Can I levae the primary "home alone"?

[rockdemon]

I made two batches of Saison yesterday, I have no idea how long the primary fermentation will take and im going away on monday next week and will be away for seven days, is it a big issue if I leave it for too long in primary? Can it ruin my beer?

 

[LLBeanJ]

No problem, it'll be fine.

 

[palys2]

I always leave my beers in the primary for a minimum of two weeks. Yours will be fine.


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[rockdemon]

Great! And if i understood everything somewhat correctly, i dont need a secondary unless the fermentation stops at too high gravity right?

 

[DSorenson]

Well technically you don't have to secondary. This will start a debate, however I can say that I have had great success leaving my beer in the yeast cake for up to 5 weeks. Some people have done longer. Others will argue that you move to secondary in an effort to keep the yeast from dieing and exploding their fowl tasting innards all up in your beer. Most people will tell you that neglect at this stage of the game does more good than harm.

 

[rockdemon]

Well technically you don't have to secondary. This will start a debate, however I can say that I have had great success leaving my beer in the yeast cake for up to 5 weeks. Some people have done longer. Others will argue that you move to secondary in an effort to keep the yeast from dieing and exploding their fowl tasting innards all up in your beer. Most people will tell you that neglect at this stage of the game does more good than harm.

I guess that its probably not a problem for me if the yeast takes over alot of the flavor of the beer? Im making some kind of saisons...

 

[Hello]

Leaving it gives it a better chance because you won't be tempted to mess about with it.

 

[Homercidal]

Saisons have a history of not finishing completely right away. They go gangbusters for a bit then seem to shut down. Of course this depends precisely on the particular strain of yeast, but 2 weeks should not be a problem for the fastest of them. Go have fun and look forward to checking on it when you get back.

 

[beergolf]

I never even check them until about 3 weeks. So you are good.

 

[Gameface]

Great! And if i understood everything somewhat correctly, i dont need a secondary unless the fermentation stops at too high gravity right?

The term "secondary fermenter" is a misnomer. A secondary can be used to store the beer while it clears, and if you transfer too early there may be some additional fermentation that takes place there, but generally you should not transfer to secondary until the beer has reached F.G.

If your beer does not get to the expected F.G. in a reasonable amount of time (a couple weeks) then your best bet at getting it lower is to leave it in the primary and gently rocking the fermenter to get some yeast into suspension while also increasing the temp of your beer. If that fails then you should probably just call it done and carry on with bottling/kegging.

I don't want to inundate you with too much info, but I'd say the majority of long time posters here at HBT either understand that secondaries are completely optional and do not necessarily improve the quality of beer or find them to be understandable because they introduce additional risk of infection and oxidation while not improving the quality of the beer. There may still be a few hold-outs who feel that they are vital to the making of good beer, but I think the vast numbers of us who do not use them yet manage to enjoy our beer and pick up a few medals at brewing comps along the way speaks pretty loudly on the subject.

I've never tried to push the limits on how long a beer can be left in the primary, but a month, two months, no worries.

 

[BrewerE]

You'll be fine. Active fermentation will be done and that's when you need to keep an eye on temps. It will just be cleaning up after itself and conditioning while you are gone.

I did the exact same thing for a batch I'm going to bottle this week. Dry hopped it when I got home and the hydro sample tasted awesome!

 

[cjgenever]

As long as it has no chance to blow off your good. If I have to leave a brew within the first few days I leave it with a blow off tube. And do your beer a favor and give it at the very least a week on the cake after fermentation is done. It really clears up the flavor profiles. It also lets the less flocculant yeast settle better.

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[rockdemon]

As long as it has no chance to blow off your good. If I have to leave a brew within the first few days I leave it with a blow off tube. And do your beer a favor and give it at the very least a week on the cake after fermentation is done. It really clears up the flavor profiles. It also lets the less flocculant yeast settle better.

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What do you mean with "on the cake"? when the fermentation is complete, then leave it for yet another week?

 

[cjgenever]

You got it. The yeast will continue to feed on some of the compounds they left behind. They will only do this one they've exhausted the easy food supply(maltose)

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