10 days in the primary ok for Mr. Beer Vienna Lager?

My last beer I did with Mr. Beer was the WCPA that came with the kit. I only had it in the primary for a week but then conditioned it for 3 weeks and it turned out pretty good.

I wanted to leave it in the primary a little longer this time...was wondering if there was going to be a big difference in 4 more days? I have the day off today and have time to bottle it. No more bubbles at the top. What do you guys think?

Also...if anyone has had the Mr. Beer Oktoberfest Vienna Lager...how was it? Thanks in advance!

Most of us leave our beers in primary for 3-4 weeks. I leave all mine in primary for a month, it makes for clearer and crisper tasting beers. In fact I won for my vienna lager (all grain) recipe and I left it for a month. Your beer will benefit from time.

I usually follow the 1-2-3 rule. 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 3 weeks in the bottles.

If you are going straight from primary to bottles, I'd say let it sit in the primary for 2-3 weeks before bottling.

Noldar said:

I usually follow the 1-2-3 rule. 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 3 weeks in the bottles.

If you are going straight from primary to bottles, I'd say let it sit in the primary for 2-3 weeks before bottling.

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The problem with the 1-2-3 rule is that it doesn't factor in yeast lag time. If a yeast does indeed need 72 hours to start, and you arbitrarily opt to move it on the 7th day, you are only giving the yeast 4 days to do the job AND clean up after itself. That is not a lot of time, and isn't really a week to begin with. If you choose to use something like that, then at least don't start you 1 week count til you actually see krausen.

And it's also why so many of the "is my beer infected" threads occur a few days after the new brewer racks to secondary...fermentation was still happening in the bucket when he racked it, and the first thing the yeasties do is build another krausen, which to a new brewer, who didn't see it in the primary bucket, it looks ugly and nasty.

But really that rule was created back in the day when brewers were afraid of their yeast, and worried about autolysis, and wanted to rush their beers off the yeast asap. We've gone beyond those days of yeast coming in cakes on ships, and sitting on a shelf in some pre-1978 grocery store shelf, or un marked under a can of blue ribbon malt extract. Our yeast is better than that, and deserves the props that it does, and should be left to finish it's job.