I’ve found that my ales will be clear before day 18 to 21 in the primary. I typically give them three weeks for the trub layer to fully compact. Can siphon more beer out with a compact trub layer. I dry hop on about day 21.
edit: Move your fermentor the day before bottling day if it needs to be moved. Sediment resuspended will have time to settle.
Great tip, thanks Flars. Mine is on a high shelf so I should be able to rack it to the bottling bucket from exactly where it currently is.
When should I retest the SG?
I usually just take two readings for SG. First about day 10 and the second more than 5 days later. I don’t believe taking readings on successive days does any good except exposing the beer to infection. Quite often find the SG from day 10 is the FG but with a lot of sediment in the sample tube.
By the way Flars, if I was to dry hop at about day 21, that would basically move up my timeline by about a week. How do you know when is the right time for that step and then the bottling step?
I guess since it’s been a consistent 74 degrees F in my “brew closet” that the process may have been somewhat accelerated, so this may be OK.
Let me know what you guys think … thanks again for all the help!
I will dry hop sometimes a little short of three weeks if the beer has cleared and the trub layer looks settled. I like to dry hop the Chinook for 7 days. A little extra time seems to bring out better aromas from the chinook hop.
Flars is spot on… one other step you could try too, put it in the fridge for 2 days, just before you bottle… Cold crash will aid in clearing of your brew… Sneezles61
Thanks for the comments!
Based on the advice here, I am going to move my timeline forward by a week or so. I’ll add my dry hops this Wednesday (7/11). This will give me a week until I can move the carboy to the fridge hopefully on Sunday the 15th (we are out of town that weekend but getting back on 7/15) for a target bottling of Wed July 18.
I will have to measure to ensure I can fit that thing in my fridge! I’ll have to reconfigure things for sure …
I’ve read about this cold crash concept. When I add the priming solution to the bucket and then rack in the beer, it will be OK that it is cold right? I mean in terms of affecting (or rather hopefully not affecting) the bottle conditioning / carbonation process?
The beer can be cold when bottling. The amount of priming sugar to use is still based on the highest fermentation temperature though. The calculator estimates how much residual CO2 remains in solution according to that temperature.
Well now we have a record breaking heat wave in LA. It reached 100 degrees F outside - not sure about inside the closet or garage, they are somewhat shaded. It reached an incredible 121 in my car during my commute home!
I haven’t dared to open the closet since it is probably cooler in there. I will try to freeze a couple of jugs of water to pop in there tomorrow. I hope the heat didn’t ruin the batch!
The first 2 to 4 days of a fermentation are the most critical when high temperatures can produce off flavors or completely ruin a beer with fusel alcohols. Your beer will probably lose some CO2 faster if the temperature did climb. It would not have ruined the beer.
Should have mentioned this before. Having the fermentor in a tub of water will reduce temperature swings. The water becomes a very large heat sink. Adding ice bottles to the water can reduce the temperature of the beer inside the fermentor by cooling the water. This is about the simplest and easiest temperature control. A swamp cooler uses the tub of water and a wet towel around the fermentor. Cools as the water evaporates from the towel. Cooling can be further accelerated by having a fan blowing on the towel.
This is my swamp cooler set up. A STC-1000 controls the fan for extra cooling or an aquarium heater for heat when it is needed.
I do 8 days before kegging
That’s a cool low tech setup! Thanks for sharing that. I believe I can swing a similar setup for my next batch, hopefully.
Do you keep that going for the duration of the entire brew cycle, or only during that first critical part, 2-4 days during fermentation?
My ambient temperature during the summer is 66°F. During the winter the ambient temperature is 68° to 70°F. Using a yeast like US-05 I will be cooling during the winter to hold the initial active fermentation temperature to 66° to 68°. This is for the first 3 to 5 days of the most active part of the fermentation. After that I will let the beer sit at ambient of 68° to 70° until bottling.
With an ambient of 66°F during the summer I’ll let the fermentation start and then hold the highest temperature of the active fermentation until bottling day. I’ll use the aquarium heater to hold the higher temperature. Using US-05 in a moderate OG beer the highest temperature formed by the fermentation may only be 69° to 70°F. Well within the yeasts range to stay neutral.
Well folks I am all bottled up as of last night. I ended up cold crashing for about 48 hours due to scheduling issues on my part.
I was unable to take the FG measurement, as I didn’t extract enough sample to float the hydrometer! Whoops!
I sampled the product and I am glad to say that it tasted pretty good! A bit sweeter than I expected, but definitely bitter and with alcohol. After several days I will pop the first sample to taste it out. How long does the bottle conditioning generally take?
I try to hold off tasting until the bottles have had at least a week of warm conditioning. I keep the bottles in the dining room which is about 72°F. Chill for a day before opening. The chilling will drop sediments that may have been suspended by movement. The sediments are nucleation points for the CO2. This can cause excessive foaming when you pour.
I keep meaning to update this thread. The beer came out pretty good, I must say! It is spicier and richer than I expected - more of a saison than an IPA flavor to me. It seems to be pretty low alcohol. Definitely drinkable.
I don’t know if it was the cold crash or what but the beer is a deep amber color but is clear.
I am interested in trying all grain but I am not certain if I need additional or different gear?
You need to get a mashtun with false bottom. Or bazooka. And a valve at the bottom to drain the wort once done mashing. You can buy crushed grain or get a grain mill. To crush the grains your self( me like milling my grains) to start you can use your boil kettle as htl kettle. Or get a separte. Htl tank. Some of the brewers here do biab brewing. So saves you equipment and some cash. For the rest you should have most the equipment all ready. At your house. So easy to convert to all grain
Brew in a bag or BIAB is the next step I would recommend, but you will want a nice big pot.
This is useful info…
Cold Crashing will cause more solids to drop out of solution resulting in clearer beer.
Extract brews are usually darker than all-grain brews. I assume this is due to longer boil times to drive off more water to get it down to extract consistency. You could lighten the color by adding half the extract at the beginning of the boil and the other half near the end (10 minutes?). When I was brewing extract I never did that because color, while important, wasn’t important enough for me to focus on it.
I’ll use the late extract addition technique for most beers. Add DME first if it is in the recipe. DME darkens less than LME through the Maillard Reaction. Add DME/LME to achieve a 1.040 SG wort. This is supposed to be the optimum SG for isomerization of hop oils to their fullest potential.
