Can beer be left to ferment for to long?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NavyMarine1978

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2011
Messages
100
Reaction score
0
Location
Halifax
Hello Everyone,

I am preparing to leave on a sail next week (Mon, 27th). I want to put together a batch to ferment in the carboy while I am gone and bottle uppon returning. The sail is to take about 2 weeks but, may be shorter or longer. Both of the exsisting batches (Irish Pub Stout, Oatmeal Stout) have finished up in the fermenter within the two week window. I was not as pleased with the Irish Stout flavour (more sweet than I prefer) compared to the Oatmeal Stout which gave a wonderful pour at week 5 bottled at room temp and refridgerated for only a few hours. I had poured it the same way that I did the Irish Pub Stout by turning the bottle upside down over the glass. The head came up so quickly that I had to sip it off a few times and the cascading of the beer was a beautiful thing. The flavour of the Oatmeal Stout is almost identical to Guinness. So, my question is: If I put a new batch into the fermenter before my sail which should be approximately two weeks, can any harm come if the beer if it sits longer in the carboy than 2 weeks with a blow-off tube attatched? Can beer be fermented for to long of a period?
 
Yes, it can ferment for too long in the primary if the death of the yeast begins the autolysis process. However, that being said, the length of time you're looking at in the primary is actually very short. I usually let my beers ferment out about three weeks on average in the primary with no problems. There are brewers that will ferment out their beers for up to two months (or more for barleywines) with no issues from autolysis.

Your beer will be fine when you get back.
 
You will be fine. I let a lot of my brews sit for a month or two, depnding on what the brew is.
 
^ +1.

Longer is better, up to a point. And that point is measured in months rather than weeks. I wouldn't even bat an eye at the prospect of leaving the beer in the primary for two to four months.
 
We need to clarify something for you...Your beer doesn't fermen for x number of weeks. Beer only ferments for as long as the yeast takes, which is usually about a week. The rest of the time a beer is left alone is for conditioning .

You don't CHOOSE how long a beer ferments for.....you let the yeast do it's job...you want a beer to finish fermenting.

Many of us leave out beers a minimum of 1 month, skip secondary and bottle. Many folks have left their beer a year in primary with no issues. The longest I have ever had has been 5.5 months, and the beer was fine.

And CAN WE PLEASE quit throwing the autolysis boogeyman around like it's a FACT EVERYTIME someone wants to know how long is safe to leave a beer in primary or secondary....

It's out dated information!!!!!

the whole Autolysis boogeyman, that even JOHN PALMER admitted he got wrong and created un needed panic.

John Palmer actually retracted what he said in HTB. He discussed it in a couple podcasts, at one of the homebrewer's conferences, and a discussion with Jamil, which are all quoted and referenced in the thread I posted below.

Some of his original initial comments like the one at the conference seemed to echo verbatum what I and a few others had said when we began these discussions and recording our experiences on here 4 years ago. I believe a lot of the shift can be attributed to us here. Which influenced basic brewing and byo magazine to start the dialogue more pubically.

Nowadays even many instructions, in BYO magazine, and even some kits suggest a long primary as opposed to using a secondary. So it's pretty obviously that they're not buying that bogeyman anymore either.

I suggest you read THIS thread, it's become the "uber discussion" on this topic thread.

To Secondary or Not? John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff Weigh In .

This is a misoconception that so many people have, autolysed yeast and dead yeast are NOT the same thing. And folks need to grasp this, and quit worrying about autoysis. It's just not an issue for us....

Autolysis is to yeasts what peritonitus is to humans, it's a specific condition. Everyone who dies doesn't have their intestines rupture and rotten bacteria dump into their bloodstream.

NOR does every yeast cell that dies dump the contents of IT'S cells into the beer. If that were the case every beer we ever make would autolysize...

Autolysis is not the inevitable end of healthy yeast. It is the unnatural end that is a product of yeast health...like peritinitus or even cancer in us....it is an abberation....UNHEALTHY AND STRESSED yeast autolyse... but rarely do we have unhealthy yeast these days, most of the yeast we pitch is fresh...and unless we are making a huge beer, even underpitching will not NECESSARILY produce stressed out yeast. Or stressed out yeast that will automatically autlolyse....

Most yeast that folks call dead, is actually dormant. Like most of what's in the bottom of the fermenter when fermentation is complete. And the yeast is indead dead, a lot of it is canibalized by the living yeast. And the rest, if the yeast was healthy to begin with, is just dead....think of it as natural causes, it's not necessarily spilling it's "intestinal" goop into our beer.

As Palmer and Jamil have said it is a RARE occurance these days that yeast actually dies anymore, let alone actually autolyses. It just goes dormant when the job is done and waits for the next round of sugar (much like when we pitch on top of the old yeast cake- which even some commercial brewers do for multiple generations.) The cells rarely rupture and die off.

It's not like 30 years ago (when most of those opinions that you espouse about autolysis originated from) when our hobby was still illegal, and there wasn't a lot of FRESH yeast available to us. The yeast used in hobby brewing was usually in cake form, which came from Germany and England in hot cargo ships and may have sat on a store shelf for a long time....or the brewer just used bread yeast.

Palmer even said this in the broadcast I quote from above-

So the whole health and vitality of yeast was different back then compared to now. Back then it made sense. You had weaker yeast that had finished fermentation that were more susceptible to autolysis and breaking down. Now that is not the case. The bar of homebrewing has risen to where we are able to make beer that has the same robustness as professional beer. We've gotten our techniques and understanding of what makes a good fermentation up to that level, so you don't need to transfer the beer off the yeast to avoid autolysis like we used to recommend.

Yeast in the 21st century is much healthier to begin with, and is less prone to have issues like their cells autolysing....just like our own health tends to be better these days.

That is not a concern that should be tossed around like it's a sacred fact,.

People have left beers alone ON THE YEAST for a year with no issues.....So when someone asks how long it's safe you don't have to offer up the ole autolysis chestnut like it was inevitable.
 
How long is too long in an Ale Pail? I've read bulk conditioning/aging should be in a glass carboy or Better Bottle.
 
How long is too long in an Ale Pail? I've read bulk conditioning/aging should be in a glass carboy or Better Bottle.

FOlks have done a year in an ale pale.....I've done 6 months with no issues....That is a non issue.....

Any question you might have about this topic has already been covered in the Jamil/Palmer thread...I encourage you to read through it....
 
That is actually open in another browser. I'm just saving it for when I can read it all in one sitting. :)
 
With all of that excellent information being put out there, what is the by-product of not fermenting long enough? What I have read so far is that beer bottled to soon before fermenting has completed will continue to do so in the bottles causing bottle bombs. All of the grain recipes that I have put together so far have used a yeast called Nottingham Dried Ale Yeast and have all taken a routine 2 weeks to complete active fermentation. At this point, there was no visual or audible evidence of the yeast doing anything. The beer had also settled out well and created a nice sediment at the bottom of the fermenter. The only exception to this was the Oatmeal and Double Oatmeal Stouts which had a more active fermentation for about the first three days in the fermenter. I just bottled an Old Peculiar which used Windsor Dried Ale Yeast. This recipe became active in the fermenter within an hour and was so vigorous after three hours that the bubbling sounded more like a steady stream of Co2. The fermenting even caused the wort to circulate within the fermenter. It remained lively like that for about 24hrs and between the second and third day there was no more evidence of active fermentation and nothing audible. It has sat for about 7 days in silence making it an eight day ferment. I bottled the Old Peculiar today. It smelled great and had a nice thick sediment layer on the bottom of the fermenter. While I was syphoning the beer from my fermenter to the brew pot for batch priming, I noticed that the beer still had a good amount of sediment in it. Will this continue to settle out even in the bottles? Is there a certain amount of head space required in the bottles when bottling? I filled to about 1.5 inches from the mouth of the bottle.

Thanks everyone,
 
NavyMarine - (which is it?) Anyway my limited experience has shown that subtle taste changes happen when thinking fermentation is complete (FG down to target) after week 1.

If you carbonate on the low side then the 1.5 should be fine but personally favor 2 inches since I like low - medium carbonation.
 
So I'm looking at dusting things off and getting back into brewing after several years. In digging up the old equipment, I remembered that the very last batch I ever brewed (approximately 3 years ago at my best guess) is STILL brewing.

My obvious intuition is to dump it out and possibly even throw away the bucket. BUT, just wanted to check the knowledge base here and see if there's any way anyone thinks it could still be good to bottle and drink.

I saw someone say they brewed it for a year and it was fine so it gives me hope but I do realize that I'm stretching the limits on this one.

Thanks for any insight!
 
i am drinking a stout right now that i left on yeast for almost 3 years. deliscious. i always leave mine in primary. i like the yeast. dead or alive. whatever. remember how beer was discovered probably by egyptians leaving oatmeal in the rain. i never use the same recipe twice. the best part about it for me is to let the beer be what it wants to be.
 
So I'm looking at dusting things off and getting back into brewing after several years. In digging up the old equipment, I remembered that the very last batch I ever brewed (approximately 3 years ago at my best guess) is STILL brewing.

My obvious intuition is to dump it out and possibly even throw away the bucket. BUT, just wanted to check the knowledge base here and see if there's any way anyone thinks it could still be good to bottle and drink.

I saw someone say they brewed it for a year and it was fine so it gives me hope but I do realize that I'm stretching the limits on this one.

Thanks for any insight!

So, how did it turn out?
 
Back
Top