. some beers are faster than others. You check for a stable gravity over 3 days and you give 48 to 72 hours for the yeast to clean up after themselves. Check out brulosophy.com like I said. The researchers there brew award winning beers and take about 2 weeks grain to glass.
 
This thread is not to offend anyone and their process. To each his/her own. There is new science coming out on beer on a daily basis though that proves a lot of methods have been time consuming and do not make a difference to both brewers and judges, as there is no taste difference in blind triangle tests.
 
I'm always drinking my beers within 2 weeks. I don't brew big beers or dark beers so I suppose that makes a difference
What you might not be taking into consideration when trying to match a brewery is shelf time. Just because it left the brewery doesn't mean its being drank in to weeks. I'd say tack on at least a couple weeks just in shipping times and sitting on the shelf. Lots of beers have born on dates. I would find it unlikely anyone is drinking a beer within 2 weeks of that date.

What does "a fermenter with small contact with yeast cake" mean? I've never heard that before
 
It really depends on a lot of variables. I have had beers that hadn't finished fermenting for over 7 days. Many beers benefit from aging. I rarely have good bottle conditioning at one week and ALL of my bottled beers taste better at about 3 weeks conditioning. The darker beers take longer, sometimes much longer. So saying you can do a bottled beer in less than 2 weeks to me is not possible. YMMV.

I would say that the quick grain to glass is possible with an APA or such but impossible with a Russian Imperial Stout or the like.

But I will agree that those who insist that you MUST ferment your beer for at least a month are usually wasting good time.
 
Sure, you can ferment and serve quickly with temperature control and a big pitch.
I don't rush unless I get low on beer, which is rare. I can save effort and electricity with a standard pitch and natural temperature control. What's the hurry? My beer won't get stale if I leave it two more weeks. I also believe that the suggestion of three weeks fermenting is good advice for newer brewers, who rarely use ferm fridges or pro pitches.
 
I generally package most of my beers at about day 10-14. Many do that. But many like to leave their beers on the trub longer and like the flavor it imparts to their beers.

Either way is good. I make a lot of IPAs and hoppy APAs and I think they have great hoppy flavor when young.
 
jjw5015 said:
Why do you care so much what everyone else is doing? BTW my process is the same as yours.
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So he's not allowed to ask people on a forum that discusses homebrew methods about why they do the things the way they do? Questioning things and being inquisitive is how the human race evolves and moves forward. Not sure what the big deal is. It's just a discussion forum. He's not being rude to anyone. I'm confused as to where in his message you inferred that he "cares so much".
 
1) Brulosophy is a single, in-repeated data point, not a fact
2) Brewing is a fun hobby, not my job. My career takes priority since it allows me to brew. So if I have to travel for work, my beer may be in a fermentor longer.
3) I enjoy that people do things differently, that is one of the main ways I get ideas.
 
I've always wondered how big breweries spit out lagers so fast. My lagering takes at least 4 weeks after primary ferm and d rest are done.

Maybe I don't need to go that long. Dunno
 
We all have different equipment and we all do things differently based upon our equipment and what we learned is appropriate. Right when I started brewing, I was always interested in 3 things: time, efficiency, and of course quality. Ive upgraded as I have gone and use a fermentation fridge, a starter to pitch appropriate amounts of yeast, a conical to limit the trub/yeast cake contact with the beer, and kegs to carbonate and serve in. Every beer is different. Some take longer than others. There is no wrong way to do it. All im saying is if one is interested in streamlining, there is science out there that is updated day to day of brewing that proves older methods that may be more time consiming to be streamlined. Time is not necessarily a direct function of award winning beers. Beers can be highly approved of at 2 weeks.
 
It usually takes me 6-8 weeks grain to glass. I'm just not in that big a hurry. Once a pipeline is established, and I brew every 3 weeks or so, I've always got beer. I've chosen that extra time in favor of saving money, and I enjoy trying to brew with the seasons and use ambient temps within my house. Where this slows me down the most is bottling. Through the winter it takes 3-4 weeks before I can really get carbed up. I enjoy being frugal and DIY and don't get overly distracted by all the shiny goodies, at least not enough to open my wallet. I don't brew my own beer to save money, but the way I like to do it inherently does that. I'm still brewing with a lot of the stuff I bought 10+ years ago, and I feel like my buckets and tamale pot make pretty decent beer
 
Shwagger said:
I've always wondered how big breweries spit out lagers so fast. My lagering takes at least 4 weeks after primary ferm and d rest are done.

Maybe I don't need to go that long. Dunno
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Most of them don't lager properly. At least what we have come to understand the definition of that is. There's a local brewery here in Cincinnati that puts out a "lager" that is fermented with lager yeast at ale temps and not lagered at all.
 
Budweiser is the best in the business, they take 31 days from grain to bottle.
Of course this is a lager where it takes 7 days to ferment opposed to 3 for an ale.
 
Time is as much as an ingredient in beer as water, malt, hops, and yeast are. I'm about four weeks for a typical ale, however I brewed a saison in July and didn't bottle until August/September. My baltic porter finished lagering last weekend, and is now hanging out, oxidizing in a whiskey barrel. I brewed it Dec 30. Just as my grain bill and hop schedule are variable, so is my time.
 
Brewmegoodbeer said:
If you make a starter and pitch the right amount of yeast, if you control the temperature appropriately, if you have a fermenter that allows a small surface contact of yeast cake to beer, if you keg and force carb, and if you don’t transfer to a secondary (a fastferment is like 70 bucks) there should be no reason to not be able to drink that beer within 2 weeks (unless you are brewing a very high gravity beer like 1.080+ or are soaking your beer in a whiskey barrel).
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I always try to have a single hop, double dry hopped IPA on tap. For that beer:

7-8 days in conical for fermentation
1-2 days gradually lowering temperature to ~40F
3-5 days dry hop in conical
keg it up with second dry hops in keg
3-5 days minimum before tapping, but I've generally found the flavor most enjoyable after about 10-14 days

= ~17 days minimum, but ~25 days for the best flavor. If I slip a day or two because I'm busy and don't have time to do a step, that becomes 4 weeks pretty easily.

Can I drink this beer in 2 weeks? Sure. Do I want to? Not as much as I want to drink it after 4 weeks.
 
I bottle and I have never been able to rush a beer. I use liquid yeast starters and over pitch, I use fermentation temp control, but I generally brew beers that require some aging to come together and in my experience; if I attempt to bottle quick and cellar in bottle, the result is not near as good as just leaving the yeast in primary for an additional week. I also average about 8% ABV in my brews and many are saisons / belgians. My dark strong didn't come into its own until about 8 months in bottle.

Even my lighter 6% IPAs/APAs generally get 2 weeks to ferment / clean up, then 4 days dry hop, then bottle condition for 3 weeks for correct carbonation and then I start tasting. There is noticeable difference every single time between a beer 3 weeks into the bottle and 4 weeks into the bottle so I've basically stopped tasting at 3 weeks and just give it that extra week it needs.

There's certainly nothing wrong with the beer at 3 weeks (6 weeks post brewday), no off flavors or the like, but its not as good as it could be so why rush it and waste it drinking a decent bottle when I could just wait and drink a great bottle. Especially when I have a stockpile of like 15 gallons of beer in my basement. And maybe you could say that my experience is anecdotal, but I've got nearly 50 brews under my belt and time needed for beer completion is a constant that's remained for the past 5 years now. I think at this point in my brewing hobby I can be confident in say that the phrase "you can turn a beer around grain to glass in as little as 4 weeks" is a busted myth.

Edit: I have attempted to brew for an event on three separate occasions now. Yeast know when you are doig this and purposely get lazy. In all three of those times (2 batches per event so 6 total batches) I had to wait a legitimate 3-4 weeks in primary before those little buggers finally got to FG. Sometimes it happens even when pitching a correct sized starter and controlling temps...especially with some Belgian strains that slowly tick down the points for a good 3 weeks after primary fermentation has slowed.
 
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I have done a few brewery tours and they can turn a beer out in week, but that is to bottling. Given the distribution time, warehousing time, time on the shelf at the store, etc, that is where the aging comes in.

I know when I keg my beer the best best beer is almost always the last glass poured.
 
Two weeks on my APAs but I prefer a couple more weeks to bottle condition. I could crank my beers out faster if I had a lab propagating a perfect pitch for me and a DE filter and centrifuge to help scrub my beer before packaging. Hey SS Brewtech..... How about youz guyz come out with a Homebrew scale 10 gallon centrifuge in the price range of..... let's say $299.00
 
I'm almost always in a keg and carbed by day 14 +/- a couple. Even with my hoppy beers though I'm not drinking until day 21-28 because I've found it gets a little better with a little time. If I'm out of beer I'll start earlier, If I still have plenty from previous batches I let it ride, if it's one that needs to age it'll occupy the corner of my keezer for the better part of a year. I do like to get my beers tucked away in a keg and cold pretty quickly though, I don't like the idea of them sitting around on trub at room temp protected by nothing but some old starsan for months on end.
 
Different beers take different amounts of time. I brew NEIPAs that are carbed and drinkable in 12 days but are better in about 20. I don't want an imperial stout or lager in that timeframe.

If you pay attention and sample along the way, the beer tells you when is ready.
 
I do not have kegs, as it does not suit what I do with the beer I am brewing, so I bottle.

I drank beers at day 15-18 from pitching, which were carbonated and ready to drink. These were mostly low-ish ABV beers, with medium to high charges of hops. I also enjoy IPAs and similar styles, young and not giving them to much time to go stale.

But most beers take like 5-7 days to ferment ( at least this is what I choose to allow teh yeast ) then another 5 days at a slightly elevated temp. so the yeast can finish. With 2-4 days of cold crashing, I can bottle at days 14-15 and have the beer ready 7-10 days after. They usually carbonate pretty fast and never had issues with not enough or lack of carbonation, even with beers over 7-8%.
 
I agree with the OP's point, but like most everyone else on here I don't consume, share, ship, pass out enough to warrant expediting the process. I see no value in sitting on umpteen gallons of beer so I just plan accordingly.
 
MapleGroveAleworks said:
So he's not allowed to ask people on a forum that discusses homebrew methods about why they do the things the way they do? Questioning things and being inquisitive is how the human race evolves and moves forward. Not sure what the big deal is. It's just a discussion forum. He's not being rude to anyone. I'm confused as to where in his message you inferred that he "cares so much".
Click to expand...

Brewmegoodbeer said:
MapleGrovesAleWorks, Thank you sir! I simply want to start a conversation about our methods.
Click to expand...

Maybe I didn't read carefully enough, but I too took it more as a confrontational post saying that you should go grain to glass as quickly as possible and that anyone who primary longer or use a secondary, etc. are doing it wrong. Sorry if I mistook the message.

As I previously stated, some take the fermentation time to extreme. Others, IMO, unnecessarily try to shave time. Possibly to the detriment of the beer if you take style into account.

Many of my beers get extended primary times, not because of intent but because of procrastination. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...y-apparently-5-months-is-not-too-long.621287/
 
kh54s10 said:
Maybe I didn't read carefully enough, but I too took it more as a confrontational post saying that you should go grain to glass as quickly as possible and that anyone who primary longer or use a secondary, etc. are doing it wrong. Sorry if I mistook the message.
Click to expand...

That's how it read to me as well...choice of words I suppose
 
kh54s10 said:
Most home brewers cannot match what a brewery does because they have vastly different equipment.
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that's ok with me, since my beer tastes better to me and my frirends than most commercial beers.

for the OP, i have gone both ways, but I'm starting to find I get better clarity and smoother flavor by leaving the beer another week before bottling even tho it's pretty well fermented out by 7-10 days. it appears that the yeast is continuing to work during this period cleaning up minor off-flavors or 'green-ness'.

but if you can't taste the difference, there's no reason to wait.... unless you are just busy and feel like waiting.
 
FWIW I just made a Goose Island IPA clone from an online recipe with a twist
I just got done filtering and racking 20 minutes ago and pulled a sample pint.
8 days from brew date.
I used Fuggles at flame out for the first time and to me it taste just like a Sierra Nevada. It doesn't need any more time as it taste awesome and remarkably fresh.

So today I say...short works
 
I brew several beers that are 7-10 or 10-14 days from brew day to the keg. These include a blonde and a cream ale, a couple of milds, and nice low gravity Northern English Brown, and a very drinkable low gravity stout. Colors are not an issue. I can, have, and probably will again force the bubbles home. But generally I leave my beers alone to grow bubbles over a 1-2 week period. And of course if i bottle finish it will take what it will take. But i also have beers that simply taste bad if i follow that schedule. My Guinness Foreign Export knock of flat stinks at 10 days to two weeks - I have tried. My families favorite American Brown takes a fair piece too. There are others. I don't do many IPA's and never do these hyper-hopped brews everyone seems to love these days. SO taking advantage of all those hops ASAP is not a priority. My 2-hearted clone is usually in the keg in 10 days or so, and I am usually drinking hard on it in a week or less on the gas. They are what they are - they take what they take. I don't begrudge the extra time on some - it is all part of the game. Hell if i was in a hurry all the time, I never would have started all those little batches of Yooper's Banana Wine!!!
 
Brewmegoodbeer said:
I have seen many threads on here discussing appropriate time that it takes to ferment. Many say that they primary ferment for 2 weeks, then secondary ferment for another 2 to 3 weeks. For those who bottle, they’ll wait another week for if to bottle condition. 6 weeks to brew a beer?? I can go grain to glass in 2 weeks without off flavors. With all the science and experimentation on brewing (look at brulosophy.com) there is proof that some of you are taking way too long and can brew 3 times during your duration that you take to have 1 beer hanging out at the public bus terminal without money. If you make a starter and pitch the right amount of yeast, if you control the temperature appropriately, if you have a fermenter that allows a small surface contact of yeast cake to beer, if you keg and force carb, and if you don’t transfer to a secondary (a fastferment is like 70 bucks) there should be no reason to not be able to drink that beer within 2 weeks (unless you are brewing a very high gravity beer like 1.080+ or are soaking your beer in a whiskey barrel). I have a 1.060 milkshake ipa that I double dry hopped and added 4 pounds strawberries to that will be finished in 2 weeks. Look at the science behind beer and stop relying on methods that are outdated to brew. Rant over. Cheers :)
Click to expand...

I think alot has to do with the system people are using. With a higher level system, 2 weeks is much more possible. Sometimes process dominated and if a week is what it takes to do a single step, a week it is.
 
Shwagger said:
I've always wondered how big breweries spit out lagers so fast. My lagering takes at least 4 weeks after primary ferm and d rest are done.

Maybe I don't need to go that long. Dunno
Click to expand...

finings and filtration.
 
quite possibly. instant benefits. the issue is that on a 15 or 30bbl batch the losses are negligible. on 5 gallons probably alot more painful.

and folks would really need to up their game about oxygen avoiding or you risk dulling the beer you just attempted to brighten.

have a few items ive come across in the filtration world that are food grade and could be adapted to homebrew i think. just havent had time to really research.
 

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