Hi Homebrewing BA's, I'm in a bit of a standstill with my tap lineup right now. I have four lines but only one of them is pouring right now (english brown). I currently have an oktoberfest that I brewed late, and is therefore still lagering for another 3-4 weeks. We're calling it a Novemberfest, but that's not what's important here. Currently fermenting right now is a stout that still needs to age on the coffee and cocoa for another 2-3 weeks before I can keg it. I also had a milk stout that I brewed a while ago but it kicked last weekend. The point is, I'm looking for something that'll turn over pretty quickly to fill in the fourth line, and hopefully be drinkable before one or both of the beers currently "on deck." I have a few ideas for seasonal beers but I was planning on brewing them in a month or two, since it's still a bit early to make "winter" beers. I'm personally looking for something to compliment what will be on tap in the near future (to reiterate: marzen, coffee stout, brown ale). More generally, I'm interested to see if anyone has a go-to quick turnover style or recipe that they keep in their back pocket, or have successfully thrown together last-minute.
My house beer. OG: 1.044 Est ABV 4.9 IBUs: 39 SRM: 5.7 7.5 lbs 2 row 12 oz Crystal 40 4 oz Carapils Mash @ 148 .25 oz Warrior @60 min .5 Citra 15 min .5 Amarillo 15 min .5 Citra 10 min .5 Amarillo 10 min .5 Citra 5 min .5 Amarillo 5 min 1 oz Citra dry hop 1 oz Amarillo dry hop Ferment with US-05 Obviously Amarillo is harder to get but you can always use only Citra or experiment with other hops. Light on bitterness but tons of hop flavor and the lower OG makes it a quick turn around beer.
7 lbs Wheat Malt 4 lbs Pilsner 4.8 oz Honey Malt 0.75 oz Hallertauer @ 45 0.25 oz Hallertauer @ 15 1.0 pkg Hefeweizen Ale Mash @ 153 Ferment @ 65 for 2 weeks This is pretty much a copy of this recipe, with honey malt added: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/bee-cave-brewery-bavarian-hefeweizen-35679/ He kegs it after 10 days...but I waited 14, and bottled...so it took 3 more weeks. Anyway, it can be ready in as little as 12 days, apparently.
This is my Deer Camp Lager recipe. A very easy drinker. 9lbs pils malt 1lb light munich malt 1lb 40L crystal bitter to 10% AA @ 60 min. 1oz Hallertau or Spalt @ 15 min 1oz Hallertau or spalt @ 5 min WLP 810 Mash @ 152 Ferment @ 66 degrees for 3 weeks then keg. I do not lager this beer. The BMC croud that visits our Deer Camp sucks this down.
The four principals of quick turnover are kegging, low gravity, high flocc yeast and high pitching rate. I use WY1968 because it drops like a rock. Attenuation can be a problem for this strain but if you mash low and/or use 10% table sugar as fermentables you can achieve up to 80% attenuation. For low gravity beers mashing low is sufficient. I brewed this recipe twice in two weeks. The first one was grain to glass in 72 hours, the second pitched onto the cake of the first brew and I had clear beer in less than 48 hours (kegged at about 36 hours). 100% Two row to OG 1.048-50. Mash at 148F for 90 min or more. Columbus 17%aa .75 at 30 2 at 15 2 at 10 30minute boil. WY1968 at 1million(or more)/ml/plato fermented at 68-70F. Cold crashing before kegging for even a few hours helps out. A tasty beer you can drink 24/7. Enjoy.
50% 2-row 50% White wheat Mash 149, cool to 120s, add 1/2 pound unmilled 2-row, keep in 120s for 2-3 days. Lauter (I usually do BIAB for these). Boil 15 minutes with LOW AA German hops. Ferment with US-05 (will finish quite quickly) Dry hop in keg with something interesting (usually fruity & American). Can drink in about a week after fermenting . . .
Sour mash Berliner Weisse. Doing it sour mashed style allows you to use higher levels of hops w/o inhibiting the Lacto. It should give you a fresh, tart, light, fruity, aromatic beer if the sour mash doesn't go all gym socks and rotten baby diapers on you.
I don't have a tried and true recipe as I don't rebrew my beers. If I want a quick turn around on an easy beer I would go with mostly Pale Malt, some Munich, .5# sugar, to 1.056, hop the snot out of it at the end, ferment with 1968 (or the new WY PC 1217), keg in a week, DH in the keg while carbonating at room temp for 5 days, put in fridge, and drink at 2 week mark.
Table saison, OG 1.036-1.040, mostly pils malt with 0-10% rye (depending on how much you like rye). 15-20 IBU of anything for bittering with 1/2oz or so of a favorite hop at flameout for 5 gallons. WY3726 or equivalent (I use Dupont Avril dregs made up to a 1L starter). It will help if you can ferment warm: warm room, heating pad, etc. If you keg you can be drinking a very nice beer in 6-7 days, but it will improve for a few weeks. I always have this on in the summer but it tastes nice anytime.
Yup, what dude said. The key is to make the mash tun as anaerobic as possible, so flush it well with CO2, like really well. Wastefully well. Also, keeping the mash </= 120 degrees will encourage the growth of Lactobacillus sp, while inhibiting Clostridium sp, the latter of which gives off flavors/aromas. If the mash smells bad, don't use it. It should be cleanly tart smelling/tasting. It's a nice little beer. OG should be around 1.035 or so.
I hope nine people disagree with you on the smell factor. It has been confirmed that this wort will smell like death. I'm off to create another thread on CO2 pruging....
You want to drink a beer that smells like shit, by all means. I'm meticulous about my anaerobic lactofermentation conditions and of the dozen or so sour mashes I've done, and have gotten no off odors.
I've done one sour mash and it was nasty smelling. After a 3 hour boil and a year in bottles it wasn't bad but not what it should have been. Next summer I am going to do it with CO2 as well as growing up thr Lacto from grains first with a few steps to kill off the nasty bacterias (lower pH and alcohol increase).
I've been thinking about doing the sour wort approach that was described in Zymurgy a few years back: raise the bugs first as you describe, but pitch into a pre-boiled wort so that the background bug populations are close to non-existant. It seems more efficient than flushing with CO2, which I imagine is meant to shut down the aerobic metabolic pathways to favor the lactic acid pathway. There will still be be other anaerobic populations that could have their way with the wort, but perhaps the big lacto pitch means they never get out of control and add hints of character to the beer. It's definitiely an intriguing style from the geeky microbial ecologist's perspective.
