Brown Ale question

[bacchusmj]

I seem to remember reading/hearing that brown ales ferment pretty quick. Im doing a bells brown clone and its been in the primary for about 6 days and the krausen is still about an inch thick and we still have pretty nice bubbling.

The original plan was to rack it tomorrow night into the secondary. Im gonna sample it tomorrow but Im tempted to just leave it in the primary and scrap the secondary. The plan all along was to give it 2 weeks and then bottle but the way it looks right now I might give it a couple extra days to mellow out.

Does this sound like a good plan? My HBS simply recommended 7 days in primary, 7 days in secondary and bottle.

 

[homebrewdad]

I seem to remember reading/hearing that brown ales ferment pretty quick. Im doing a bells brown clone and its been in the primary for about 6 days and the krausen is still about an inch thick and we still have pretty nice bubbling.

The original plan was to rack it tomorrow night into the secondary. Im gonna sample it tomorrow but Im tempted to just leave it in the primary and scrap the secondary. The plan all along was to give it 2 weeks and then bottle but the way it looks right now I might give it a couple extra days to mellow out.

Does this sound like a good plan? My HBS simply recommended 7 days in primary, 7 days in secondary and bottle.

Secondaries are not necessary. That being said, I do use them.

However, I wouldn't rack to secondary until your gravity is stable. Even after that point, the yeast cake serves a purpose, helping to process off flavors out of your beer.

 

[Boleslaus]

Just let it sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks and don't touch it. It'll turn out great.

 

[TTB-J]

Did your homebrew store sell you a hydrometer? If so, might I suggest that you use that to determine when your beer is done fermenting?

People mean well when they say "leave it 3 or 4 weeks" or something like that, but the problem with all of those suggestions is that they depend on the arbitrary passage of time. All beers ferment at different speeds, with some of the many variables influencing those speeds being the type of yeast used, amount of yeast pitched, starting gravity, fermentation temperature, etc. The only way to know how fast your beer is fermenting, and, thus, when to bottle, is by using your hydrometer to measure the gravity of your beer. The rule of thumb is that once your beer's gravity remains perfectly constant for 2-3 days, your beer is completely done fermenting. Why 2-3 days? Because there is considerable evidence that yeast will eliminate some by-products of the fermentation process before they go dormant due to lack of readily available sugar and oxygen, and that process probably takes about 24 to 48 hours (give or take). By waiting a few days to make sure gravity is holding steady, you're ensuring that all aspects of fermentation have time to complete.

So the moral of the story is: forget the calendar, use your hydrometer. If you brew the exact same recipe over and over again in similar conditions, you may be able to figure out how long it will take to ferment. Until you have that information, though, don't guess whether or not it's done, take measurements and know.

 

[Boleslaus]

Did your homebrew store sell you a hydrometer? If so, might I suggest that you use that to determine when your beer is done fermenting?

People mean well when they say "leave it 3 or 4 weeks" or something like that, but the problem with all of those suggestions is that they depend on the arbitrary passage of time. All beers ferment at different speeds, with some of the many variables influencing those speeds being the type of yeast used, amount of yeast pitched, starting gravity, fermentation temperature, etc. The only way to know how fast your beer is fermenting, and, thus, when to bottle, is by using your hydrometer to measure the gravity of your beer. The rule of thumb is that once your beer's gravity remains perfectly constant for 2-3 days, your beer is completely done fermenting. Why 2-3 days? Because there is considerable evidence that yeast will eliminate some by-products of the fermentation process before they go dormant due to lack of readily available sugar and oxygen, and that process probably takes about 24 to 48 hours (give or take). By waiting a few days to make sure gravity is holding steady, you're ensuring that all aspects of fermentation have time to complete.

So the moral of the story is: forget the calendar, use your hydrometer. If you brew the exact same recipe over and over again in similar conditions, you may be able to figure out how long it will take to ferment. Until you have that information, though, don't guess whether or not it's done, take measurements and know.

Even if a beer is "done" fermenting, that doesn't mean its finished. I still personally wouldn't bottle or keg a brown ale after 10 days even if the gravity is constant. When I said 3-4 weeks, I meant after that time it has finished fermenting, cleared, and cleaned up.

 

[Jayhem]

I would definitely wait 3 weeks.

I bottled my first beer batch at 10 days. A brown ale with an OG of 1.050 and FG of 1.011. It always had a bitter aftertaste and I think that would have been more mellow had I left it in primary 3 weeks.

 

[homebrewdad]

Even if a beer is "done" fermenting, that doesn't mean its finished. I still personally wouldn't bottle or keg a brown ale after 10 days even if the gravity is constant. When I said 3-4 weeks, I meant after that time it has finished fermenting, cleared, and cleaned up.

This. A beer (especially a hgiher gravity one) can be done fermenting int he sense that your gravity reading is now stable; no more suragrs are being processed. However, the yeast will contiue to process out esters and other off flavors - if you let them. Also, some of your other flavors (some fusels, among others) will mellow out, given time, leaving you with better beer.

 

[BamaRooster]

I agree, 3 weeks is a good rule of thumb.

 

[Boleslaus]

I agree, 3 weeks is a good rule of thumb.

Exactly, rule of thumb. No one is saying 3 weeks in primary and every beer is good to go. The witbier I make can be kegged in 2, but a big stout may take months. But 3 weeks won't hurt any beer.

 

[TTB-J]

Even if a beer is "done" fermenting, that doesn't mean its finished. I still personally wouldn't bottle or keg a brown ale after 10 days even if the gravity is constant. When I said 3-4 weeks, I meant after that time it has finished fermenting, cleared, and cleaned up.

You're talking about conditioning, which is simply a phase of fermentation. If the yeast is still conditioning the beer, then it isn't "done" fermenting! It makes absolutely no sense to state that a beer is "done" fermenting but not "finished." What in the world is that supposed to mean? Finished with what? FERMENTATION! So what you literally said was "Even if a beer is 'done' fermenting, that doesn't mean it's [done fermenting]." Huh?!?!?

Please read this: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2.html

Conditioning and attenuation happen in concert, they are not mutually exclusive. If you pitch the proper amount of yeast, properly aerate your batch, and adjust your temperatures appropriately throughout the attenuative phase of fermentation, you probably don't need your beer to sit there for 3 weeks, or, heaven forbid, 3 weeks AFTER the attenuative phase is complete. It's entirely possible that for at least a week of that time, nothing was really happening inside of your fermenter. The only thing worse than taking your beer off the yeast before it's done fermenting is letting your beer pointlessly sit on the yeast after it's done fermenting.

And note that despite Palmer's vague designation of the total fermentation process taking "a few weeks," he specifically notes that you really should not be exceeding 3 weeks here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-2-3.html. In other words, 3 weeks is really the outer limit of how long you should leave a beer in your primary.

All of that being said - the passage of time is still an unrealiable indicator of what is happening in your beer. You need to use your hydrometer and determine when the attenuative phase of fermentation is complete. After that, you're probably best off just tasting samples to see if you can notice any improvement in flavor as a result of the beer sitting on the yeast. If you can't notice any change - then the whole concept of additional conditioning is basically academic at that point. In fact, you'd probably be better off bottling/kegging/transferring and working in a cold conditioning phase away from the yeast, which will result in clearer and cleaner tasting beer much more dramatically than additional weeks on a largely inactive yeast cake. See here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-3.html

 

[Yooper]

You're talking about conditioning, which is simply a phase of fermentation. If the yeast is still conditioning the beer, then it isn't "done" fermenting! It makes absolutely no sense to state that a beer is "done" fermenting but not "finished." What in the world is that supposed to mean? Finished with what? FERMENTATION! So what you literally said was "Even if a beer is 'done' fermenting, that doesn't mean it's [done fermenting]." Huh?!?!?

Fermentation will finish, and the yeast will go back and digest their own waste products, such as diacetyl. This is done at the tail end of fermentation, and after the actual fermentation is finished.

So, in that sense the beer is finished, as it's at FG and will not drop lower. But it's not "done" in the sense that the yeast will work for a day or two after that to clean up diacetyl and other by-products of fermentation.

I leave the beer in the fermenter for at least 3-5 days after fermentation ends before packaging. Usually, that's about 10-14 days total in the fermenter.

 

[Boleslaus]

You're talking about conditioning, which is simply a phase of fermentation. If the yeast is still conditioning the beer, then it isn't "done" fermenting! It makes absolutely no sense to state that a beer is "done" fermenting but not "finished." What in the world is that supposed to mean? Finished with what? FERMENTATION! So what you literally said was "Even if a beer is 'done' fermenting, that doesn't mean it's [done fermenting]." Huh?!?!? [/url]

I think conditioning and fermentation are different things. Fermentation has completed when you reach FG (no change over several days). Conditioning, like Yooper said, happens after the yeast has finished the fermentation phase.

 

[TTB-J]

Fermentation will finish, and the yeast will go back and digest their own waste products, such as diacetyl. This is done at the tail end of fermentation, and after the actual fermentation is finished.

We all agree on the process that's happening - it's how you're describing it that gives me pause. This idea that yeast is "going back" and doing something other than fermentation doesn't make sense. Fermentation is simply the conversion of complex organic compounds into simpler substances. Thus, sugar being converted to CO2 and ethanol = fermentation. But we all know that CO2 and ethanol are not the only things created as a result of converting those sugars - like you mentioned, there's diacetyl, and we could add acetaldehyde and amino acids, among other things. Yeast will generally go towards the easier targets, the sugars, initially, but that doesn't mean that those intermediate compounds aren't being broken down as well while attenuation is still occurring. It is all the same process though: breaking down of complex substances into simpler substances. In other words, fermentation.

Unfortunately, you say things like "tail end of fermentation," and "after actual fermentation," but we all know that's not really the case, so why do we confuse the issue by describing it that way? Breaking down diacetyl is still just plain old fermentation. Breaking down acetaldehyde is still just plain old fermentatation. If anything, we should differentiate it by saying that it's conditioning - but diacetyl and acetaldehyde are just intermediate compounds between sugar and CO2/ethanol. Eventually, the yeast will complete the process and it will likely finish fermenting the easier compounds first, but that doesn't make the process fundamentally different at either stage. And, in reality, those processes are happening mostly concurrently, just at different speeds.

It seems dramatically more elegant to simply state that when the yeast are done breaking down substances, whatever those substances may be and wherever they came from, that fermentation is complete, and not a moment before. That way, we don't say "I wait for fermentation to finish, and then I wait for a few more days," because what you're really saying is just "I wait for fermentation to finish."

The natural result of our confusing the issue is that people say "well, if I wait a few days for my beer to get better after fermentation, won't it get better if a wait a few more days, and then a few more days, and then a few more..." Now we've got people on these boards swearing that they don't move any of their beers out of primary a second before a month has past - when, in reality, the exact same beer was likely sitting there for weeks and the yeast wasn't doing a darn thing. So they aged their beer a couple of weeks - you can do that anywhere: in the bottle, in the keg, in a secondary. There's nothing magical about yeast, they break stuff down, and when there's nothing left to break down they "sleep." I think we'll be giving better advice to people if we de-mystify that "extra few days" period and just call it what it is: fermentation.

Just my two cents on the issue - sorry to belabor the point.