How Often Do You Brew?

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hey guys the reason I ask this question is lately it seems like a long time between brewing for me, may be every 3 to 4 weeks? wish it was at least every 2 weeks. The things that currently prevent me from doing this is, I can only store one 30Litre fermenter in my fridge at one time. That probably is the main reason, and even though I do have room in fridge for 2, I think that 2x30 litre barrels is just too tight a squeeze, I am wondering if I could find a smaller fermenting barrel or bucket to allow 2 (maybe a 20l fermenter?) at a time in there, So does anyone have any suggestions or just tell us how often you can brew...cheers.

Daza.

[Mark Weusten]

Hey Daza, I went through a phase of almost brewing every weekend. I can say my brewing has benefited from less is more and concentrating on the detail. I brew prob now every 3-4 weeks. My 2 cents. Cheers

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Ok that is a good way of looking at it, as it is only done 3 brews and would like 50 under my belt, if you know what I mean? Thanks.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

I guess I'm in a hurry to turn out good beer!

[Che Soffe]

Hey Daza. I totally get what you mean. I have brewed 3 brews and am looking forward to my fourth. I am trying to find a way to make it every 2 weeks but think I'll end up with a backlog of beer pretty fast.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

I'm currently running out before next batch is ready to drink! Am making around 31 500mk bottles which is gone in 3 weeks, and I'm not a aggressive drinker so not making enough hopefully next one will be 46 500ml bottles my fourth should have been yesterday but my ingredients didn't arrive yet, gutted. Will do it during the week starting at 4pm.

[Craig Howard]

I have two ferementers and one fermenting chamber but now the season has become more ale temp friendly... what I do is over lap the brews.  ie . I start a new one 2/3 rds of the way thru its run.

I start one off in the chamber under full temp control until about day 9 or 10 . This varies depending a bit on how vigorous the ferment is running and if it has almost ceased and also when I dry hop and add finings.

I then pull that fermenter out and start a new one which now goes into the chamber.

The first one is now controlled by ambient for the last 3-5 days before bottling.  It drops its temp very slowly Absolutely fine in my opinion.  

Just gets me ahead of the game a little bit but enough to maintain invemtory and variety.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

I like to cold crash in the last 5 days, which makes it impossible to do at ambient temps. I see what your saying though. maybe if I can talk my other half in to me buying another fridge then perhaps I can do more? haha I will need a lot of luck for that one, (already tried weeks ago) I was just wondering the guys that do 100L batches how often they would brew? cheers Craig.

[Craig Howard]

I am not convinced of the value of cold crashing ales.  

Have not read of anything to convince me that its essential ...or that it adds anything..apart from a longer process time.  It adds to the time of bottle conditioning as well.  

Lagers ...a different story.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

The only benefit I have experienced from doing that is it cleans up my beer, and everything drops out. The conditioning in bottles the last 2 times raised the temp back to 20C but last time up to 5C so I am expecting an extra week to condition (and not too keen on that part) I had large clump of dead yeast floating around the top of beer in fermenter then cold crashed and it all disappeared. 

[Crusader-Rob]

Thats all its for, I always cold crash, as it helps drop out un needed yeast etc. so i get a clearer beer in the keg basically..

[Steve Dorrington]

Hi Darren

I found fermenting times be the biggest bottleneck in my system.  You can do 2x 25L all grain brews in a day, but if you can't ferment them at the temperature you want you may as well not bother.  A second fridge with a heating /cooling controller fixed that for me and now it doesn't matter, I can leave each brew in the fermenter 3 weeks without impacting on the temp control of the other and crash chill if and when I need too without moving anything.  If you've only got one temp controlled fermenting fridge then another option is not to bother crashing.  That can take place in the keg or bottle and saves a couple of days.  

I can no longer move heavy fermenters around easily, so 2 fridges also means I can leave the brew in one place as long as it needs, crash chilling each when it suits, without moving stuff.

cheers

Steve

[Crusader-Rob]

I keg, but still cold crash, as its just good practice, it removes un require yeast particles out of suspension, for kegging.

theres no other use for it, but i believe it is worthwhile, as i ferment for 2 weeks i cold crash for 36-48 hours, which also helps to drop the dryhops out of suspension.  when making hoppy goodness.

i get a total of 5 days hop contact time including cold crash. no bags or anything, as in most situations, i use dry yeast. (M44)