Down and Dirty Brewing

If I'm being honest I by far, enjoy drinking beer than brewing it. I'm always thinking about and investigating easier and faster ways to brew. My latest investigations have been about speed brewing, grain to glass in 14 days or less This was prompted by my latest brew that fermented in less than 3 days due to being fermented so hot (28c but I used heat tolerant east) which I packaged after 1 week and was drinking a week after that. The two most important points I came away with about doing this is making a lowish OG beer and choosing the right yeast

I then was reading about no sparge brewing which can knock time off your brewday. Basically you just need to add about 5% more grain to compensate for a lower efficiency from not spargeing. You also normally would need to get a bigger mash tun as your mashing all your water and all your grain in one go. But seeing as I'm a maxi-BIABer I wont need to as I can just dilute down my concentrated wort as usual in my FV. I just add the extra grain for lower efficiency

I then came across this article
http://brulosophy.com/2015/11/12/short-shoddy-my-1-hour-all-grain-brew-day/
Basically he's saying he did a 30 min mash and a 30 min boil and his beer came out fine


So for my next brewday (the weekend after this) I'm going to have a go at putting it all together and (hopefully :pray:) knock out a BIAB, no sparge bitter of about 1.040 OG in about a two hour brewday. Then fermenting with notty yeast, as it can be a beast and rip through wort quite quickly. For a grain to glass beer in 14-16 days

I love the brulosophy guys, they have had a big impact on my brewing methods. With next week's brew I'm going to try their yeast starter harvesting method by over-building the starter by 100B cells then saving a portion.

I've not tried the no sparge method yet but I do intend to at some point. I've also shortened my mash and boil times which saves me about an hour.

When I'm kegging I regularly do so about 6 or 7 days after pitching but I generally leave it longer if bottling.

Let us know how your brew goes.

do you mash in your pot or a tun??

I only say as you could do what I do is a mash out in the pot.. the burners going on as to bring to boil anyway.. I stir and leave for 10 mins which you may not want to do.. it may help rinse it off and keep the efficiency closer to where you want.

I find it streamlines the process.. I could add a sparge in and get an extra 5% but I actually find it saves 20-30 minutes.

I haven't done a 30 min mash and boil though..

strange-steve said:

I love the brulosophy guys, they have had a big impact on my brewing methods. With next week's brew I'm going to try their yeast starter harvesting method by over-building the starter by 100B cells then saving a portion.

I've not tried the no sparge method yet but I do intend to at some point. I've also shortened my mash and boil times which saves me about an hour.

When I'm kegging I regularly do so about 6 or 7 days after pitching but I generally leave it longer if bottling.

Let us know how your brew goes.

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I haven't tried overbuilding yet either. I keep thinking about doing it but I really like the simplicity of just chucking in some dried yeast (no re-hydration) then just direct pitching the trub

I've always boiled for at least an hour but I used mash for only 40 mins. Cant remember why Iwent back to an hour mash. May have had something to do with waiting for MrsMQ to leavebefore I carried on with brewday. I dont remember any negative consequences of a 40 min mash.

From my reading kegging and force carbing is great if you want to knock off time for your beer to be ready. Unfortunately I dont have space for any sort of kegging system (appart from mini kegs). But fortunately I'm not keen on much carbonation so three or four days carbing up in the bottles if fine for me

Covrich said:

do you mash in your pot or a tun??

I only say as you could do what I do is a mash out in the pot.. the burners going on as to bring to boil anyway.. I stir and leave for 10 mins which you may not want to do.. it may help rinse it off and keep the efficiency closer to where you want.

I find it streamlines the process.. I could add a sparge in and get an extra 5% but I actually find it saves 20-30 minutes.

I haven't done a 30 min mash and boil though..

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I mash in the pot. Good idea about the mashout/bring to boil :thumb:

MyQul said:

If I'm being honest I by far, enjoy drinking beer than brewing it. I'm always thinking about and investigating easier and faster ways to brew. My latest investigations have been about speed brewing, grain to glass in 14 days or less


So for my next brewday (the weekend after this) I'm going to have a go at putting it all together and (hopefully :pray:) knock out a BIAB, no sparge bitter of about 1.040 OG in about a two hour brewday. Then fermenting with notty yeast, as it can be a beast and rip through wort quite quickly. For a grain to glass beer in 14-16 days

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I am sure I mentioned this before but I did the Brewlab course and routinely we were making a 25 litre batch every week for 8 weeks and the routine was as Follows:

Brew on a Thursday - into fermentation room at approx 21°C

Check on Monday- Tuesday if ready move to cool room and add auxillary finings/dry hop etc ( day 4) If not leave a day or so (day 6)

Leave to condition/clear for 4- 6 days and check gravity/clarity check yeast count and bottle/cask the beer ( day 10 - day 12)

Most often ales I made were pale so there was no real issues, some other students with more robust darker ales would leave a little longer.

We were routinely making and bottling beer within 2 weeks . Obviously it improves once in the bottle/cask but is perfectly possible to do. the course is designed to make beer for commercial purposes so brewers will follow a similar regime the difference being that they will hold the brews in a cold store ( stocks permitting) whereas home brewers may be tempted to sample and drink ASAP.

Most of my ales made at home are fermented in 5 -6 days with the use of a 2 fridges ( hot and cold) ,rested ,crash chilled and ready for bottling in 2 weeks.

If you want to speed brew I would recommend WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast. It is a very fast fermenter and clears very quickly. The first time I brewed with it I decided to do an unplanned speed brew when I realised how fast it had fermented and cleared. 4 days from drain to glass.

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=58027

If I remember correctly, no dry hop, transferred to a secondary with gelatine on the 3rd afternoon then kegged later in the evening before bed. I then force carbed in the keg and chilled at the same time and had a glass the next day. Pretty decent beer but of course improved with age in the keg. Even without a keg I think you could do it in 7 days. I've drank beer loads of times that have only been bottled for 3 or 4 days.

Also I have done a 30 min mash and boil before and there were no problems. Obviously just adjust bittering additions to account for it. In all of my recent beers I've done away with dedicated bittering additions and just start piling in the hops at 20, 15, 10, 5 & 0 mins. I usually let it boil for a bit first before I start.

Mike

mike77 said:

I've drank beer loads of times that have only been bottled for 3 or 4 days.

Mike

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I think almost all my pale beers I drink after about 3 days in the bottle. I'm far too impatient, that and the threat of running out of beer. So I've decided to make a large amount (55L http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=610035#post610035) so I can let my my 23L brews condition a bit longer

I seen one guy who brews in a corny keg, he purges the oxygen as usually but doesn't pressurise. He lets the yeast do it's work and then draws off the trub just before pressurisation. He then CO2's as normal and drinks it straight away.

With this method you could have a brew ready in a week although how it tastes is another thing. Your also restricted to 19L brews.

GlentoranMark said:

I seen one guy who brews in a corny keg, he purges the oxygen as usually but doesn't pressurise. He lets the yeast do it's work and then draws off the trub just before pressurisation. He then CO2's as normal and drinks it straight away.

With this method you could have a brew ready in a week although how it tastes is another thing. Your also restricted to 19L brews.

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I'd have to have all the gear for a corny set up, though. Good idea, mind

MyQul said:

I'd have to have all the gear for a corny set up, though. Good idea, mind

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Yeah, didn't think of that!

If you've even seen a corny, they are conical shaped and the beer is drawn from the bottom. They would make ideal fermenting vessels and at most you'd lose a pint to the trub.

I thought it was a good idea although I'd maybe draw off the trub, cool crash for a week and then draw off another pint for the remaining trub.

Maybe give you another reason to buy a corny set up :thumb: I know you like shiny's.

You don't actually need much gear for a basic corny set up. I started off with a keg, soda stream co2 with adapter and a picnic tap. The only problem is chilling it if you don't have much fridge space.

GlentoranMark said:

Maybe give you another reason to buy a corny set up :thumb: I know you like shiny's.

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I like shiny but cant afford shiny and neither do I have the room for shiny. My 60L FV arrived today; Mrs MQ, "Where are you going to put that?" Me, "Oh, just with the rest of my kit :whistle:"

MyQul said:

I like shiny but cant afford shiny and neither do I have the room for shiny. My 60L FV arrived today; Mrs MQ, "Where are you going to put that?" Me, "Oh, just with the rest of my kit :whistle:"

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I'm the same as you, I buy small things and improve my set up slowly BUT.... Mrs GlentoranMark has had enough with all these bits and bobs and told me to get a brew shed or as us home brewers call it, a man cave. Result!

Keep buying little bits and you too will succeed!

strange-steve said:

I love the brulosophy guys, they have had a big impact on my brewing methods. With next week's brew I'm going to try their yeast starter harvesting method by over-building the starter by 100B cells then saving a portion.

I've not tried the no sparge method yet but I do intend to at some point. I've also shortened my mash and boil times which saves me about an hour.

When I'm kegging I regularly do so about 6 or 7 days after pitching but I generally leave it longer if bottling.

Let us know how your brew goes.

Click to expand...

I really want to try overbuilding but it seems almost impossible to do in a 2l flask without a stir plate. For my next yeast I might do a 1l starter, split it in half, make another starter for the brew from one half and save the other...not sure if that will work the same tho.

DoctorMick said:

I really want to try overbuilding but it seems almost impossible to do in a 2l flask without a stir plate. For my next yeast I might do a 1l starter, split it in half, make another starter for the brew from one half and save the other...not sure if that will work the same tho.

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That's true but it can be done, I haven't built my stir plate yet so I use the James Bond starter method, shaken not stirred. Basically boil the starter wort in a pot, cool then pour into an empty, sanitised 5L water bottle or demijohn, add the yeast and shake like crazy for about a minute. It doesn't have the same cell growth as a stir plate but overbuilding is doable. I made a 2.8L starter, pitched 1.6L and kept 1.2L for another batch.