Fast Fermenation

[Shenfield shed]

Following my earlier thread, I'm new to whole grain brewing, moving up from kit type brews.

My recent attempt at grain brewing has resulted in a very fast fermentation and I wanted to know if this would cause any issues.

The brew day went well and the hydrometer reading was spot on at 1.042 when I started fermentation, but within 5 days it had reached the recommended 1.012 (Timothy Taylor clone) at a consistent 20 degrees C and I decided to bottle, but then in hindsight was unsure if I should have left for longer, but I thought it may go below the recommended 1.012.

Your thoughts and comments welcome for a newbie

 

[Leon103]

I would have left it for two weeks. It may still be fermenting and you would have wanted it to clean up after itself and get rid of any off flavours. How much did you prime with? Hopefully they don't explode.

 

[The Baron]

you will find especially with all grain brewing that fermentation can virtually be over in 5 days but the yeast should be left to clean up and it may fall the odd point or 2 as it is doing this. Leon103 is spot on leave it 2 weeks before bottling at that time you should see the beer looking a lot clearer and if not cold crash for a few more days in the coldest place you can if you are not using a fermentation fridge.

 

[Shenfield shed]

Thank you all for your feedback and points taken for my next brew.

For priming I used the Brewers Friend calculator.

Fingers crossed with no exploding bottles

 

[MyQul]

Most beer of about 4% (if not a lager) will have mostly finished within 5 days. The extra nine days or so that us home brewers leave it in the FV is just 'to make sure its done' simply because we can. A commercial brewery would probably go out of business if they left their beer in the FV as long as we do.
There's a Timothy Taylor vid on youtube (and iirc) they boast about how they leave their beer four days o ferment out rather than three like other breweries

 

[Shenfield shed]

I'll leave the beer to condition for 3-4 weeks and report back on the quality.

 

[Shenfield shed]

Thank you all for your feedback.

Having left to condition for 3-4 weeks, I can report back that the beer is great, looks good and tastes amazing.

I’ll take this as a lucky escape or a major discovery in home brewing :-)

 

[An Ankoù]

I'll leave the beer to condition for 3-4 weeks and report back on the quality.

I'd leave it a week and then crack the cap of one bottle open a bit to see whether you've got Versuvius in there. Just to be on the safe side. Then another bottle after another week.

 

[foxy]

I watched a demonstration being given by the inventor of the SPUNDit. Monday he was mashing the grain, Saturday we were drinking the beer, I asked him if he used the kveik yeast which he did but told me he uses different yeast strains with the same results, he ferments all his beers at 30 C in a pressure cooker he designed and patented, he holds the pressure at 15 PSI then serves the beer direct from the fermenter which has a floating dip tube.

 

[parpot]

It would be great to see some pictures of the pressure cooker!

 

[Jakeyboi]

I was lucky enough this birthday to receive a tilt from my wonderful wife.

For those that don’t know what a tilt is, it’s a device that you put in your fermentor to measure the SG and temp of your beer and Bluetooth the information to your phone. Amazing!

I made an old ale at the weekend, had a bit of a mare and had to chill the brew down in the brew fridge.

I used my tilt for the first time.... well I am absolutely shocked at how quickly that yeast is working, down from 1.073 to 1.020 in two days!!!!!!! I’m aiming for a FG of 1.014 so I’m expecting it to primarily finished in the morning.

 

[foxy]

It would be great to see some pictures of the pressure cooker!

He runs brew classes in Sacramento California here is a link to his website check out the pressure cooker under products. He mashes, boils and ferments in the same vessel.
https://www.homebrewerlab.com/

 

[parpot]

Thanks for that. It looks & sounds amazing!

 

[HarryFlatters]

For those that don’t know what a tilt is, it’s a device that you put in your fermentor to measure the SG and temp of your beer and Bluetooth the information to your phone. Amazing!

Any chance you could post a link to the tilt?

 

[melhaer]

I think this should be the tilt - https://tilthydrometer.com/

and the dealer locator: https://tilthydrometer.com/pages/dealer-locator

 

[GerritT]

Coincidentally expressing all periods in weeks means that you can hop conveniently from weekend to weekend for brewing, racking and bottling.

 

[ExpatBrewer]

Following my earlier thread, I'm new to whole grain brewing, moving up from kit type brews.

My recent attempt at grain brewing has resulted in a very fast fermentation and I wanted to know if this would cause any issues.

The brew day went well and the hydrometer reading was spot on at 1.042 when I started fermentation, but within 5 days it had reached the recommended 1.012 (Timothy Taylor clone) at a consistent 20 degrees C and I decided to bottle, but then in hindsight was unsure if I should have left for longer, but I thought it may go below the recommended 1.012.

Your thoughts and comments welcome for a newbie

I had a 1.044 brew recently finish in just two days. If conditions are just right it can be quick sometimes. I allow a couple of days 'clean-up' (at around 20ºC) and then cold-crash for a few days then bottle.

And some quotes for those that leave there beer sitting around in the fermenter for weeks:

"…for an ale with a healthy yeast you really don't need or indeed want it to linger too long on the yeast cake."
"The length of time we had to leave the beer in contact with the yeast to mop up the last traces of diacetyl and pentanedione was not very long, we're talking a day or two… "
"… and once we were confident that we got those VDK's below our target then our philosophy was for goodness sake get it off the yeast."

- Dr Charles Bamforth, Prof. Brewing Science