Fermentation time and secondary questions

[Topper28]

Ahoy there….

New Brewer from Denmark here.

Sunday, we are bottling a Christmas Ale.

According to the all-grain recipe we should have racked to secondary after the first week of fermentation, but we didn´t. Second, we should have bottled after 2 weeks of fermentation time totally (1 week in primary + 1 week en secondary) That didn´t happen as well. Sunday is exactly 21 days after the brew.

My questions:

1. What´s the general homebrewers thoughts about racking (or not) to secondary fermenter? Timeframe?

2. Have we ruined the beer by leaving it in the primary for 3 weeks?

I read some of this guys´ work:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/02/11-mistakes-every-new-homebrewer-makes.html

Kind regards

Torben, Denmark

 

[BigFloyd]

Most folks here don't secondary at all except when it's needed (long-term aging/lagering and adding fruit).

3 weeks in the primary is pretty normal.

Recipe instructions are often not so good.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

3 weeks is fine for most beers. Without taking gravity samples to determine what % of the sugars have been converted you would rather err on the side of too long than too short. Too short and you have lots of sugar left, then when you bottle it that extra sugar means extra CO2 which can blow your bottles apart.

Many people skip "secondary" as it is not necessary for many varieties on the home brew scale. Only beers that require extended aging before bottling "require" transfer to a secondary. Mostly this is to reduce the chance of yeast decomposing (which is a very minor problem in 5-10gal batches).

You definitely have not ruined it. If you are planning to age it for Christmas consumption you could transfer to secondary and wait another 3 weeks before bottling, or you could simply prime and bottle it now. If you are planning to have it for Christmas in July I'd say rack, prime, bottle and let it start carbonating.