homebrewandbeer.com

Hi all

I have had some success with a coopers home brew kit and have brewed nice batches of Coopers Heritage lager. I have found that I preferred the brew made using muntons spraymalt powder to one made with coopers LME. I also added super alpha hops, not really knowing why, and I liked it although I could not tell you what difference it made.

The brews are nice, cleared well and hold a head till the last. Which is not all that long really. I got some great advice off people here when I thought I had ruined a brew, and lo and behold that brew has turned out to be the nicest to date.

Anyhow I am nearly done with my final 23 litres of beer and will be starting a Eurpopean Lager brew soon. I am really looking forward to this but by all accounts I think it will need to be given a lot of time to mature. So I plan on ordering something else to brewup in the fermenter immediately afterwards with the hope to be ready to drink fairly soon. I am a big fan of lagers, pilsners and european lagers but would be happy to try an ale or something if its nice and quick.

So my question is does anyone have any recommendations for a brew kit that is ready in 2 - 3 weeks? I am on a budget these days and my home brewing is saving me about €25 per week that I previously spent on Czech Budvar or Staropramen. I am not missing either of them to be honest.

thanks all and Happy St. Patricks day!

I havn't really played with "speed" beers, perhaps others have some experience? But here are some general thoughts on it anyways.

Sounds pretty fast to me... if you are really wanting to push it. Some yeasts tend to do their thing faster than others. I've had nottingham ferment out a brew in ~3-4 days (OG 1.041), it was very well aerated. So conceivably you could bottle at say 5 days. You'll need bare minimum 1 week to carb up... I find they're still a bit green/yeasty after a week though. Better after two or three weeks. If you do use nottingham don't ferment it above 18C, I find it gives a spicey flavour that I really do not care for, but is pretty clean at lower temp.

That would be pretty quick but I don't know how good it would be. The longer it can batch age (in the primary, or secondary if you prefer) the better it will likely be.

I think simple may also help your cause... higher gravity and more complex ingredients take some time to come together. I wonder if high hopping rates might hide some of the greeness?

Dunno if that helped at all

Good luck!

Thanks Finnagann

I will look up some of that nottingham Yeast from my local supplier. I don't really need to totally rush it - I just can't wait around 12 weeks for a batch to brew, buying nice beer at crazy prices. So as soon as I bottle my brew I will be putting on another one. I think maybe you might be right about hops masking bad flavours in beers. My first batch had a whiff of banana off it which I have been told is from fermenting too fast. Batches since have not had this problem but have fermented at the same rate and they had hops added.

Thanks for your help,

Jason

Hefeweizen with a proper liquid yeast, if not, WB06.
THE speed beer!