Turnaround Time and Ferm Temps

[jb1677]

A local beer spot in my area recently built a brewery. The beer they are producing is decent (nothing magical, but good, clean and very drinkable). I noticed that they are doing 2 things that amaze me:

1) They are turning around beer in just over a week - and its good! How do they do this or what makes them able to do this where homebrewers cant? I have read other articles where breweries can turn around a beer this quick so they are not alone.

2) Unless there is equipment that I am not spying in the brewhouse I dont see where they are actively cooling fermenting beer (again, might be some hidden equipment I am not falimiar with). Is this possible? The beers produced are ale varieties that i would expect to have to ferment cool to keep out fruity flavors.

 

[Matt3989]

Their fermenters probably have jackets and an internal cooling coil to control temp.

And they turn the beer around quickly because after the fermentation is done they pasteurize and filter their beer (to kill the yeast and brighten the beer), then they pressure carb and bottle.

That's how most breweries operate, you should ask for a tour next time you're there. they can probably explain it a lot better (especially if you go during the week 9-5 when their brewers are probably working).

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

Their fermenters probably have jackets and an internal cooling coil to control temp.

And they turn the beer around quickly because after the fermentation is done they pasteurize and filter their beer (to kill the yeast and brighten the beer), then they pressure carb and bottle.

That's how most breweries operate, you should ask for a tour next time you're there. they can probably explain it a lot better (especially if you go during the week 9-5 when their brewers are probably working).

This, but without pasteurizing. I doubt a small brewer is doing that.

English yeast, lots of it, low-med gravity styles. I can turn mine around about as quick if I wanted to. I usually use WLP007 and on a 1.055 beer I am done in about 4 days. Another day or two to drop brite and over to the keg. I usually let it go longer though more due to laziness or time constraints.

 

[manoaction]

For fun, I did a race brew to see how quickly I could get a beer ready. I did a pale ale that went from grain to glass in seven days. A very large pitch rate, good oxygenation and you'll hit gravity in a shorter time. My grain bill was dead simple, my yeast was a very neutral flavor, and there was a strong hop note to the flavor.

Then I tossed it into a keg at high pressure and shook it morning and night for three days.

It was cloudy as hell, but a decent tasting brew for sure.

 

[Golddiggie]

Pitching the correct amount of yeast for the batch, tight fermentation temperature control, and correct yeast selection will let you turn around low to moderate OG batches quickly. IF you pick a high (or better) flocculation yeast strain, then you don't need to filter. Just shift it from fermenter properly (leaving sediment behind).

You CAN do this IF you follow the same processes (no need to filter). A brew pub I used to visit (moved away from where it is) had their brews in fermenter (primary only, no secondaries used) for 10-14 days. Then they transferred to serving kegs. They had/have jacketed fermenters, for tight temperature control too. They pitch the right amount of yeast for the batches to get this to happen.

IMO/IME, while a batch can be done fermenting in under a week (depends on the batch) it very often benefits from conditioning time before you do anything with it. How long depends on what you're brewing and your processes. Some batches will be ready for bottle/keg in a couple of weeks, some will take a few (or more) months.

Personally, I don't want 'decent' beer, I want great beer.

 

[jb1677]

Personally, I don't want 'decent' beer, I want great beer.

decent was not the right word, its a quality product - better than my homebrew by a mile and expoentially better than my homebrew after only a week.

I feel like I pitch properly, and arerate well (not great, manual process, no forced aeration) and typically I ferment out in a few days with something like S-04. The product at that point however is not great, I feel like I need a few weeks in primary to cleanup the beer.

I will have to ask for a tour, I am real curious about the ferm temp issue, I have put all my issues into that basket at the moment (3 batches with similar chronic fruity off taste all w/S04 fermented at 68 room temp (so potentially mid 70's during high krausen))

 

[Golddiggie]

Use yeast pitch calculators like Mr. Malty and yeastcalc.com to figure out if you're pitching enough yeast. Get a better handle on your fermentation temperature too. Guessing what temp it's fermenting at is a bad idea at best. I'd also invest in a better way to oxygenate your wort. With the manual process, the absolute maximum concentration of O2 you'll get is 8ppm. With a pure O2 system you can get over 20ppm. While 8ppm can be fine for lower OG brews, it's not even closer for moderate, or higher, OG brews.

Also, learn more about how to properly treat your yeast, and ingredients. Know what you'll get from the yeast at different temperature ranges. I've never used S04, or any dry beer yeast, so you'll need to look to someone else for those answers. I do use Wyeast strains almost exclusively for my beers (about to use White Labs for the first time next weekend). I do use Lalvin strains for my meads, and such. With those, I keep them within their listed optimum temperatures range. For that, you can go as cheap as a swamp cooler. Or you can go full bore and make/get a fermentation chamber.

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

You can get great beer in a short time, not just "decent" beer. Think of the best beer you have ever had from your favorite brew pub. Now remember that beer was turned around in 14 days tops most likely. You have to remember that these places are brewing almost every day and their practices are sound and their yeast is at peak health.

If you are waiting for the beer to cleanup, then you have some things to tweak in your process to avoid these flavors. Once at terminal, it only takes a day or so for yeast to take up any remaining diacetyl or acetaldehyde. If it is taking longer than that, you need to adjust your process to lower these compounds from the outset.

Usually what people mean by "cleaning up" is for the beer to drop brite and small particulates to fall out and refine the flavor. Gelatin finings or polyclar work great to speed this up. I am guessing the brewery you refer to is either filtering or using fining agents. Most, if not all, use one or the other.

 

[Golddiggie]

I find that using a strain that's rated either high, or very high, for flocculation makes fining agents (not talking about Irish Moss/Whirlfloc here) unnecessary. I've gotten extremely clear brews with these strains without using gelatin or anything else. I normally give my brews 2-12 weeks in primary though. That depends on what I've made and my schedule. I never transfer from fermenter until I'm SURE it's done fermenting though.

I brewed a batch on the 6th that I'm looking at kegging this weekend. I know it's done fermenting, so it's just sitting in the basement now, chilling.

 

[jb1677]

If you are waiting for the beer to cleanup, then you have some things to tweak in your process to avoid these flavors. Once at terminal, it only takes a day or so for yeast to take up any remaining diacetyl or acetaldehyde.

Interesting, i get so much conficting advice and my process is not repeatable enough to do a real scientific approach at testing results. It seems most people here are professing a 3-4 week primary for most things these days. Even the "big guy" home brewers like Palmer and Jamil are saying the same thing, that a few weeks is best for letting the yeast do their job.

 

[Matt3989]

Fermenting with a room temp of 68 is pretty high for that yeast, I'd beet that's a big part of your fruity Esters. Room temp of 68 probably puts active fermentation around 78. S04 can go from 55-75, do I'd say try a swamp cooler and keep it closer to 55 for the first week of fermentation. Then let it rise up on it's own to your normal 68 after that.

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

Interesting, i get so much conficting advice and my process is not repeatable enough to do a real scientific approach at testing results. It seems most people here are professing a 3-4 week primary for most things these days. Even the "big guy" home brewers like Palmer and Jamil are saying the same thing, that a few weeks is best for letting the yeast do their job.

3-4 weeks is good general advice for most brewers. When most brewers start out they don't have their process down yet and don't have the experience in yeast handling and managing fermentations. Leaving it for a longer period of time will help if the fermentation was less than ideal due to experience or process. That is why that advice is given so often, and it is good advice for most brewers.

Once you get enough experience with a strain or two of yeast you will learn how to handle it to get what you want out of it. Try to stick to one yeast at first and really learn it inside and out. I just fermented a 1.090 Belgian quad with WLP 530 down to 1.010 in 10 days. No fusels or any off flavors to clean up. Sure, the beer itself will need some aging for best flavor, but that is not a yeast function. I'm going to keg it up this weekend, which will be about 14 days from having a flame under it.

If you start to play around with any of the high floccing English strains you will find that you can turn around an average gravity ale in 5-7 days. I do an easy blonde ale with Marris Otter and cascade that is 1.050 OG and ferment with WLP007. I'm in the keg on day 7 with pretty clear beer at an FG of around 1.010. No off flavors at all. That is even keeping the temp around 65F controlled for a little cleaner profile from that yeast. If I was at 68, it would rip through it in about 48 hours. The key is experience in handling yeast and fermentation.

 

[Golddiggie]

I'd rather give the brew a few more days, or another week (or more) if it means the yeast flocculates more, or as fully as it ever will. I know my current batch was done with active fermentation within a few days of pitching, but I'm still giving it about two weeks from flame out before I keg it. That's with an OG in the area of 1.060, pitching a yeast slurry from a two step starter, etc. Fermenting in the basement at my new place makes keeping the batch within the temperature range I want, much easier. I'm talking about the fermenting beer temp, NOT ambient air temp (of course).

I AM using English ale yeast strains for all of my brews. Almost all of them are rated 'high' (or above) for flocculation.

I second the advice of using just a few yeast strains for everything. I have two strains from Wyeast that are in my 'normal' arsenal with another being one of their Private Collection strains, so it's not always available. When I cannot get a supply of the PC strain, I tend to use one of the other two strains more often.
Knowing what the yeast will do under certain conditions (from experience in your setup) is huge, IMO. Get a firm grasp on yeast wrangling and you'll be making even better brews.

I'm not saying to not experiment with other yeast strains, but I would get a more solid understanding of how yeast work first.