In Mr Wizard's colum in BYO this month he made an interesting analogy about brewing and baking....He said that egg timers are all well and good in the baking process but they only provide a "rule of thumb" as to when something is ready...recipes, oven types, heck even atmospheric conditions, STILL have more bearing on when a cake is ready than the time it says it will be done in the cook book. You STILL have to stick a toothpick in the center and pull it out to see if truly the cake is ready.....otherwise you may end up with a raw cake....
Not too different from our beers....We can have a rough idea when our beer is ready (or use something silly like the 1-2-3 rule
(which doesn't factor in things like yeast lag time or even ambient temp during fermentation) and do things to our beer willy nilly....but unless we actually stick "our toothpick" (the hydrometer) in and let it tell us when the yeasties are finished...we too can "f" our beer up.
We forget this simple fact...We are not making koolaid, or chocolate quick, just stirring in and having instant gratification...when you pitch yeast, you are dealing with living micro-organisms...and they have their own timetable, and their own agenda...You have to figure in a wild card.
Any rule of thumb we talk about is usually based on observation...BUT like I said, it should be taken with a grain of salt...because there are so many variables that come into play...Not just things like the gravity of the beer (which the higher the gravity the longer things take) but things on a a level beyond our perception.
Just like with other animals, including humans...No two behave the same.
You can split a batch in half put them in 2 identical carboys, and pitch equal amounts of yeast from the same starter...and have them act completely differently...
one could even take longer to finish and taste good. or some reason on a subatomic level...think about it...yeasties are small...1 degree difference in temp to us, could be a 50 degree difference to them...one fermenter can be a couple degrees warmer because it's closer to a vent all the way across the room and the yeasties take off...
Someone, Grinder I think posted a pic once of 2 carboys touching each other, and one one of the carboys the krausen had formed only on the side that touched the other carboy...probably reacting to the heat of the first fermentation....but it was like symbiotic or something...
The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with
your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read,
Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right
diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in.....
The hydrometer is the best diagnostic tool we as brewers have. So don't fear it, or consider it "messing with your beer" consider it
understanding your beer.
You will find Many of us here leave our beers in primary for a month, it is actually very good for the beer to leave it around that long...it improves taste and clarity vastly...
There are several dozen threads about long primary or no secondary, if you wanna know what it does and why we choose to do it, just do a thread search on those key words...there's like at least one new thread on it every 2-3 days so there's plenty of info.
I think you saw by the previous posters that the idea of "when is a beer really ready?" is actually replaced by the idea that "Patience is a virtue" whether it is in answer as to when to rack the beer to secondary (if at all), to when to bottle, to when is the bottles going to be ready....SO the best answer to that question would be
Your beer is ready when it is ready, and it will probably be ready and fantastic in a time that is much longer than yours.
Even John Palmer in "How To Brew" mentions the benefits of waiting...
Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.
Like I have said repeatedly we are not the bosses of the beer...the yeasts are. They have been doing it for over 4,000 years, so they have tenure.
If
You think something is done, then wait another week to 10 days and it will be done better......As much as I advocate the use of a hydrometer to ascertain done-ness I also advocate that even if the hydrometer shows the beer is done
fermenting that the yeast are not done...that they are fastidious creatures, who will, if you give them plenty of time, will go back and clean up any messes they made during fermentation. They will often eat all the crap that most people would say causes off flavors (heck that is what a diacetyl rest is...you warm you beer up enough to get the yeast active, and it will swim around and eat all the chemicals that cause buttered popcorn tastes- It's nothing more than giving the yeast a shot at cleaning up it's own garbage.
