Should I bottle ASAP?!!

I recentlly brewed my first batch of beer since college (8yrs)!! I wanted to kick it up a notch from the colleg brew days of just extract,sugar and water. So, my brew shop dudes suggested, what I've now learned as "mini-mash" recipies were not only do I use malt extract but some grains and fresh hops to add to the overall beauty of the beer. I was psyched about this, followed the brew dudes recipies to the "T" and began pleasantlly fermenting in my car boy!!!
Now according to homebrewing with Charlie P. he says that fermentation will be 8-14 days. My beer stopped fermenting after only 6 days!? Is this normal? Even if I prime my beer for bottling with 3/4 cup of sugar for my 5 Gal. mix will it be flat because there is no activity?

Help great beer dudes of the forum!!

Thanks,
D-licious (Darin)

It won't be flat. The priming sugar just "wakes up" the yeast in the bottle to get it to form some more co2. That's what causes the carbonation. You can safely leave it in the primary for a couple of weeks. If you aren't going to bottle within this time, you can rack it over to a secondary and leave it there for months before bottling.

First thing to remember is yeast can't tell time and they don't know what day of the week it is. Everything you'll read on the beginners books is desgned to give you some basic guidelines and instruction. Don't get hung up on how many days your beer has been fermenting. Instead begin to focus on hitting your numbers. Know your starting gravity and where you want it to finish. Some beers take only 2-3 days to hit terminal gravity. Some may take months or years to fully attenuate i.e. Flanders Red. Also dont worry about leaving your beer in the fermenter for too long. A few extra days or even a few extra weeks or more wont really hurt the beer. Even if the beer looks nice and clear, I promise there are still plenty of yeast cells still in suspention. Give thses little guys a little corn sugar, and they'll carbonate nicely for you. It will help to keep your bottles in a warmer environment as they do their work in the bottle. Make sure to give a little air space around each bottle. Ususally after 2 weeks they're good to go. I usually let bottled beer mature for a good month before chilling down (unless it's a Weizen or similar). I Hope this helps a little.

i'd go ahead and bottle...7+ years is usually long enough...