How long in the primary?

I brewed a Belgian Tripel this past weekend, it's been in the primary about 5 days now. The recipe I used didn't give any details for how long to leave it in the primary. Normally I'd rack it this Saturday or Sunday but it still has a good bit of foam on top of the beer and the airlock is bubbling away still. All that could change in the next day or two but if it doesn't should I rack anyway or wait till the activity subsides a bit more?

Wait for 3 of 4:

A week
Krausen falls
No airlock activity
Target gravity

Five days is too soon for a Tripel

I'm brewing a Belgian Tripel this weekend and when I picked up the ingredients the guy at my LHBS recommended going a little longer than a week in primary. I figured on checking gravity at 7 days and everyday after and rack once it stays the same for a few days.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I'll take a reading Sunday and see where the gravity is and go from there.

Well, I didn't bother with the reading since the airlock is still bubbling every 15 seconds. I'm assuming with that level of activity the beer should stay in the primary for a while yet. For comparison, I timed it yesterday and the bubbles were every 9 seconds. Should I wait for complete inactivity in the airlock? What if it bubbles only every 3-4 minutes?

I've gone 14 days with ales and as much a 21 with lagers and I've had no bad side effects.

Its no big deal if you are in the right temp range. Going a little longer lets the yeast drop out more, makes for clearer beer from the 2ndary to bottling bucket.

RDWDAHB -

How did it turn out?

I have a quadrupel (OG 1.082) bubbling for 23 days. There is a bit of foam at top, the FG is still at 1.024 and the beer is pretty cloudy. Not sure how long I will have to keep it in the primary (I don't have any secondary).

I don't see any activity in the airlock, watched for maybe 5 minutes, but there's still a thin layer of bubbles ringing the carboy and every now and then a new bubble floats up to join them. It's been in the primary now for 9 days. The beer's also very cloudy from what I can tell. Kind of hard to see since it sits on the bottom shelf of my brewing area in the basement so I can't get a good light behind it. I think I'm going to leave it till this weekend and rack it either Saturday or Sunday.

badnaam, guess mine technically would be considered a quadrupel as well. The OG was 1.084 if I recall correctly, don't have my notebook in front of me. The recipe I used called for a OG of 1.074ish but also had 1lb. of dark LME. I wanted a lighter tripel so I went with amber LME and my LHBS doesn't sell amber in bulk so I had to buy a 3.3lb. can. Oh well, should make for a great beer either way.