Is my beer ready to bottle?

I am making a chimay red clone. I took a gravity five days ago. It was 1.018. I took it again today. It was 1.018. However there are still bubbles coming out every 15 seconds. Also the instructions say the final gravity should be 1.014.

Should i let it go longer. Is there any danger of waiting too long before bottling?

if the gravity hasn't changed its done..

How long was this in primary fermentation? Without that knowledge, I can only shrug and say BOTTLE BOMB FIGHT!!!

The bubbles could just be CO2 coming out of solution. Temp changes, barometric pressure changes can impact this. If you have been at the same gravity for 5-6 days, 1.018 is not significantly different than 1.014 in my humble opinion and the beer has finished fermenting and for the past 5 days the hungry yeast are just eating up the off flavor producing by-products they made during the first few days of aggressive fermentation. You are good to bottle now.

I'm curious as well as to how long it has been in the fermenter and at what temperature you are fermenting. As far as leaving it in the fermenter to long. Doubt that will be an issue. A month is my norm for average gravity beers. That is probably more than necessary but I've seen no ill effect from it.

Stable gravity is confirmation of the beer being done, then clarity so if the gravity I unchanged and the beer cleared go ahead and bottle

duboman said:

Stable gravity is confirmation of the beer being done, then clarity so if the gravity I unchanged and the beer cleared go ahead and bottle

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I agree but if my 'primary' was farting every 15 seconds 3 weeks in, im thinking something aint right 100% somewhere. I guess different yeasts or wrong yeasts non ale for ale might be a factor-

1 bubble per 15 seconds and my beer is still fermenting

1 bubble per 90 seconds, different story-

another reason why carboys and better bottles rule- you can see whats going on as well.

Stable gravity - beer is not fermenting no matter what the airlock is doing. Environmental conditions will cause CO2 to rise out of the beer and change the pressure in the head space which may or may not result in airlock activity.

mikemet said:

I agree but if my 'primary' was farting every 15 seconds 3 weeks in, im thinking something aint right 100% somewhere. I guess different yeasts or wrong yeasts non ale for ale might be a factor-

1 bubble per 15 seconds and my beer is still fermenting

1 bubble per 90 seconds, different story-

another reason why carboys and better bottles rule- you can see whats going on as well.

Click to expand...

See Dan's reply, an airlock is just a valve and doesn't really mean much compared to gravity readings.

Saturday will be four weeks total. I transfered to the secondary after two weeks. The temp has been held at 66 to 68 through out. I am out of town this weekend. Monday would be a good time for me. Do you see any problem in waiting until monday?

Since i could see bubbles i was not too concerned. However since the gravity did not change over a few days i became suspicious and decided to ask questions.

The yeast was either white labs belgian ale 530 or wyyeast 1214.

It's ready but not to late. Bottle it next chance you get.