ready after 2 weeks, or should i wait a 3rd?

so i took a sample of my first beer, its been fermenting 14 days, to the hour. fg is good at 1.010 (recipe has a target of 1.012), and after testing the gravity, i tested the flavor.

for the most part it is a pale ale flavor, a tad on the lighter side of flavor, but a good beer twang. trying to decide to bottle it tonight when im in a mood to do it, or do it Sunday.

I would like to get it put away tonight if it wont make too much a change to the final product.

No harm in letting it go an extra week... I would let it go at least until Sunday... I would also take another sample on Sunday, get the SG (you need two matching SG results in order to have an actual FG) and taste it... If it's improved, I'd be more inclined to let it go another full week and sample again... Then, when it's really ready, bottle it up and let it carbonate at least 3 weeks (at ~70F) before chilling one down for 4-5 days and pouring it...

If you bottle it now, you'll have a better understanding of how much better it would be had you waited if you manage to wait for the next batch. It's your first batch and you'll love it. Waiting would be better, but we have all been there.

True, but having patience from the start will give him much better brews from batch 1... Of course, that will spoil him for a lot of commercial brews, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

Between now and Sunday it'll change some. Of course it will continue to change in the bottle, too. If you want to bottle tonight go ahead, and feel good about it. Don't let the dogma get in the way.

I'm not much count in the patience department. My first brews, and even some now, I bottled after two weeks and cracked a few open at day 20, 21 and 22 . Patience is what it is all about for sure and the beer won't be what it was designed to be without it BUT I don't fault the newbie for being excited to get the first or 10th brew in to the bottle. I say go for it and bottle that bad boy! More than likely you will make a decent beer so go ahead with it and that very new and green batch will give you the fuel and desire to make 20 more batches and patience will come naturally before too long. Right now you just want to drink some damned homebrewed beer I'm sure.

Two weeks on the yeast IS better than many first batch brewers... If he's thinking about waiting until the weekend, I'd say go for that... Tasting the brew as it goes longer on the yeast will help him educate himself about such things...

It really can be amazing how much difference even a little extra time can make...

For a light, low alcohol, low hops kind of beer, I think two weeks is just fine. ESPECIALLY if you had a big starter. Some beers need time, some can mature and carbonate in 20 days.

phuzle said:

For a light, low alcohol, low hops kind of beer, I think two weeks is just fine. ESPECIALLY if you had a big starter. Some beers need time, some can mature and carbonate in 20 days.

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True, but giving it a few more days won't do any harm... We don't know what the OG was, or the recipe details, so it's really hard to say... I'm more inclined (as you probably already know) to give a brew more time when at all possible... 99.95% of the time, it's possible...

my wife has talked me into waiting till Sunday. i think because she wants to have her kitchen for the purposes of making dinner.

also, it will means i wont buy another recipe kit before the weekend after next (i just brewed a brown IPA sunday).

<goes immediately to brewmasterswarehouse.com to start looking at brews>