Belgian Wit taste.....

So it's been about 5 1/2 weeks since I brewed my extract wit. It's been sitting in the fermentor for the 5 1/2 weeks. I was wondering if maybe I'll have some off taste once I can finally keg it. I've read a bit about autolysis. I'm wanting to know if I should expect some off taste, or if it should be fine? Other than say some other taste from my water or me not doing something right during the brewing process. An homebrewing friend of mine said it should be fine, and not too worry. Just curious what your opinions might be.... So thanks in advance for any replies...

I know a lot of classic homebrew books suggest moving your beer off the yeast after initial fermentation has subsided, but the days of mandatory secondary are over as far as I can gather. Many, many people leave their beers in primary for at least 4 weeks. I don't think an extra 1.5 would matter. I would only be concerned at 2+ months, but I don't have any firsthand experience with autolysis or super long primary (mine longest is about a month).

I once left a beer in primary for two months when I couldn't find time/motivation to put it in bottles. Turned out great; I'm actually sharing the last four bottles with a friend this weekend, which is saying a lot since I'm nervous about giving funky homebrew to people.

The same happened with a stout; brewed in late March, just bottled Tuesday. No worries.

edit: Damn I really need to change my 'on deck' listing that appears on every post.. None of it is accurate anymore...

Assuming you've followed good sanitation practices and have fermented maintaining the yeast's optimal temperature range you should be fine. I've fermented 4 lager beers at 54F for 28 days before racking them off to secondaries, cold lagering at 34F for 6 weeks and then bottle carbing them and they came out perfect.



This link provides some light reading about Yeast In Your Beer.

Thanks for the link I'll read through that when I've got some free time. Again thanks for the replies. This was mostly just a curiousity question. Just checked it yesterday and it looks to be ok. Nothing is growing on Tue top at the moment, so I'm guessing my sanitation has been ok. Anyway it should be kegged by next week hopefully.

I have had wheat beers in the primary for 6 weeks with no known ill effects

Just read this. You'll find that most of those that preached the autolysis boogeyman are either out of date or have even changed THEIR beliefs on it.

Autolysis produces umami flavors that sometimes resemble beef broth or soy sauce. It's very unpleasant, and you'll know for sure when you come across it. Fortunately, it's very rare, especially in beer brewing. You really need to abuse the yeast very much to get them to give up the ghost. I've only come across it twice: Apfelwein (for which I had used a continuous culture for something like 5 months without ever washing the yeast) and a beer in which my friend forgot to rinse out the cleaner. That one had pretty much every off-flavor imagineable, including the telltale autolysis character.