Bottle Conditioning Question

[Johnman1971]

So I bought a 5 gal. all grain recipe and the fermentation instructions call for 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary and 2-3 weeks bottle conditioning. My question is since I am kegging the beer, do I need to ferment longer than 3 weeks to compensate for bottle conditioning? Thanks!

 

[flars]

Your instructions are just generic. Three weeks in the primary will typically give you a complete fermentation and time for the yeast to clean up off flavors produced by the fermentation process. At the end of three weeks the beer will also had the time to clear.
I usually take my first hydrometer reading at the end of two weeks. Three days later I'll take the second reading. FG has usually been reached by this time. Then a few more days for sediment to finish dropping out.
If FG has been reached and the beer has cleared you are ready for kegging. You will be carbing in the keg instead of during the bottle conditioning time.

 

[Johnman1971]

Perfect! Yea I noticed that it had cleared over the last few days. I'll be kegging tomorrow then! Thanks!

 

[zeg]

Also, unless you need to free up the primary fermenter, I'd just leave the beer alone for the entire 3 weeks. Under ordinary conditions, there's little reason to move a beer to secondary.

For standard mid-gravity beers, I don't bother much with FG readings if the fermentation was "normal." I suppose I usually measure it once to be sure it's where I expect it, but unless it's suspicously high, I don't take the second one to check it. If you've got a big beer that you expect to stop at a gravity over 1.015 or so, the check is more important. But after 3 weeks, if the gravity is down below that, it's very unlikely that well-managed fermentation is incomplete.

 

[Johnman1971]

Thank you for the input! I am going through a learning curve but am loving all the steps on the the way to good home brewing