How quick can I bottle?

I know the #2 rule of homebrewing is patience (#1 is clearly cleanliness, or more specifically sanitation) however I just brewed Brewer's Best American Cream Ale on Friday and I was hoping to bottle this next weekend, probably Saturday. Is 8 days enough, assuming my gravity looks good/is stable? Or maybe wait til Sunday?

As long as your gravity has held for a solid 3 days WITHOUT moving you can bottle. Its not a high gravity beer so you just may get away with 8 days.

I think most (including me) will tell you to wait 3-4 weeks before bottling. My first batch I waited 2 weeks. Now after 2 weeks kegged I took it back off tonight to let it condition more. It's just too green. As far as 8 or 9 days I doubt it would make a difference.

My best IPA i have ever made was in primary for 8 days and bottle aged for 2 weeks.
ALL the books i have read about brewing say 14-21 days in primary is normally good for a light beer. As long as the gravity has held for 3 days.

The beer may not be as clear, as the yeast hasn't had time to clean it up. But still drinkable if you dont care about clarity.

Do you want good beer or fast beer? I've made that kit and bottled it in a week, just like the instructions say. It took about a month and a half to 2 months for bottle conditioning for the beer to get pretty good.

I made another cream ale and left it in the fermenter for 3 weeks and bottled. It was pretty good in 1 week from bottling and very good in 2 weeks. By leaving it in the fermenter longer, I got good beer about a month sooner than by bottling in a week.

I bottled that same beer yesterday. 3 weeks in the fermentor. Did a lot of reading on this forum and other places before I ever started. Didn't want to risk having crap for beer so I went with the majority and left it longer than the instructions. Can't wait to try my first brew in a week or two!

Does two or three weeks make much of a difference if your gravity is holding constant?

I'm pretty much resigned to two weeks now, though I may move it into a secondary so I can start another batch.

It seems to. Yeast chew into the sugars and produce CO2 and alcohol, except with your wort there are a lot more than just sugar and the yeast tears into that too and produces all kinds of kinky chemicals, some of which taste good and some that you would rather not have. Given time, the yeast will clean up some of the other chemicals and make a better tasting beer. While you have it in the fermenter, there is a huge population of yeast to do that but when you bottle, you leave that population behind so the little (relatively) yeast that is left has to work pretty long and hard to take care of the chemicals that give you off flavors.

chaserchap said:

Does two or three weeks make much of a difference if your gravity is holding constant?

I'm pretty much resigned to two weeks now, though I may move it into a secondary so I can start another batch.

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I don't think so.
The yeast "cleaning up after fermentation" is a matter of days, not weeks.