Can I let my beer ferment a few extra days?

[teganlt]

Waiting for bottles to arrive; can I just leave my beer in the fermenter for three extra days? It's supposed to sit there for 2 weeks, so this means that it'll have been in there for 15 days. It's an amber ale.

 

[THESULLI]

It will be just fine. Enjoy it!

 

[RM-MN]

As long as you have the airlock filled and don't open the fermenter it will be fine there for 3 months or maybe even more.

 

[Kharnynb]

most beers won't suffer at all from a few days or even weeks in the fermenter, the one exception might be ipa, as it loses flavour faster.
especially when you're starting, it's easier to just add a week to fermentation anyway, instead of having to open the bucket several times to check if the FG is stable.

 

[Jag75]

Agreed with above posts. I leave every beer in the FV for 3 weeks . Never been an issue. Some people like to rush their beers. I myself like to give it some time to do its thing. Patience is a good thing when it comes to brewing imo.

Welcome to the forum & the hobby !

 

[RM-MN]

most beers won't suffer at all from a few days or even weeks in the fermenter, the one exception might be ipa, as it loses flavour faster.
especially when you're starting, it's easier to just add a week to fermentation anyway, instead of having to open the bucket several times to check if the FG is stable.

I think we tend to do IPA's wrong. We wait for FG, add dry hops, wait 3 to 7 days, then bottle. In our rush to get the beer bottled we probably add the dry hops way too quickly and by the time our bottled beer has matured to its peak, the hop aroma/flavor has begun to fade. I suspect that we should be waiting 4 to 6 weeks from pitching the yeast until we dry hop so our beer goes into the bottles already matured so as soon as we get carbonation (about a week, not the 3 usually mentioned) the beer is ready to drink.

 

[KookyBrewsky]

I've been doing 3 weeks primary, 3 weeks bottle conditioning, 3 days in the fridge (3/3/3 - easy to remember). When I first tasted my pale ale I was blown away with how good it was compared to my previous batches. However, I'm drinking one I let chill for even longer and the character has changed yet again. It almost tastes like a Hefeweizen... The carbonation is probably spot on, my first batches were underwhelming. The Hefe flavor profile could be due to the fact I used a British yeast instead of American because of a mishap, plus learning from my mistakes, etc... still, the taste has changed even over a couple days in the fridge extra.

TL;DR - beer is cool and mysterious (at least for a noob). It's going to be tough to grasp. I prefer basics, a well crafted Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is always so good, it's just crafted to perfection even if it's not mind blowing compared to a whiskey barrel aged stout or something like that.

What I'm wondering is if craft companies take into account the change in beer flavors between when they're shipped out and purchased, then somehow take that into consideration for the recipe. Also, most of the crafts I've purchased were room temp. I wonder if a craft brewery chills their beer for different amounts of time at different intervals once bottled to determine the flavor profile... Or I could be completely wrong, and breweries use different methods than I know of to preserve the immediate taste of the beer. I presume the sediment in homebrew bottles has a lot to do with the changing flavors I'm speaking of... rambling now.