How long is primary?

[biggben]

Im trying to figure out a good rule of thumb for how long to primary your beer i have a couple of beers in primary and one that requires dry hopping so my question is how long should i primary for most beers before i move to secondary or dry hopping?

 

[EdWort]

I leave all my beers in primary for 10 to 14 days to let the yeast clean up after themselves. This tends to eliminate any dyacital.

I dry hop in the keg or secondary.

 

[Cacaman]

How long do you normally leave a usual ale in the keg to carb before you can enjoy?

I made a blonde ale from an AHS extract kit, and left it fermenting for 21 days, transferred to keg, left the gas on overnight; it tastes sour and smells fruity. I either have an infection, or the beer is too young to drink

Such a heart break for a first brew.

 

[gingervitis]

Im trying to figure out a good rule of thumb for how long to primary your beer i have a couple of beers in primary and one that requires dry hopping so my question is how long should i primary for most beers before i move to secondary or dry hopping?

Usually about a week to a week and a half for me. That being said, you always trust your hydrometer, not the elapsed time. Take a sample and measure the SG, if it's within your target range then you're good to go.

 

[EdWort]

How long do you normally leave a usual ale in the keg to carb before you can enjoy?

I made a blonde ale from an AHS extract kit, and left it fermenting for 21 days, transferred to keg, left the gas on overnight; it tastes sour and smells fruity. I either have an infection, or the beer is too young to drink

Such a heart break for a first brew.

A keg will need a week to carb at 12 PSI usually. You can start to drink it, but you will notice that it gets better week by week AFTER carbing.

I try not to drink any of my beers any more before SIX weeks.

Two weeks fermenting
1-2 weeks at room temp in a keg aging
1 week carbing
1 week aging carbonated.

Eight week is optimal, but six weeks is the minimum anymore for me. The one exception is a Hefe. I can drink that in 3 weeks.

Patience pays off, so start building the pipeline. I'm brewing 15 gallons every other week till my 30 or so kegs are full of beer & Apfelwein. I should wrap things up before June and the warm weather, so I can sit back and enjoy Haus, Hefe, Kolsch, Porter, Oktoberfest, IPAs, Wounded Knee, etc. at parties and home.

That's the plan anyway.

 

[a10t2]

Im trying to figure out a good rule of thumb for how long to primary your beer i have a couple of beers in primary and one that requires dry hopping so my question is how long should i primary for most beers before i move to secondary or dry hopping?

A nice conservative rule of thumb would be one day for every degree Plato of OG. So 10 days for a 1.040 beer, 15 days for a 1.060 beer, etc.

That assumes a normal ale pitching rate. If you're throwing one pack/vial into a 5-6 gal batch, add a few days to allow for the off-flavors that will probably result.

 

[Cacaman]

Hmmm... well mines in the fridge right now, ill leave it there a few weeks see what happens. Being its the first brew, one is really anxious to start tasting
Second keg coming in this week, so i can have 2 brews going at once (one on tap, one fermenting), hopefully that will up my patience. As I gain knowledge and exp. I'll keep getting more and more equipment.

On a side note, looks like you'll be having a good summer. Cheers!

 

[TTB-J]

Problem with a good rule of thumb is that each yeast strain and each fermentation will be different. To accommodate all of the various strains and temps and OGs and what not, you would need to have a pretty long period just to make sure you weren't cutting anything short. The easiest way to figure out when its done is just to take hydrometer readings and see when it stops in the right range. I use Hopville for a free recipe calculator, it just takes the average attenuation of the yeast strain against the projected OG and gives you a range to use in identifying where the end point is.

For example, I posted on here about using the Kolsch strain for a pale ale I was making. After two weeks, the gravity was still too high, even though I had good temperature control and the yeast seemed really happy for a good 4-5 days. I had to kick the temperature up a bit over the last couple of days to get the yeast to finish the job, so if I had just assumed that two weeks was enough at what appeared to be a good, consistent temperature, I might have ended up with a batch that just wasn't done before I bottled it.

All of that being said, I think you'll find that most ales will be done in about 2-3 weeks time. But you really can't beat using your hydrometer and taking plenty of samples and taste tests. The beer will taste good and the hydrometer readings will consistently be inside the range for the yeast you're using when it's done. Whether that's 7 days after pitching or 30 days after pitching, the only way to know is to test, test, test.

 

[BSBrewery]

I usually leave all mine in the primary at least three weeks - no secondary. everyone has turned out tasty. the last lager I did I didn't have proper temp control - left it at around 60 for a few weeks, then out in the garage during winter for another month. so two months in the primary, and it still came out just fine. like someone above said, your hydrometer is your friend, as well as your tastebuds. but I wouldn't worry about it too much - give it at least a couple of weeks in the primary.