amber ale

Im a new brewer,i bought an amber ale kit from midwset supplies,put it in primary fermentation bucket on the 7th and i wont get my carboy untill 16th,is that to long in the primary..thanks alot.... By the way if you have tried that kit let me know how it turned out

Not only is 16 days in the Primary "not too long", I think you'll find a lot of brewers opt to skip a secondary vessel altogether, leaving the beer in Primary for several weeks, even months. As long as your fermentation area isn't prone to extreme temperature variations, and your sanitation process is pretty tight, all the dangers of extended Primary Fermentation are generally considered non-existent.

You'll be fine leaving it in the Primary bucket for as long as you need to!
In fact, as an Amber Ale, since you won't be adding fruit or dry-hopping (I assume) you can indeed leave this beer in the Primary bucket for a month or more before bottling, if you felt like it.

Congrats on the first brew, hope it turns out awesome.

actually we suggest leaving it in primary for a month

Definately not too long. There's tons of debate on here about "to secondary or not to secondary...." I personally do it because my bottling bucket is my primary, so it would have to be done at some point anyways. As for whether you should or shouldn't just leave it in the primary for an extended period of time, it's often just a matter of preference.

hudsonj6 said:

Definately not too long. There's tons of debate on here about "to secondary or not to secondary...." I personally do it because my bottling bucket is my primary, so it would have to be done at some point anyways. As for whether you should or shouldn't just leave it in the primary for an extended period of time, it's often just a matter of preference.

Click to expand...

You use your bottling as your primary? Do you have any problems with it leaking? I was wondering about this.....I could potentially triple my brewing capabilities....

no i dont use my bottling bucket for a primary but i think you could as long as rubber seal would hold up to a little pressure

Well...primary as bottling... I do 6 gallon batches and the bucket is 12ish gallons? My LHBS is a little more catered to wine making. Anyways it's just a bucket with no spigot or anything so I transfer it from primary to secondary and then back to the bucket to bottle. I use an auto siphon with an attachment to bottle from there.

thanks allot,this is for sure the funnest hobbie ive done....plus i love beer

I'm using the two stage method myself (also new to home brewing). My baseline is when I get one airlock activity in more than two or three minutes, I rack into secondary and let it acclimate. My first brew, a honey porter, was in primary for 9 days. I then racked into secondary (to get off the sludge) and let it finish there. My second brew was in primary for only five days, before going to secondary...

Temperature of the environment is one of the factors that impact both how the brew comes out and how it ends up tasting. I'm acclimating my brews closer to the 60F mark, since the yeast I've used gives characteristics I want in that range. By the time summer comes along, I expect to have a controlled freezer to brew, age or acclimate brews in. I might even find room to have two units, so that I can brew different styles year round without worrying about going outside the temperature ranges...

I will say that I've used the primary fermenting bucket included with my first kit for just one brew. After dealing with that, I swore never again. Carboys are much easier to use, in my opinion. For one thing, you can actually see what's going on inside. This actually saved me from a major mess in the kitchen this past weekend.

BTW, I think most people here (that are brewing) not only love beer, but love really GREAT beer... I'm already making brews/beers that are better than I would normally get either at the package store, or when out (even at brew pubs)...