Fermenting: how long is too long?

[rrayriver]

Just brewed my first batch of beer-citrus blonde, and I am on the 5th day of fermenting. It was very active for about three days, then the foam sank and now it seems pretty quite with just carbonation bubbles rising. When should I transfer to keg? Is it possible to ferment too long or will fermentation just stop because the yeast stop doing their thing?

 

[birvine]

Within reason, there is no "too long". I have heard that some have primaried for months with no ill effects. Even if the bubbling has stopped, the yeast is still working away at your beer. Leave it for a total of 3-4 weeks in the primary before kegging and you'll have a much clearer beer with better flavour since the yeast has been allowed to work its magic.

B

 

[rrayriver]

Does leaving it the primary different times effect the taste, that is, if I primaried this batch two weeks and the next batch of same recipe for 3-4 weeks, would you notice a taste difference?

 

[birvine]

I haven't done too much experimenting with this, but from my limited experience plus reading a lot on HBT, there may not be a lot of difference between 2 and 3 weeks, but more likely a definite difference between say 1 and 4 weeks. After the active and visible fermentation stage the yeast is removing some by-products of fermentation that can make your beer not-so-great. The longer primary allows them to remove them and makes the beer a lot better.

When I started I used to primary 3-4 days, secondary for 1-2 weeks then bottle and drink. It was not great AT ALL. Now I relax and give the beer time and WOW. What a difference.

B

 

[D_Struct]

With a blonde, the taste difference probably won't really knock you down, but there will be some differences, in my opinion. Depending on the person drinking it, there might not be a big enough difference to really matter.

I am a firm believer in allowing no fewer than 3 weeks in a primary for everything other than hefeweizens.