beerguy2009

Recipes 

Richabt

Recipes 

I think the general consensus will be the longer the better. Lower gravity beers generally dont need as much time as higher gravity ones, and that is usually how I plan my fermentation schedules. On average, I usually go three weeks.

__________________
On Deck:
Cherry Wheat
Primary: Backporch Pale Ale (7g) 2/20
Secondary:
Bottled/On Tap: Backporch Irish Red 9/26, Backporch Amber Ale 10/4, Edwort's Apfelwein, Belgian Dubbel 1/9, Backporch Sake 1/24


Cascade SMaSH 10/24, Backporch IPA 11/1, Sweetwater 420 ESB Clone 11/23
Gone:
Experimental 9/19, Spiced Ale 9/3, Amberbock 8/23

beerguy2009

Recipes 

The SG was 1.011 and the OG was 1.050. Does the SG usually go lower than that after longer fermentation. Also is that why the beer has a sweeter taste than expected (only fermenting for a week). It is an American Cream Ale kit from Brewers Best.

TipsyDragon

Recipes 

actually thats been largely disproved. darker beers are better than lighter beers at hiding autolysis but really its not as big of a problem as some people make it out to be.

after and during primary fermentation the yeast do whats called secondary fermentation. during secondary fermentation the yeast are cleaning up after themselves. the more yeast that is in the fermenter during this process the better. the longer you let the beer sit on the yeast the more time the yeast have to clean up off flavors. but there will be a point where the beer isn't going to get any better.

bce22

Recipes 

It depends on many many factors, not least of which is fermentation temperature.

You will want to check to see that your SG is stable. I usually do this by checking twice over a three day span. If my reading is the same, I'm pretty confident it's finished.

None-the-less, Im trying to leave my beers in the primary for three weeks at least unless I want to add fruit, etc. Then I'll rack to a secondary.

by the way, what did your recipe say you should receive for a FG?

bce22

Recipes 

+1 To this!!!

Autolysis is not something you need to be concerned with. It takes a very very long time for it to take place. Read about it on these forums. Many brewers leave there beers on the yeast cake for a month of more and some for A LOT longer without ANY negative effect from it.

Revvy

Recipes 

You don't really "know" that, you've just heard some old wive's tale about it. Big difference.

People have successfully had their beer in primary for upwards of 6 months with no issues....

You will find that many of us leave our beers in primary for 3-4 weeks (or more) and only secondary if we are adding fruit or oak, or to dry hop (though many of us dry hop in primary now as well)....and we have found our beer vastly improved by letting the beer stay in contact with the yeast.

There's been a big shift in brewing consciousness in the last few years where many of us believe that yeast is a good thing, and besides just fermenting the beer, that they are fastidious creatures who go back and clean up any by products created by themselves during fermentation, which may lead to off flavors.

Rather than the yeast being the cause of off flavors, it is now looked at by many of us, that they will if left alone actually remove those off flavors, and make for clearer and cleaner tasting beers.

Even John Palmer talks about this in How To Bew;

People have left it as much as six months. Autolysis is a myth for homebrewers.

Even when Palmer is talking about it, he's talking about it in terms of LAGERS not ales. Most people get so freaked out about in reading Palmer, that they don't notice it is in the Lager chapter, nor do they notice the caveat at the end of the section that I posted above.

I still believe that POSSIBLY autolysis WAS a concern to homebrewers 20-30 years ago, when the yeast came in dry cakes, of dubious heritage and came across from where homebrewing was legalized in the hot cargo holds of ships and may have sat for months in terrible conditioned...In other words was unhealthy to begin with.

And therefore may have crapped out and made for nastiness, (and also was prone to stick fermentation as well.) and tales of it just continued to perpetuate over time, even though yeasts are much more healthy and fresh, and more is understood about them nowaday....people gravitate to the negative and fear and still perpetuate those worries...over and over and over....

And I still maintain that as much as I like Palmer, he contributed to the hysteria.....I mean noone but me seems to notice that that section on the scary autolysis appears in the chapter on lagering. He is not talking about it with ales...or beers in general..just lagers..because flaws are more perceptable in lagers...since in essence most commercial lagers are tasteless...anything would stand out..

and I think most new brewers have crapped themselves at the mere thought long before the notice the closer to the section I mentioned earlier.

This is where the most up to date brewing wisdom and ideas can be found...In fact a lot of stuff has been started on here, and made it into byo or zymurgy or podcasts...in fact BYO DID a piece on no secondary/long primary, along with the BASIC BREWING PODCAST and even they said that there were no issues/harm with doing it and in some beers it did actually improve the flavor and clarity. And I believe that really WAS influenced by the discussion we have had for the last couple years on here.

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beerguy2009

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Thanks for all the info. Sounds like letting it sit in the fermenter for a couple weeks might be better.
I am still wondering why it seemed to taste a little sweet. Could that be that the kit used corn sugar in the wort.

marubozo

Recipes 

Corn Sugar is almost entirely fermentable, so unless your beer was not done fermenting, the corn sugar would not add a sweet flavor. In fact, adding simple sugars to a beer usually just make it more dry, as they are converted almost entirely into alcohol and leave little flavor behind.

Chances are if it's tasting sweet, it's just not done yet. You really can't go by a week in the fermenter and think that's what it will taste like when it's done. A lot goes on even after the primary fermentation is done and the flavor profile will change quite a bit in the coming weeks. As long as your final gravity remains the same for a few days and you're within your target you should be good to bottle and then it's up to you to give it enough time to turn into great beer.

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On Deck: London Style Pub Ale
Primary: Apfelwein, Belgian Dubbel, Amber Ale
Secondary: Nothing
Kegged: SNPA Clone, Apfelwein, American IPA
Bottled: Honey Blonde, Apfelwein, Ordinary Bitter

beerguy2009

Recipes 

It is bottled and I let it condition for 2 weeks before trying one. Will the flavor still change if I let them sit for a while? I have been reading How To Brew by John Palmer and I think there were several things I didn't do right so I don't expect this first batch to be real great. I just bought another Brewers best kit, English Pale Ale, as it seemed close to the Cincinnati Pale Ale recipe in the book. I am going to incorporate some of the recomendations from the book into this batch and see if it comes out better.