Does the og determine how long a beer should sit in the primary fermenter? I’ve heard you can get some undesirable flavors if it sits too long in the primary. I’m still fairly new at brewing so was looking for advice.
well, more or less, yes. depends on what you are doing after primary. are you asking if it’s ready to bottle, or should it be moved to secondary? primary means the majority of fermenation has taken place. some low OG beers should be ready to bottle after primary- 1 week or less in some cases. some high OG beers you would benefit greatly by leaving it in a long primary. racking too early could be detrimental indeed.
in my opinion, leaving a couple weeks longer in a primary is more beneficial and less risky than most are led to believe. yeast autolysis takes longer to have real negative effects on our scale than we really need to worry about.
2-3 weeks
16-18 days is what I usually do for lagers. I have gone as long as 21 days but I drop the temp to lagering temps if I go past 18 days, and this only happens if I don’t have the time to rack it off.
I believe the OP is concerned with autolysis.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter10-3.htmlI have a 1.050 generic ale that is over 1year old sitting on the primary yeast cake. I haven’t noticed any issues.
