Once the fg is reached in fermenter is really necessary to give it time to clean up? If your temp control is good is there really much to clean up? I bottle so it’ll sit in the bottle for about a week anyway so will it get rid of any off flavor while carbonation is happening?
I guess it depends on how quickly you mean. If it is as soon as your target gravity is reached I would say give it more time. If nothing else it will make your beer more clear. One frustrating thing about homebrewing is waiting but it almost always is better. At least a few days past terminal gravity.
As long as your gravity remains the same for a few days I don’t think it will hurt anything if you bottle. The quicker you do the more junk in the bottom of the bottle though.
+1 to Mark. The temptation to drink unfinished beer is big amongst brewers. Yah, you can have carbonation in a couple of weeks, but lets just say you have a small session beer, the improved taste and flavor difference is big if you wait an just give it another month. I have heard people say “well now that this beer is a couple mos. old I got to get rid of it or it’s going to go bad”. Not true! Yes, I agree that heavy dry hopped beers lose that hop flavor & aroma fairly soon, but the beer itself can get better thru time, and that’s really true for ‘Big’ beers. Patience is a biggie when you want to improve the taste of your beers.
Only you can decide that. Taste the beer…is it good enough to drink? I just made an Am. brown ale, OG 1.063. After 4 days at 63F, it had reached FG (1.013). I cranked the temp up to 70 for 2 more days to be sure it was done. Took a gravity sample, tasted it and it was fantastic. Turned the temp down to 33F, and I’ll give it a couple more days. I’ll be kegging it 8 days after brewing and it is delicious. It doesn’t always work out like that, but my point is that you can’t guess or estimate…you need to taste the beer.
I must be missing a new line of thinking Denny, I remember your comments about Waldo Lake and how you thought it had greatly improved after some aging. I made it basically the same way as you and found what you said to be true about the age and improvement. I had to make it to find out for myself. I really want to stay current of new things.
I know that letting it sit for a while gets it nice and clear which I like. I don’t know about the yeast cleaning up, I think it has to do with settling out really.
During the initial extremely active fermentation when the yeast are going to town on the easily fermented simple sugars, they do produce some compounds like diacetyl and aldehydes that do take longer for the yeast to ‘cleanup’. How much longer? Not long, maybe 48 hours.
So, of course one has to agree with Denny- the only way to know for sure if it’s ready to package is take a SG and taste it. But I’m also like Brewcat in that I like my brews to be nice and clear before I bottle. So I usually wait a good 2 weeks, and often longer. And I generally cold crash and hit her with gelatin. Overdoing it? Maybe, but I do get wicked clear,(and flavorful) beers. And I have a long, full pipeline, so I can afford to wait.
I suppose if I kegged I would package sooner and let her clear in the keg.
There’s a guy on the AHA forum who knows more about yeast than I knew you could know! I kept telling him I’d tried what he suggested and didn’t care for the results. But after meeting him and talking to him more, I decided O owed it to him and myself to give one of his ideas a try. So far, the result is impressive. I wrote it up in my blog and I’ll be following up with the results…http://www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/d … new-tricks
Thanks Denny, I’ll be watching for it.
