time to bottle or not?

I know that many beginners will judge based on bubble rate through the airlock/blowoff whether it is time to bottle beer. However, I have a hydrometer and the past two days reading is 1.010 +- .001. I forgot to take an OG reading, oh well. Based on that I suspect it is okay to bottle, however there is still a bubble every 15 sec or so through the blowoff tube. So what do you make of stable SG readings but still bubbling?

background: cooper's australia pale ale pre-hopped kit, fermenting in glass carboy for 6 days now. Tons of foam first couple days which is why I switched from airlock to blow-off tube.

I will be using glass bottles (purchased from a home brew supply company, not reused commercial bottles).

So should I go for it or wait a couple more days?

I would never recommend bottling until two weeks is up. Even if fermentation is done, the yeast are still busy working cleaning up after themselves. They actually eat their own waste products after they are done fermenting. Also, the stuff floating around in the beer will drop out, leaving you with a cleaning tasting beer.

So, since you asked , no, I wouldn't bottle for at least another week. Patience will be rewarded!

And, welcome to HBT!

Thanks for the advice, sounds good. You're correct the beer is still somewhat cloudy. I have tasted the samples from the beaker after taking readings and it is definitely beer, so I've got it right so far!

YooperBrew said:

I would never recommend bottling until two weeks is up. Even if fermentation is done, the yeast are still busy working cleaning up after themselves. They actually eat their own waste products after they are done fermenting. Also, the stuff floating around in the beer will drop out, leaving you with a cleaning tasting beer.

So, since you asked , no, I wouldn't bottle for at least another week. Patience will be rewarded!

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if you can't secondary the beer in a new vessel, like a carboy, I'd actually let it sit a full 3 weeks, then go ahead and rack to the bottling bucket. that'll get you reasonably clear beer.

also, if you find the Cooper's kit made a weak tasting beer, don't let that be your indicator of all homebrew. I started with those kits and got very disillusioned with home beer making, and only made mead.

once i started using better extract kits with hops and no corn sugar...I got real excited about beer making.