How Long In Primary?

[Yob]

Evenin all, I hope you have all enjoyed some fine samples of our trade recently, personally I went to a wedding Friday which all the beer was Brewed by the Buck.. good effort all round!!

Anywhoo here is my situation I hope you can help with... I have a brew I put in anzac day...

Brew was as follows -
CPA + BE2 using Muntons Gold yeast (yeast I've not previously tried) pitched 22' down to 18'c constant pretty much.. OG was low at 1032 which I put down to being a clutz in spilling some goop/BE2 mix and it ending up at about 24L.. some mis-calc somewhere..?? I could live with that and move on you know?..

....which makes it two weeks tmoz in my book since I put it down.. it had stalled at 1022.. anyway ive tried a few things like raising the temp to 20-22.. giving it a gentle swirl as best I could.. and it came down to 1012... ooh a few days ago I reckon..

anyway today I bite the bullet and get out the old spray gun with me NRS, clean the buggery out of most of the things I own, look suspiciously at the cat but merely offer him to the next door neighbours dog, (may not have actually occured) tell SWMBO there is a fabric sale on 3km away, drop the mozzie net... me fridge is outside but under a big ass yard umbrella... and generally prepare the entire house to do the following... proceedure was as follows..

Remove Primary from brew fridge and place on table nearby, remove lid and completely useless airlock, (no biggie) gently insert long handle spoon and begin to swirl up yeast... bugger.. here come the mozzies.. (man what ya gotta do?) so here I am tryin to get the glad wrap over the primary before the little dive bomber could get in there and I swear he made a bee line for it which I thought was fu##ed 'cause he was a mozzie right?..

anyway I beat him to it and I put my Primary back in the fridge with a double wrap glad wrap lid (glad for the conversion to be fair) and now... I wait... question is..

Ive read that some of the benifits of leaving the brew on the yeast cake for mebee a week following reaching FG can aid in cleaning up unwanted fruity flavours and such, given that my beast is currently in primary for two weeks and I cant even be cerrtain that Ive reached an FG yet.. so I plan to leave her.. it.. watever.. another week and then CC for a week.. which if I add this up will be about a month??

a month or so to the bottle is a little long aint it? well all I can say is Ive learned valuable lessons in patience with this 'un..

:beer:

 

[juzz1981]

i have only left mine for 3 weeks max in the primary and im no expert but i think this is about as long as is recommended, but a mate of mine leaves his for about 4 sometimes 5 on the yeast cake (due to laziness) and he never seems to have any problems.

You should be ok

 

[thesunsettree]

Evenin all, I hope you have all enjoyed some fine samples of our trade recently, personally I went to a wedding Friday which all the beer was Brewed by the Buck.. good effort all round!!

Anywhoo here is my situation I hope you can help with... I have a brew I put in anzac day...

Brew was as follows -
CPA + BE2 using Muntons Gold yeast (yeast I've not previously tried) pitched 22' down to 18'c constant pretty much.. OG was low at 1032 which I put down to being a clutz in spilling some goop/BE2 mix and it ending up at about 24L.. some mis-calc somewhere..?? I could live with that and move on you know?..

....which makes it two weeks tmoz in my book since I put it down.. it had stalled at 1022.. anyway ive tried a few things like raising the temp to 20-22.. giving it a gentle swirl as best I could.. and it came down to 1012... ooh a few days ago I reckon..

anyway today I bite the bullet and get out the old spray gun with me NRS, clean the buggery out of most of the things I own, look suspiciously at the cat but merely offer him to the next door neighbours dog, (may not have actually occured) tell SWMBO there is a fabric sale on 3km away, drop the mozzie net... me fridge is outside but under a big ass yard umbrella... and generally prepare the entire house to do the following... proceedure was as follows..

Remove Primary from brew fridge and place on table nearby, remove lid and completely useless airlock, (no biggie) gently insert long handle spoon and begin to swirl up yeast... bugger.. here come the mozzies.. (man what ya gotta do?) so here I am tryin to get the glad wrap over the primary before the little dive bomber could get in there and I swear he made a bee line for it which I thought was fu##ed 'cause he was a mozzie right?..

anyway I beat him to it and I put my Primary back in the fridge with a double wrap glad wrap lid (glad for the conversion to be fair) and now... I wait... question is..

Ive read that some of the benifits of leaving the brew on the yeast cake for mebee a week following reaching FG can aid in cleaning up unwanted fruity flavours and such, given that my beast is currently in primary for two weeks and I cant even be cerrtain that Ive reached an FG yet.. so I plan to leave her.. it.. watever.. another week and then CC for a week.. which if I add this up will be about a month??

a month or so to the bottle is a little long aint it? well all I can say is Ive learned valuable lessons in patience with this 'un..

:beer:

hi mate,

i personally wouldnt have an issue with the timeframe in primary. i will normally leave my ales in primary for 18 days as a general rule but i know many brewers will get very anxious about removing it from the yeast cake as soon as fg has been reached. all in all i doubt you'll have an issue, whether or not your beers benefit from it only you will now :chug:

cheers
matt

 

[seemax]

I've left ales in primary for up to a month ... no problem, assuming you have good sanitation it will only get clearer.

It depends on whether you strive for clear beers or perhaps entering a comp or swap.

For me I care for taste not clarity...

 

[manticle]

Contrary to all those suggestions out there that autolysis is a myth, I have noticed a yeasty bite to some brews left on primary for too long.

However I do recommend leaving at least a week following FG. Normally I rack to secondary when the brew is around 1020 (dependent on expected FG) and then leave until FG is reached then leave for a week or more on the cake that's left, then cold condition for another week. All in all most brews are left in a fermentation of one kind or another for 3-4 weeks and I find the brews benefit markedly.

Mozzies are good for beer.

One thing I'm not getting - you got a stalled ferment from 1020 to 1012 with a gentle swirl. 1012 sounds OK. Why did you get the brew and stir up the yeast today? Are you worried it's not finished? I would say it's very close, if not done.

 

[Yob]

Contrary to all those suggestions out there that autolysis is a myth, I have noticed a yeasty bite to some brews left on primary for too long.

However I do recommend leaving at least a week following FG. Normally I rack to secondary when the brew is around 1020 (dependent on expected FG) and then leave until FG is reached then leave for a week or more on the cake that's left, then cold condition for another week. All in all most brews are left in a fermentation of one kind or another for 3-4 weeks and I find the brews benefit markedly.

Mozzies are good for beer.

One thing I'm not getting - you got a stalled ferment from 1020 to 1012 with a gentle swirl. 1012 sounds OK. Why did you get the brew and stir up the yeast today? Are you worried it's not finished? I would say it's very close, if not done.

Yeah as you guessed...

I felt it could possibly go a bit lower and I felt that since I was planning on CC that whatever I stirred up would re-settle in that time and I may just get those few extra points... I plan to let it go till midweek and then Hit it with the CC... when I gave it "the stir" and placed the gladwrap lid on i noticed a few hours later some condensation and bulging of the Gladwrap indicating a positive pressure inside... this I would think of as an indicator of further fermentation (though not a sure thing) an im hopeful of a FG bout 1008... Should bring me out to about 3.5 weeks approx..

When it dropped from 1020 to 1012 I cannot attribute this to the swirl, raising the heat to 20-22 or (more likely) a combination of both, I felt a 'deeper' stir to really raise the yeast from the cake may get me a little more action... rightly or wrongly is yet to be seen I guess... cheers man.

:beer:

 

[manticle]

Bulge is probably just CO2 coming out of solution (that said maybe it has a bit more to go). From memory the BE2 contains malt extract so 1012 is about what I would reckon. No harm waiting and seeing though.

 

[Yob]

Bulge is probably just CO2 coming out of solution (that said maybe it has a bit more to go). From memory the BE2 contains malt extract so 1012 is about what I would reckon. No harm waiting and seeing though.

B) the bad boy has come down to 1010 so I plan to switch the fridge on tmoz as soon as I can get my ass home from work, (assume also it aint going much further)... and big up for that favour too...
all set to go again as soon as I get this one into the (shiny) bottles...