Length of Time for Fermenting

Hey,
I am new to brewing. I have thus far brewed 4 batches all from kits. I have been reading through a number of posts on this site and noticed that a lot of more experienced brewers tend to keep their beers in fermentation a lot longer than I have been led to believe you should. When I first read some literature on brewing I was under the impression that you should move to secondary fermentation within a week, and bottle about a week to a week and a half after that. All of my brews have turned out well, and I was just inquiring if there was a reason that so many of you seem to keep your beer in primary for such a long time? I have also been told that doing so will cause the yeast to autolyze and thus give off flavors to the beer...is this true or just a misconception? I have waited until it seems that most activity has stopped, and then racked to secondary and waited till the beer is no longer cloudy in the secondary to bottle. Thanks in advance for any help, I really appreciate it.

The extra time in the primary gives the yeast time to 'clean up' it will reduce the off flavors, plus a lot of us are not racking to a secondary.

I sometimes do 1,2,3 but my past 2 brews were only in a primary (2 weeks) to the keg for a bit of conditioning.

Thanks,
So basically the idea that leaving the beer on the yeast will cause off flavors is a myth?? I thought that was part of the reason behind racking to secondary, but what you are telling me here seems to be that you don't need to move it off the yeast?

I usually secondary, but never before 10 days in primary. Lots of guys primary for 3-4 weeks and skip secondary altogether. General consensus I've seen is that autolosis will take much longer than that to happen.

Nice to know, thanks. One last thing though, suppose you remove from primary after a week, and secondary after a week and a half, are you sacrificing taste, or anything else, or are you just running the risk of not fermenting completely?

zeppman301 said:

Nice to know, thanks. One last thing though, suppose you remove from primary after a week, and secondary after a week and a half, are you sacrificing taste, or anything else, or are you just running the risk of not fermenting completely?

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Besides incomplete fermentation, you may have to condition the beer a bit before its drinkable.

All in all... you are making beer any way you ferment it. If it comes out good, you did good! In other words, there is not any one proven way to ferment.