Pipeline Timing

[DirtBagRob]

I have a question for you seasoned brewers (probably more for those with multiple beers on tap). I have a four tap kegerator with room in the fridge for 5 kegs. Keeping the pipeline full isn't the issue; I have 7 fermenters and usually brew every other weekend. The issue is my timing is crap. I usually end up drinking a full keg of green beer and the last 5 pints are phenomenal.

My question is, can you predict when your brew is going to hit its sweet spot of deliciousness? A keg usually lasts 3-5 weeks in my kegerator and I'd like to be able to tap a beer, have a week of green-ness, 3 weeks of magic, and maybe a week of "meh". Is this possible? I know alot of it has to do with style, but what is the main ingredient(s) that determines when the best time to drink a brew is? The only rules I really know are big beers take a while and IPAs and wheats are good young but I'd like to get a little more accuracy than that.

I pretty much brew, and like, every type of ale (no ferm temp control yet) and I am looking for a way to plan out the pipeline in an efficient way. Thanks for reading and happy memorial day to my fellow vets. Everyone have a homebrew for those who've lost their lives in the pursuit of freedom.

 

[eastoak]

get some ferm temp control, that will improve everything else. stop drinking your green beer, that should solve your, uh, green beer problem.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

If you have room for 5 kegs and 4 taps... Put the 5th keg under CO2 and let it age until one of the 4 taps kicks. If your #5 hadn't had at least a week (or two), then withhold from serving from it. Don't hook the out line.

M_C

I have a question for you seasoned brewers (probably more for those with multiple beers on tap). I have a four tap kegerator with room in the fridge for 5 kegs. Keeping the pipeline full isn't the issue; I have 7 fermenters and usually brew every other weekend. The issue is my timing is crap. I usually end up drinking a full keg of green beer and the last 5 pints are phenomenal.

My question is, can you predict when your brew is going to hit its sweet spot of deliciousness? A keg usually lasts 3-5 weeks in my kegerator and I'd like to be able to tap a beer, have a week of green-ness, 3 weeks of magic, and maybe a week of "meh". Is this possible? I know alot of it has to do with style, but what is the main ingredient(s) that determines when the best time to drink a brew is? The only rules I really know are big beers take a while and IPAs and wheats are good young but I'd like to get a little more accuracy than that.

I pretty much brew, and like, every type of ale (no ferm temp control yet) and I am looking for a way to plan out the pipeline in an efficient way. Thanks for reading and happy memorial day to my fellow vets. Everyone have a homebrew for those who've lost their lives in the pursuit of freedom.

 

[DirtBagRob]

I guess I shouldn't have used the term green cause I don't drink it 2 weeks after I make it or anything like that, I just end up drinking most of it before its in its prime. I assure you, if it was green in a bad way I wouldn't drink it. I wish I had more taps, but I don't, so I'm just wondering if there are particular malts, grains, or yeasts or any other factors that determine how long a beer will continue to improve. For example, I don't mind letting beer sit in the fermenter for 6 months but I don't want it to sit there wasting away if it would be better at 3 months. If there really isn't a way to guesstimate this, thats fine, but I don't know thats why I'm asking. I like variety so I'd rather not have a tap sitting dormant while a beer ages.

 

[mlyday]

Painters Tape on the keg with a dont drink until date. Just dont hook it up.

 

[bull8042]

Hey DirtBag, I usually go by experience and don't really know of a chart per se that would be of any benefit for you.
Let me see if I can shuttle a little help over here for you..... Hang on.

 

[DirtBagRob]

Painters Tape on the keg with a dont drink until date. Just dont hook it up.

Thats pretty much what I do. But my problem is I end up putting the wrong date on the tape. Maybe I'm the only one who is bothered by this issue. I just hate having the last three pints off a keg being the best because I know if I would have waited another week to tap the keg, I would have had 12 pints of ideal beer. If the only solution is to make the same beer over and over until you know when it will be in its prime, then I'm screwed cause I've made about 20 batches and haven't even made the same style twice, let alone the same recipe.

 

[sirhc1210]

I'd make a brew-log, on each recipe/procedure make a note of when the "3 weeks of magic" were after the brew day. after several brews with known sweet spots then stagger your rebrew of them and make the "do not drink before" type labels for each.

Could try that with 2 or 3 beers in a rotation you're particularly fond of and use your other fermenters and kegs for new experimental brews =P

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Let me see if I can shuttle a little help over here for you..... Hang on.

Add oats. Keep the "G" silent.

Hey DirtBag, I usually go by experience and don't really know of a chart per se that would be of any benefit for you.

There is a chart. But I forget the name. It's actually a HomeBrew Calendar. Style and timeline based. Very seasonal beer oriented but effectively lays out when one should start a brew for a style to be ready to drink in the season it is most commonly associated with.

Google some phrases. "Beer Style Calendar", etc...

 

[DirtBagRob]

I'd make a brew-log, on each recipe/procedure make a note of when the "3 weeks of magic" were after the brew day. after several brews with known sweet spots then stagger your rebrew of them and make the "do not drink before" type labels for each.

Could try that with 2 or 3 beers in a rotation you're particularly fond of and use your other fermenters and kegs for new experimental brews =P

Ya, thats actually what I'm doing right now as far as the tasting notes go but I think I have some type of disease that doesn't allow my to do something over again in hopes of improving it. Because of my experimenting nature my thought process goes something like this: "I really love Irish reds but I haven't made an Imperial Apricot Dunkelweizen Stout yet. I can make an Irish red anytime." Thats why I was kind of hoping there was a chart or spreadsheet like bull8042 mentioned. If not, I'll make one, but its going to take a few decades for me to make multiple batches of everything I brew.

 

[bull8042]

Add oats. Keep the "G" silent.



There is a chart. But I forget the name. It's actually a HomeBrew Calendar. Style and timeline based. Very seasonal beer oriented but effectively lays out when one should start a brew for a style to be ready to drink in the season it is most commonly associated with.

Google some phrases. "Beer Style Calendar", etc...

Thanks Gila.

You are my hero. Just don't tell anyone I said that.

 

[DirtBagRob]

Add oats. Keep the "G" silent.



There is a chart. But I forget the name. It's actually a HomeBrew Calendar. Style and timeline based. Very seasonal beer oriented but effectively lays out when one should start a brew for a style to be ready to drink in the season it is most commonly associated with.

Google some phrases. "Beer Style Calendar", etc...

Thanks alot! Thats what I was looking for earlier but I was going about the search in the wrong way.

 

[Wakadaka]

I might just be misreading, but it sounds like you are thinking that after a certain number of weeks your beer won't be as good as it was a few weeks earlier.

From my experience that hasn't been the case. I bottle, but I know for me the longer I can wait before drinking them the better they are. But usually the biggest change is from bottling day to about 2-4 weeks. I don't know if it is the same for kegging or not. But then from there they are slowly getting better, or maybe I just end up enjoying the style more over the next 3 months. I don't know what happens after that, because I haven't aged anything longer than that.

The only circumstance where something isn't necessarily going to improve with additional age is dry hopped beers and wheats apparently. Otherwise I don't think most beers have a 'best before' date. Or at least that date is not under a year from brew day.

 

[DirtBagRob]

I might just be misreading, but it sounds like you are thinking that after a certain number of weeks your beer won't be as good as it was a few weeks earlier.

From my experience that hasn't been the case. I bottle, but I know for me the longer I can wait before drinking them the better they are. But usually the biggest change is from bottling day to about 2-4 weeks. I don't know if it is the same for kegging or not. But then from there they are slowly getting better, or maybe I just end up enjoying the style more over the next 3 months. I don't know what happens after that, because I haven't aged anything longer than that.

The only circumstance where something isn't necessarily going to improve with additional age is dry hopped beers and wheats apparently. Otherwise I don't think most beers have a 'best before' date. Or at least that date is not under a year from brew day.

You are reading exactly right. I thought this might be the case but I don't have a lot of brews under my belt so I wasn't sure. I did have an amber that definitely had a "best before date", it was somewhere around 5 months when it started going down hill, that was when I was bottling though. It could have been some part of my personal procedures that messed that one up though, I don't know.

 

[Wakadaka]

Alright cool. I thought thats what it was looking like, but I wasn't sure because nobody was saying anything about it.

I wouldn't worry about not finishing beers before they start to get worse. The only way I could see that possibly happening was if it just wasn't good to start with. The hard part is waiting to start drinking it, not drinking it too slowly haha.

And as the saying goes, the last pint is always the best.

 

[kpr121]

I think alot of people try to keep at least twice as much beer in the fermenter/conditioning as they have taps. I have two taps, so I want to have at least 4 batches in some fermenting/conditioning/lagering state. This seems to keep the green beer drinking to a minimum.

Of course you need to add in buffers and extra kegs for parties, or if you have some beers that require long term aging. For me, I don't even consider these beers as part of my 'pipeline'.

Right now my pipeline is running a little low, since I have two beers on tap, 10 gallons conditioning, and another 10 gallons locked up for my brothers graduation party in June. I probably wont be able to brew up another 10 gallons this weekend, so I may raise my commercial-to-homebrew consumption ratio up over the next week, in hopes that the pipeline will not turn green.

I dont know if that last paragraph made any sense to anyone else, but I got flashes in my head of a nice computer program that shows all of you beer in different states, when they are 'ready' they turn from green to their BCJB recommended color. That would be a sweet add-in for BeerSmith. I don;t really like its calender view as it currently operates.

 

[vnakkar]

My question is, can you predict when your brew is going to hit its sweet spot of deliciousness? A keg usually lasts 3-5 weeks in my kegerator and I'd like to be able to tap a beer, have a week of green-ness, 3 weeks of magic, and maybe a week of "meh". Is this possible?

How long are you fermenting? For most every ale I brew I do 3-week primary, then cold-crashed & into the keg for 3 weeks to slow carb at 12 psi. I've been real happy with the 3 + 3 schedule, with things really good at the 4th week in the keg.

 

[beaksnbeer]

I have a question for you seasoned brewers (probably more for those with multiple beers on tap). I have a four tap kegerator with room in the fridge for 5 kegs. Keeping the pipeline full isn't the issue; I have 7 fermenters and usually brew every other weekend. The issue is my timing is crap. I usually end up drinking a full keg of green beer and the last 5 pints are phenomenal.

My question is, can you predict when your brew is going to hit its sweet spot of deliciousness? A keg usually lasts 3-5 weeks in my kegerator and I'd like to be able to tap a beer, have a week of green-ness, 3 weeks of magic, and maybe a week of "meh". Is this possible? I know alot of it has to do with style, but what is the main ingredient(s) that determines when the best time to drink a brew is? The only rules I really know are big beers take a while and IPAs and wheats are good young but I'd like to get a little more accuracy than that.

I pretty much brew, and like, every type of ale (no ferm temp control yet) and I am looking for a way to plan out the pipeline in an efficient way. Thanks for reading and happy memorial day to my fellow vets. Everyone have a homebrew for those who've lost their lives in the pursuit of freedom.

You need more kegs 7 fermenters and 5 kegs is your problem. I have 14 kegs and 8 taps, 6 fermenters. Or your drinking to much

 

[DirtBagRob]

Or your drinking to much

Is that frowned upon?

I only have space in my kegerator for 5 kegs but I have 12 kegs. I found a list on another thread that says when to brew a beer and when to drink, esentially giving a time frame to hit the sweet spot. According to that list I was WAY off on most of the beers I've made as far as guessing when they would be ready to drink. I think I have a good idea what to do now. Now I just need to brew a bunch of quick turn around beers to keep the pipeline full until the 30 gallons I have in fermenters are ready. Guess its time for a few more fermenters and some more brewing.

 

[beaksnbeer]

I brewed 3 days a week ran nine fermenters to start SWMBO said whole house doesn't need to smell like a brewery man the beer smell killed candles, sprays, insense sticks NOW she misses the smell

 

[koerd85]

Thats pretty much what I do. But my problem is I end up putting the wrong date on the tape. Maybe I'm the only one who is bothered by this issue. I just hate having the last three pints off a keg being the best because I know if I would have waited another week to tap the keg, I would have had 12 pints of ideal beer. If the only solution is to make the same beer over and over until you know when it will be in its prime, then I'm screwed cause I've made about 20 batches and haven't even made the same style twice, let alone the same recipe.

That's y diddle-doodle, u have to record, break it down scientifically-like, ales are drinkable in 3 weeks, lagers 12 or more.

 

[rico567]

I agree with those who have said that having adequate containers is the solution- it was for me. And I don't keg. I needed more fermenters, more bottles, and more shelf space. That lengthened out the pipeline, and after that I had no more issues.

 

[PGHBrew]

I typically make ales < 1060. Generally speaking I do a 4 week primary, cold crash for a few days, keg and carb at 30 psi for 2 days and then turn it down to 12 psi for serving. It usually takes about a week at 12 psi for the carbonation to balance out nice but the beer is still good for a couple pints if I don't want to wait. I don't have any complaints about quality. I do think you need some type of temp control for a better turnover rate. I use a temp controlled fridge. Cheers!