how long in secondary fermentor

I have a blackberry wheat sitting in a carbouy as a secondary fermentor. It has already been there for 10 days, can I wait to bottle it until this weekend or do I need to bottle it ASAP?
Th anks.

It could stay in the secondary for weeks, even months, and there wouldn't be an urgency to bottle it, so you're fine. I don't do fruit beers, but I imagine you would want to make sure that any kind of secondary fermentation that started up from the sugars in the fruit is over.

You also may want to consider racking to another carbory for a short third fermentation, just a couple of days to let the fruit bodies and whathave you settle out before bottling. But, you should be fine letting it stay put until the weekend.

I've been happy with using a tertiary fermenter for fruit beers (though they are not really ferementers at that point) to improve taste and clarity. I've had them sitting and settling for as long as a month or so (total, including primary, secondary and tertiary) and been happy with the results. This was with ales, though, not wheat beers. Wheats will always be a bit cloudier anyway, so maybe it is a bit of a toss up how long you want to wait before bottling.

Seldom does waiting do any harm, but if you are feeling antsy, go ahead and bottle it up.

If you used actual blackberries or pulp, I'd give it another week or two to settle. You could bottle this weekend, if that makes for better timing. Just like rocket science, there are multiple launch windows.

Thanks, I think that I will try to bottle some time next week then. Actually I checked my calendar and it has been more like 16 days since I started it. Is that still okay?

Not a problem, my ESB I just bottled last week spent 26 days in the secondary and it's coming along just fine, in fact I think I'll have to pop a taster into the fridge tonight or tomorrow.

I hope that you enjoy your ESB, another question though. I seem to be understanding that generally letting beer sit for longer rather than shorter is helpful. Is there a difference between letting the beer sit in the secondary fermentor and letting it sit in bottles?

I think the preferred method by most is to let it sit in a secondary for 2 weeks or so (nothing is exact) opposed to going straight to bottles. From what I understand there are a couple reasons, if I miss something or misspeak I'm sure someone will jump in.

One reason is by conditioning the beer in a secondary there is much more yeast available to chew up any harsher, heavy alcohols procduced in the primary fermentation. The other reason to do a secondary is for all the crud that settles out of beer will collect onto the bottom the secondary, so when you go to bottle you siphon the beer off this into a bottling bucket and then your bottles......you should end up with less sediment in the bottle.

Also see...http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2-3.html

Thanks, that link is very helpful.

I like using the 123 method. 1 week in primary 2 in secondary and 3 in the bottles.
Simple but it works for me.