2 weeks to go, will it be done?

We've got two weeks to bonaroo, and I'm itching to get another beer in some bottles to bring. I've heard that heffe's are quick to drink, are there any simple extract recipies that I can cook up this weekend? Or am I completely mistaken?

thanks!

mike

I think you could make a drinkable beer in two weeks but I doubt it is going to be good. I would make a hefe, mild or some other small beer. Pitch plenty of yeast. Bottle it in about 7days. And store the bottles at about 70F to ensure carbonation.
Should taste like beer. However I think it takes atleast a month to make good beer.
Craig

If you want decent AND carbonated beer in two weeks you'll probably have to keg and force carb. There was a thread on this a week or so ago and a low OG hefe seemed to be the best bet, fermented right at the top of the yeast's range. Pitch a huge starter and oxygenate the wort well and the theory was green beer in one week, halfway decent beer in two (or something like that).

Look for a hefe recipe that comes in around 1.030, start a starter now. Couldn't tell you about carbing, good luck on that one.

I don't mean to hijack the thread but I was wondering when people say a beer is best after such amount of time does that include the time it spent in the fermentor or are they referring to time spent in the bottle /keg?

rcdirtbuggy said:

I don't mean to hijack the thread but I was wondering when people say a beer is best after such amount of time does that include the time it spent in the fermentor or are they referring to time spent in the bottle /keg?

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The majority of beers will do fine with the 1,2,3 (one week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 3 weeks bottle or keg conditioning to carbonate) method.

The bigger the beer (porters, IPA's, etc) the longer all of these times will be.

I don't know of any beer that will be ready to drink from a bottle in two weeks.

You could do a hefe and use a faster yeast. That would give you three days in the primary and 12 days in bottles.

Or go to the store and buy some and save your homebrew for another occasion when it will taste really good.

I would go with a hefe. 7 days in the fermenter and two in the bottle and our recent one was good. Sure it got better, but it was really good AND carbed up even then. I think you said you were taking kegs to Bonnaroo, so that's not really an issue for you. I've not used kegs, so I can't say anything about that.

We also recently did a mild. Now it's possible we over hopped and under primed, but it really did take about 4 weeks to condition up properly. We were kind of dissapointed with it last week, but last night we tried it again after a week and it had carbed up a bit more (still really "authentic" carb levels!) and really gotten good. We originally did this style 'cause we thought it would be fast. Faster than an IPA? Yes, faster than a hefe, no.

I now think only wheat beers are actually fast.

Plus, if it's hot, you'll be glad to have the hefe.

Thanks for the input guys, I suppose I'll just wait and be patient and put the wit and the nut brown we've had fermenting in plastic bottles and bring that. We found out kegs are not allowed (we could probably sneak it in, but we dont want our brand new keg to get confiscated) and glass is a no no. Guess you can't rush a good thing

mike