What is too long then ?

[fartinmartin]

I think most of us check fermentation has stopped, that the SG is stable for several days and then some, accepting and agreeing that three, four weeks is OK.
But at what point is it too long ?
At what point do we know that the yeast is no longer in suspension or in a state that it either can or cannot work on added sugar and generate conditioning gas ?

 

[jonmohno]

Yeast stays in suspension,just most of it falls and can clear(but doesnt mean there is no yeast in suspension) and depends how well the yeast floccuation profile is.Some have low,medium,high floccuation. It will generally clear up,not all the time though,after a few weeks or more-but depends. And it is mostly done fermenting within a few days-week in average beers. I like to let mine sit for 3 weeks but Ive done two weeks pretty often because it was my rotation schedule that works for me, but ideally just for clarity sake- one month lets it floccuate pretty good(and would be the main reason I would let it sit for a month-to clear)-but again that depends on malt bill,abv,yeast profile. It would also get you a little less setteling in the bottle.

If you add sugar or sugars its going to start fermenting on it and go through the same process,even though most yeast is floccuated. The main way it wouldnt is if you reached the yeasts alcohol tolerence by making a large abv beer or underpitched or had poor yeast viability. or have a stuck ferment-where the yeast had a poor start and couldnt deal with all the sugar well to begin with.

 

[fartinmartin]

Thanks, does that mean that all the yeast will never all drop out and there will always be enough left for conditioning.

 

[jonmohno]

Yes, usually and if you added differnt types of sugars to secondary and it would fermet it. But you can also get great clarity,you will still have bottle conditioned beers which means you will get some sediment in bottles because yeast eat the priming sugar then settle out. So even if its clear there is still enough yeast to do the job of carbonating your beer.

 

[fartinmartin]

Thanks Jonmohno