Ready to bottle or wait another week?

Hey whats up guys? This is my first post and my first batch as well. I brewed brewers best micro style pale ale, and everything seems to be in line. I put my brew into the secondary exactly 7 days ago. I checked the gravity this morning and there hasn't been any change. My question is; Do I bottle or wait another week and follow the "1 2 3" rule?

IMHO, it depends on how long your beer was in the primary+seconday. I usually shoot for a minimum of 3 weeks in fermenters altogether, unless it's a hefe/wheat. If you have a combination of 3 weeks between the primary and secondary I say you're good to go.

Since the main purpose of putting it into a secondary fermenter is to let it clear, I'd give it another week. It's hard to imagine you get much clearing in one week. In fact I'd be more inclined to leave it in primary a long time than to rush it from vessel to vessel to bottle. A brew left in primary for three weeks, then bottled can be pretty darned clear sometimes.

What is your current gravity reading?

Welcome to HBT Papinquack!

You can bottle now if you want and the beer will be pretty good. If you wait another week, it will clear more and be even better. Either way you should have some good beer.

stever said:

What is your current gravity reading?

Click to expand...

The recipe expects final gravity to be 1.012-1.014. My batch's starting gravity was 1.055 and it has been at 1.018 since moving from primary to secondary. I'm thinking 18 may be my final?

Probably, it's finished. 3 or 4 points off isn't horrible.

However, I do have a question. Was it 18 the entire time it was in secondary? Or has it dropped a couple points? If it's dropped a point or two in secondary you moved it too soon and should for sure leave it for another week. It's possible you scorched a little of the malt extract and so there's some extra unfermentables in your beer (I did this massively with my stout on accident, and ended up with a nearly sweet, but very finished fermentation. 3 weeks at 27 instead of 17, plus a week of repitched yeast and no change, I think it's pretty much done)

Try not to move normal ales and lagers out of primary unless you've hit your FG or your SG readings aren't moving over 3 or 4 days. Secondary should be a clearing tank for normal beers.

In other words, you're probably done, but give it another week anyway. Think of it this way. That week you give it in the secondary is one week less that the beer needs to age (I did *not* say carbonate though, you still need 2-3 weeks to carbonate)

yeah it was 18 when I took it out of the pramary and it stayed at 18 after 7 days in secondary.

if it was me, I would pitch another packet of yeast, but that doesn't mean it will drop if you really just have a lot of un-fermentable sugars. What kind of yeast did you use?

The kit came with a packet of muntons.

the dreaded muntons. I am surprised you got as low as 1.018, if you do some searching you will find quite a few people do not have good results with that yeast. I would pitch a packet of Safale-05 or nottingham and see if you can get it down to 1.014 or so. For the 2 or 3 times I used muntons I had to repitch some new yeast because it stalled at 1.020 every time. I have never had a problem with safale or nottingham or any liquid yeast for that matter.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll look into those for my next batch. I dont know if I want to re- pitch or not. ?

Papinquack said:

Thanks for the heads up, I'll look into those for my next batch. I dont know if I want to re- pitch or not. ?

Click to expand...

I used the dreaded muntons on a batch of chocolate stout and it finished up at 1.020. Was gonna pitch some more yeast but my homebrew store was out of both nottingham and safale-05, so I just bottled. It turned out fine. So it shouldn't be a problem if you just want to bottle now, may just come out a little sweeter than first anticipated.

I don't see why they just can't age/clarify in bottles? (Other than the sediment.)