To Bottle or not to bottle?

Made a Belgium Golden Strong (Duvel clone more or less from JZ's book) on August 17th.

Didn't use a secondary.

Used a big starter but it still chugged along with airlock activity for almost 4 weeks.

Finally stopped and the SG is down to the target of 1.008. But it's still cloudy.

I'm going to bottle this one. My concern is this. JZ says (like he does on all his beers) wait till it's finished fermmenting and "dropped clear". Well I think it's finished fermenting but has not "dropped clear".

I'm concerned with the yeast for bottle conditioning. It's already worked it's way from 1.071 to 1.008. The it's supposed to be carbonated to 4 volumes. 280g of Corn sugar.

Should I bottle now and it will clear in the bottle?
Should I wait another week for it to clarify? Will there be enough yeast to carbonate to 4 volumes?

Thanks

Rudeboy

Oh ya it was Wyeast 1388

Well if it clears in the bottle you'll have all of that sediment at the bottom. Granted bottle conditioned beer has some degree of fallout in the bottle....you'll just have more. Personally, I don't mind a little fallout. I almost always drink it out of a glass anyways.
If it just so happens that you keep it in the primary for a while longer while it clears and you don't end up having enough viable yeast left, you could always pitch a small amount before bottling. Just enough to carbonate with the priming sugar.

Some commercial breweries do that. They wash out the fermenting yeast and use a different strain for bottling.

It will clear quicker if you cool it (If you can do that). Then you can bottle without much crud.

You'll have plenty of yeast. Like WBC said, if you can cool it, I would do that. If you're not going to use a secondary, and you're at your FG, I would go ahead and bottle it.

Why are you asking us when the recipe "clearly" tells you to bottle AFTER it clears by itself?

Do a secondary.

Fermentation, clearing and carbonation are all natural processes that CAN NOT BE ALTERED!!! Patience, Grasshopper...:rockin:

You could rack it into secondary, and I'd add a bit of gelatin at that time. You'd be surprised how quickly it will clear. Just boil a cup of water, cool it, add a pack of gelatin to it, let it sit for an hour, heat it till it's clear, then add it to the secondary and rack on top of it. Your beer will clear within a couple of days.

Ya I do all that when I keg. But these are going to be bottle conditioned so I was worrying if I Cold Crashed/Fined there would be enough yeasties to carb it up considering the already high ABV and the fact I need to get it to 4 volumes.

But now I'm worrying about autolysis, as we're at day 30 in primary. (as you can tell I worry about a lot of things. I know. I know. RDWHAHB).

Rudeboy