Stout Conditioning

[brewskisteve]

Hey ya'll

I have a few questions since about stout brewing. Have an AHS extract kit that has an OG estimated at 1.05 and FG of 1.012 est, kit states of primary and secondary at 10-14 days each.

Question is, I am looking to open this for Xmas day. I want to know is if I brewed this soon- next weekend, is it going to bottle condition in time? This would be close to only 2 months til the target opening. I am understanding that stouts take a little longer to bottle condition. I was hoping to get this in primary last weekend and have not due to family issues.

 

[brewskisteve]

Forgot another question. Would you secondary this or just leave in primary for 4 weeks. Would a stout be worth a secondary or just leave in primary for the full duration of fermenting.

 

[landshark]

Primary 3 weeks, bottle. Will be fine by Christmas. You're not too late to brew for Christmas.

 

[brewskisteve]

Awesome to hear, thanks. Just needed a vote of confidence to get my azz up and do it. with everything going on around home lately its getting hard to put a 4 hour block together to Git er Done, so I was afraid of maybe getting off schedule.

 

[Calder]

One advantage of a stout is, if it doesn't clear quickly, you probably wont be able to see it in the glass.

 

[zeg]

A 1.050 OG isn't particularly high, so a stout like that won't really take any longer to condition than any other beer of similar gravity. The heavier ones, imperial stouts, with very high alcohol content are the ones that really need to age. You could probably wait even another couple weeks and still have time to have it ready. (Though I don't recommend it, better to have some cushion in case things go wrong, and you never know when you'll get an unexpected slow ferment.)

 

[C-Rider]

Forgot another question. Would you secondary this or just leave in primary for 4 weeks. Would a stout be worth a secondary or just leave in primary for the full duration of fermenting.

Screw the secondary. Just one more chance to introduce something you don't need in your brew. I've done stouts higher than that and 3 weeks in primary is fine, or even go to 4 to let things "settle" out a bit more.

 

[freisste]

Yeah, you should be fine. Brew this weekend, primary three to four weeks and you still have five to six weeks to bottle condition.

I'd suggest the following as a ballpark:

10/20: Brew
11/17: Bottle
12/22: Chill
12/25: Drink

That gives a conservative four weeks in the primary and a bottle conditioning time of five weeks. Make sure your temperatures are good and you will have no issue.