SlitheryDee
General Manager
So I just put my first beer in the fermenter the day before yesterday. It's an extract based Cream ale that was apparently made in-house at a local homebrew supply store. Everything went swimmingly and there's a healthy looking krausen with lots of airlock activity currently. I take that to mean that I'm mostly in the clear in terms of infection assuming I don't introduce a microbe between now and bottling time. If I'm wrong on that point I'd like to know though.
Now I've done a lot of reading and research leading into this, and it's my understanding that ales can sometimes finish fermenting very quickly. The signs of a finishing fermentation are the krausen falling back into the beer accompanied by a cessation in airlock activity for a period of time. My plan is to look for these signs and then begin taking periodic gravity readings to see if I can determine when the beer has reached final gravity, and then proceed to bottling.
My question has to do with exactly when I should bottle though. I understand that some "cleaning up" of off-flavors by the yeast happens even after apparent activity has ceased. Varying sources seem to hold that cleaning up period to be of varying amounts of importance, from "not at all" to "absolutely crucial". I've seen reports of people kegging or bottling just a couple of days after reaching final gravity and seeming to come up with fine looking beer, while others seem to want to leave the beer alone for a couple more weeks, and they also seem to come up with fine looking beer. Assuming I'm able to determine the final gravity somewhere short of two weeks, what should I do? Should I leave it in for another period of time, or can I bottle it? Will that "cleaning" still happen in the bottles during the bottle conditioning phase? Do I run the risk of making bottle bombs? Are there other considerations I need to be aware of? Thanks for any help!
Edit: On a side note. I have yet to take an OG reading due to every hydrometer I've ordered thus far coming in broken. That's one from Midwest Supplies (being replaced), and two from amazon (refunded). Either these things don't ship well or I'm just having a run of horrible luck with them. I had the foresight to save a bit of the pre-pitch wort for testing when I later acquire a working hydrometer. It's sitting it the fridge currently. Am I going to get an accurate reading off of that sample?
Now I've done a lot of reading and research leading into this, and it's my understanding that ales can sometimes finish fermenting very quickly. The signs of a finishing fermentation are the krausen falling back into the beer accompanied by a cessation in airlock activity for a period of time. My plan is to look for these signs and then begin taking periodic gravity readings to see if I can determine when the beer has reached final gravity, and then proceed to bottling.
My question has to do with exactly when I should bottle though. I understand that some "cleaning up" of off-flavors by the yeast happens even after apparent activity has ceased. Varying sources seem to hold that cleaning up period to be of varying amounts of importance, from "not at all" to "absolutely crucial". I've seen reports of people kegging or bottling just a couple of days after reaching final gravity and seeming to come up with fine looking beer, while others seem to want to leave the beer alone for a couple more weeks, and they also seem to come up with fine looking beer. Assuming I'm able to determine the final gravity somewhere short of two weeks, what should I do? Should I leave it in for another period of time, or can I bottle it? Will that "cleaning" still happen in the bottles during the bottle conditioning phase? Do I run the risk of making bottle bombs? Are there other considerations I need to be aware of? Thanks for any help!
Edit: On a side note. I have yet to take an OG reading due to every hydrometer I've ordered thus far coming in broken. That's one from Midwest Supplies (being replaced), and two from amazon (refunded). Either these things don't ship well or I'm just having a run of horrible luck with them. I had the foresight to save a bit of the pre-pitch wort for testing when I later acquire a working hydrometer. It's sitting it the fridge currently. Am I going to get an accurate reading off of that sample?