Witbier/Hefe... Primary in 7 Days?

[thadius856]

Just got invited to a party on Memorial Day. Need to brew some beer for the party in a hurry. Beers that are crowd pleasers... when the crowd is BMC drinkers. Initial recon seems that most like the pseudo-BMC as well (faux-craft, if you prefer). Shock Top varietals, Blue Moon varietals, etc. Should be easy, right?

Problem is, I want to take 4 beers, I have 30 days, and only two temp controlled fermenters. Clearly, this means I'm going to have to focus on beers where clarity is not a factor.

Here's my thinking. I brewed up a Blue Moon clone yesterday with WLP 400. I'm brewing a Bavarian Hefe today with WY 3068. Both yeasts operate in the higher temp ranges (400: 67-74F; 3068: 64-75). I think if I get banana off-flavors, nobody in this crowd will notice. I think I can push these two beers to a 7 day primary, transfer to secondary for 3 weeks, and brew again next weekend.

Does this seem plausible? It'd leave me a smidge under 3 weeks to ferment out two other beers (porter? stout? Scotch? ESB? IPA/DIPA?) where clarity is not important.

 

[RM-MN]

Make things easy on yourself. Buy a 12 pack of Shock Top. Now you only have to produce a couple beers. Ales usually only need about 3 to 5 days with temperature control so you can free up your fermentation fridge quickly.

Why do you want to move these beers you have going to a secondary? You aren't going to gain anything except an empty fermenter. Are you short on fermenters? Otherwise just leave them in the primary.

 

[thadius856]

Make things easy on yourself. Buy a 12 pack of Shock Top. Now you only have to produce a couple beers. Ales usually only need about 3 to 5 days with temperature control so you can free up your fermentation fridge quickly.

A 12-pack for a holiday weekend party with 50-100 imbibing adults? I don't think that's going to cut it. The host is going to provide a 1/2 bbl Sanke of BMC, and I'd like to provide 4 cornys, if possible.

Why do you want to move these beers you have going to a secondary? You aren't going to gain anything except an empty fermenter. Are you short on fermenters? Otherwise just leave them in the primary.

Short on fermenters, yes. I have a pair of 20-gallon Vittle Vault fermenters that I squeezed into a 7 cu ft freezer with 16" collar.

I "secondary" in corny kegs, as my primary fermenters have a MFL bulkhead that lets me siphon off using a Cask Widge, straight to a corny keg post. In the case of wheat beers, I suppose I'd carb and serve straight in the "secondary". For beers where clarity matters, I usually crash for 48 hours, transfer off one keg to another with the cask widge, then force carb.

 

[RM-MN]

Uh huh! You got invited to provide all the beer for the 50 to 100 or so guests. Those aren't guests, they are freeloaders. Tell them to bring some of their own.

 

[thadius856]

Uh huh! You got invited to provide all the beer for the 50 to 100 or so guests. Those aren't guests, they are freeloaders. Tell them to bring some of their own.

Maybe the host will happen to have a bunch of spare bags of MO and Vienna laying around with no use. Who knows?

 

[MikePote]

I did edworts pale ale and a variant of it with rye. I bottled both after 7 days and both were tasty after two weeks in bottles. At two weeks the original was a little grainy but good, and the rye taste covered up the grainy taste in the rye beer. They both go over well with BMC drinkers.

 

[thadius856]

If I was going to go above-and-beyond 4 kegs, I have a spare keg of OktoberFAST and a spare keg of Outer Limits, neither of which are particularly clear beers to begin with.

 

[thadius856]

Ales usually only need about 3 to 5 days with temperature control so you can free up your fermentation fridge quickly

Thanks again for this by the way. Exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

Anybody agree with this timeframe? Disagree? Why or why not?

 

[mgortel]

Good excuse to buy a few more temperature controllers and fermentation chambers!

Honestly sounds to me like you will be rushing things too much and quality of brew may suffer....which will leave you looking "bad".....better to brew less but better quality so people are saying "man I wish you had brought more of this"

 

[thadius856]

Good point. Perhaps a compromise then...

...If one or two of the batches come out not to be standards, I'll sub in a keg of the OktoberFAST and a keg of the Outer Limits from my personal stash instead.