4 weeks to brew and bottle - help!

[coolal22]

Hi gang,

I've got a party coming up in 1 month. I want to showcase some of my homebrew skills with a special beer for the event, but I'm getting a little bit down to the wire in terms of my time. I want to know what is the BEST beer I can brew, bottle and have ready in 4 weeks.

I am an extract/partial grain brewer in NYC and I don't have access to kegging equipment so bottle conditioning is a must.

Any thoughts??

 

[hercher]

Serve flat beer?

I'd suggest something lower in alcohol, and pitch a lot of yeast to minimize any lag time. Then hopefully you'll be down to your target gravity in enough time to bottle condition your beer.

 

[Native302]

I'd say a pale ale and use san diego super yeast with a 2 liter healthy starter. I used the yeast in a IIPA, pliny clone, and the fermentation was incredible! was down to FG in 3 days. Of course I left in primary for 7 days to clean up after itself. that would give you 3 weeks to bottle condition. Just my thoughts.....

 

[annasdadhockey]

Any chance you can keg it? That would give you a lot more options.

 

[arkowa]

I will suggest a simple english bitter if your friends are not beer snobs. I like the pale ale suggestion but sometimes something easy drinking and less hoppy goes over with the masses well. "dude, this tastes just like boston lager". "Oh, yeah, thanks"
*rolls eyes* I've given up sometimes on trying to fix people.


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 7.7 %
6 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 92.3 %
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 10.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 11.7 IBUs
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 4 8.2 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml] Yeast 6 -

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.035 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.040 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.007 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.7 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 3.9 %
Bitterness: 30.6 IBUs Calories: 131.4 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 6.8 SRM

 

[Calder]

I've got a party coming up in 1 month. I want to showcase some of my homebrew skills with a special beer for the event. I want to know what is the BEST beer I can brew, bottle and have ready in 4 weeks.

Any thoughts??

Me thinks your skills are not as good as you think they are, otherwise you would not have asked the question. Why don't you have any beer in the pipeline?

Low gravity (about 1.040), decent starter or 2 packs of yeast, very basic recipe (base malt or light extract + a little crystal) and no dry hop.

If I had to do something like this, it would be an SNPA clone:

Gravity 1.056
Yeast S-05, or 1056

Pale malt (or extract)
1 lb Crystal 60
Cascade hops to get 35 IBUs
1 ozs Cascade at 10
2 ozs Cascade at flame out

Ferment mid 60s (no higher than 70)

Bottle after 2 weeks, and store bottles above 70 F.

 

[WolvinMaine]

I second the English Bitter. 4 weeks is plenty of time to have it brewed and carbed. I have also found that English bitters tend to be enjoyed by a very wide range of beer drinkers. Good Luck!

 

[CoalCreekBeer]

All the AHS Session beers go quickly, we tried the American Brown, and sure enough it was incredibly fast, and great tasting.
Here is the link to Austin Homebrew and their session beers.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_452_627

 

[badhabit]

Brewing and bottle conditioning ins month....I am afraid the best you would show are the "skills" you dont have. Wait until you have the time to do it right.

 

[flyfisherwes]

Brew 10 days ago.

 

[starrfish]

+1 Brown ale can be ready quick (10-14 days), tasty, lower carbonation level acceptable.
og range 1.042-1.046 should be about right.

or a mild with an OG of around 1.035 it is for a party. You will be able to drink a lot of it, I've been noticing that friends have been enjoying my malty, lower gravity beer lately. Maybe because I've been brewing more of them... just make sure they have enough body. Have some malto dextrine in a partial mash, and mash what grains you do on the high side.

 

[FloatinAway]

Lots of ales can be ready quickly. Keep the grain bill simple, pitch a healthy starter or enough yeast, make sure there is plenty of O2, stay in control of the temp. 10-12 days fermentation, cold crash, bottle condition 2 weeks. No problem.

Witbeer, Blondes, Pale Ale, Cream Ale, ESB. All good options. Just do them right.

 

[nilo]

Use S04 yeast, rehydrate and pitch at 70F, leave there for 24h until a nice krausen is formed, drop to 67 to 68F. For a regular OG around 1.050, should be fermented at day 4 if you had a healthy yeast. Confirm that gravity is flat and bottle. Let it carbonate at room temp (70F) for 2 weeks. Then into the fridge for couple of days until the party starts.
Below is the S04 profile for a regular pale beer.

 

[mcaple1]

Brew a wheat beer and keg it...you should be brew day to glass in 2-3 weeks.

 

[dgez]

Oh, man...last year I attempted two 'grain to glass in 14 days' beers.

I needed them ready for when family was coming over for Christmas. I thought I had a great plan. Low gravity beers, a brown ale (about 1.042) and a bitter ( 1.038). So like on Dec 10th I brewed two batches. I keg, so I planned for 12 days of fermentation and 2 days to carbonate...Like communism, my plan looked good on paper, but it failed miserably, if not epically.

I forget the yeast I used in both batches, but wyeast listed them has highly flocculant. Surely the yeast would do their job and get out of the way in 12 days? eff no! The bitter, as I recall, at day 12 still had all its yeast in suspension. The brown, looked much better. FGs were 1.012ish

Day 12 came and I had to keg...I was hoping by crash cooling the keg the yeast would settle out of the bitter ...eff no! That beer tasted like raw bread dough, probably my worst batch ever. The brown, was sub par, i'd say a double bogey. Both were nowhere near ready.

Bottom line, I did not serve either beer to anyone else...I would rather tell people 'sorry I dont have any brew' than serve a sub par beer to someone.

 

[hercher]

Yeah, 14 days is definitely too short a time. 4 weeks, I think there is shot. The yeast doesn't have to drop as far once you crash it, and some low gravity styles can handle a lower carbonation level.

One caveat: if your friends are used to BMC beers, then I think you are better off apologizing for not having any beer ready. You just won't likely have enough "finish" to your beer in such a short time.

Also, I'd suggest serving your beer in opague glasses, or beer mugs, so people aren't put off by any cloudiness.

But I still think you can get a very drinkable beer done in that amount of time.

 

[jfr1111]

It certainly is doable, but you need to take a few shortcuts and precautions: aerate well, pitch healthy yeast in appropriate amounts, carefully monitor fermentation temperatures, etc. This will all help with a faster turnaround: a low to medium gravity beer that is brewed well technically will not need time to mellow or age. All my bitters are ready by the 10-14 day mark because I choose highly flocculant yeast that ferment rapidly.

The use of fining agents is also tantamount to success. I now pretty much always use whirfloc and gelatin. The only time I will not use gelatin is if I want to harvest yeast from the bottom of the primary, which almost never happens.

This picture shows one of my bitters that is less than 4 weeks old.

I don't think it's cloudy by anyone's standard and it is fully carbonated (well, for a bitter). This was bottled, not kegged btw.

 

[FloatinAway]

I just tapped a brown ale and a blonde I brewed 2 weeks ago with OGs in low 50s. Finals were 1.012 & 1.013 yesterday. Both are good beers. I pitched appropriate starters used oxygen and nutrients, controlled temps at 67 F, cold crashed and thats it. Very tasty beers. It doesn't take that long with fairly basic beers

 

[Sokrateez]

I'm a bit shocked that only one person suggested a wheat beer. Ive frequently heard hefes are a simple to brew beer best consumed young, so I put that to the test to see just how simple and how young.

I had a simple recipe, 5lbs wheat malt, 5lbs pilsener, a single bittering addition at 60 minutes of hallertau and wyeast 3638 pitched straight into fermenter. The only aeration was around 2 minutes of vigorous shaking of the wort.

Fermentation schedule was 1 week at 66f, then raised to 72f over 2 days, and held until the end of the second week. Primed to 4 volumes and bottled, left at room temp (70-78f, throughout the day) for 1 week, in the fridge for 2 days and they were ready to go. Great carbonation, good head and good taste.

I've since done the batch like I do my other beers, starter, aeration with a stone, and a full 3 weeks in the bottle/3 days in the fridge, and honestly, not much is different. It really is a great, easy to brew beer with fast turnaround, and I think the yeast is to thank for that. They produce really good results in a short time even with some rough handling by the brewer and less than favorable conditions.

Best of all, they're a good beer to brew for BMC drinkers, in my experience. Other than the cloudiness, the taste is the right amount of "different than coors, but good", and the colour isn't dark and scary. I think it's a great, almost fool proof beer.

 

[huge1s]

I'm a bit shocked that only one person suggested a wheat beer. Ive frequently heard hefes are a simple to brew beer best consumed young, so I put that to the test to see just how simple and how young.

I had a simple recipe, 5lbs wheat malt, 5lbs pilsener, a single bittering addition at 60 minutes of hallertau and wyeast 3638 pitched straight into fermenter. The only aeration was around 2 minutes of vigorous shaking of the wort.

Fermentation schedule was 1 week at 66f, then raised to 72f over 2 days, and held until the end of the second week. Primed to 4 volumes and bottled, left at room temp (70-78f, throughout the day) for 1 week, in the fridge for 2 days and they were ready to go. Great carbonation, good head and good taste.

I've since done the batch like I do my other beers, starter, aeration with a stone, and a full 3 weeks in the bottle/3 days in the fridge, and honestly, not much is different. It really is a great, easy to brew beer with fast turnaround, and I think the yeast is to thank for that. They produce really good results in a short time even with some rough handling by the brewer and less than favorable conditions.

Best of all, they're a good beer to brew for BMC drinkers, in my experience. Other than the cloudiness, the taste is the right amount of "different than coors, but good", and the colour isn't dark and scary. I think it's a great, almost fool proof beer.

I second the hefe. Quick fermentation and the last one I did carbed up pretty quick in the bottle.

 

[daksin]

Just saw a thread on the new WL090, San Diego Super. Designed to ferment very fast and very clean if you can keep your temps in the narrow range. A quick scan of the threads show some anecdotal successes with it. This could give you some breathing room for conditioning.

 

[copyright1997]

I second the hefe. Quick fermentation and the last one I did carbed up pretty quick in the bottle.

Or do a Wit. Here's one the BMC crowd might like (similar to Blue Moon). I did this one and it was ready quick-quick, and seemed to be an easy drinker that others liked.

 

[jaredkent]

I was given 10-days notice for a Columbus Day Party, two weeks ago. The buddy throwing the party wanted to try a few of my homebrews, unfortunately I had nothing available to drink, nothing I was particularly proud of at least. I brewed a brown the next day, and in 9 days, bottle conditioned, it was absolutely perfect. I brought a whole case and it was gone in record time.

I was concerned it wouldn't carbonate in time, but it did and it was perfect. Definitely look into browns, and with a month to finish it you'll have plenty of time.

 

[Bradinator]

If it hasn't already been said BM's Centenial Blonde