Why 2-3 weeks ferment?

[aeviaanah]

Common advice is 2-3 weeks primary. I’ve been transferring to spund, waiting until FG reached, cold crash in serving keezer. The whole process is about 12 days and I’m drinking the beer. Any reason for a typical gravity beer (4-6%), I should allow a conditioning phase?

 

[Yooper]

Common advice is 2-3 weeks primary. I’ve been transferring to spund, waiting until FG reached, cold crash in serving keezer. The whole process is about 12 days and I’m drinking the beer. Any reason for a typical gravity beer (4-6%), I should allow a conditioning phase?

No, not if the beer doesn’t need it!

 

[aeviaanah]

Just go by taste?

 

[jtratcliff]

If you've practiced good sanitation, pitched the proper amount of healthy yeast, and kept fermentation temperatures in check, then you should be good.

The extra week or two is for us schlubs who need the wee yeasties to clean up some of the undesirable byproducts of less than ideal fermentation conditions.

I BIAB, no-chill, ferment in a bucket with a swamp cooler set up... I need all the help I can get from the yeast.

If I used better/more appropriate equipment, I could tune my process to eliminate some of my conditioning time.

The beer is done when it's done. You don't need to condition out any off flavors if you don't introduced them in the first place. [emoji3]

That said, some beers (especially big beers with complex grain bills and additions) can benefit from some conditioning time to let the flavors properly blend and marry, but that doesn't need to be done in the fermentor.

 

[prep8611]

I’m averaging about 8 days per beer if I’m not transferring to a spunding keg but I just spunded a Belgian patersbier to a keg in 3 days. Beer only needs until it hits FG if you pitched enough yeast and kept the beer at proper fermentation temps

 

[schematix]

i rack from primary to kegs when it's 4-6 points from final gravity. Not a bit longer than absolutely necessary! Plus the kegs can be spunded for ultimate shelf life and great natural carbonation.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Now that I have several fermenters and have grown tired of drinking and serving amateurish yeasty beers, I give ales 4-5 weeks regardless of style, lagers and Pilseners get 7+ weeks.

 

[JohnSand]

I wait three or four weeks because I can. The kegerator is full, I don't need finings, no reason to hurry the beer. In the rare and shocking case that I have an open tap, I'll keg in two weeks or less.

 

[Nagorg]

"need" is relative... If you *can* let them set longer before packaging then why not? I do believe the end product is better and know some styles are much better if given a few more weeks before consuming. IPA's are a prime example. I usually start my dry hop after about ~2 weeks and keg them at 3. Another ~8 days and they are carbonated but still a bit "juicy". After another week or two, they loose some of that juiciness and are transformed into delicious IPA I was after...

These are my experiences anyway...

 

[kh54s10]

I think it also depends on style. A simple APA might be great in 7 days, but a Russian Imperial Stout would be a muddied mess flavor-wise in 7 days.

Just to be on the safe side I go 2 weeks. But then again I usually procrastinate about bottling (my keg stuff is in storage) so 2 weeks most often ends up being 3 or 4 weeks.

 

[CodeSection]

Now that I have several fermenters and have grown tired of drinking and serving amateurish yeasty beers, I give ales 4-5 weeks regardless of style, lagers and Pilseners get 7+ weeks.

I'm not sure of your fermenter's capabilities and if you are able to dump your yeast. What is your process and if you are dumping your yeast to avoid potential off flavors, do you dump the yeast after two weeks?

 

[davidabcd]

I do three weeks because I only make big beers, the beer benefits from it and I don't want to keep checking the gravity.

 

[kh54s10]

I'm not sure of your fermenter's capabilities and if you are able to dump your yeast. What is your process and if you are dumping your yeast to aoid potential off flavors, do you dump the yeast after two weeks?

Autolysis which is what you might get from leaving the beer on the yeast too long has more to do with commercial beer where there are hundreds of gallons of beer on top of the yeast and it is partially the pressure that is the cause.

2 -3 weeks or 2-3 months with the beer sittiing on the yeast in a homebrew setting will make very little if any difference. I know this because I have left plenty of batches sit for a couple of months. No bad tastes. Maybe they could have been better, but certainly not bad.

 

[CodeSection]

I do three weeks because I only make big beers, the beer benefits from it and I don't want to keep checking the gravity.

I'm using a Tilt so that helps. Are you dumping the yeast after a certain time or are you keeping the beer on the yeast the entire three weeks? I take it you have not experienced any off flavors.

I've gone three weeks a couple of times without dumping the yeast and had no off flavors. My LHBS people say if I went four weeks, I should dump the yeast prior to that to avoid off flavors. They said three weeks on the yeast is the maximum amount of time they would recommend.

So, thank you for posting your process.

 

[davidabcd]

Are you dumping the yeast after a certain time or are you keeping the beer on the yeast the entire three weeks?

No, I don't dump the yeast. I also haven't tasted any off flavors from three weeks. I have no reason to stretch the length further than that so I won't find out if/when off-flavors would happen.

 

[Nagorg]

Check the gravity. You may be surprised about when you think it should be done -vs- when it's actually done. If the gravity still hasn't reached expected FG at 3 weeks, let it sit till its there.

Most of the time you should reach FG within 1 week but sometimes things take longer. There are a lot of variables affecting this. I recently had an Ale take every bit of 3 weeks to hit FG.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/wlp075-hansen-ale.665325/page-6#post-8641789

The beer wound up great but it took longer than typical!