Nailed temp control-bottle sooner?

[TTB-J]

I know that we should leave our beer in primary for long enough that our yeast can do its thing completely, and that taking the beer off the yeast too soon can result in any number of issues. But I have often seen others on here saying that if your temp control is really solid, there are probably no off flavors to clean up and the yeast will have not left behind much waste that needs to be cleaned up with extended fermentation. Is that second statement true? My last batch has been in the carboy, immersed in a swamp cooler, and we've had mild temps that were basically, on average, exactly at the ambient temp that I was shooting for. It's been a week and all visible signs of fermentation are beginning to disappear. I was planning on leaving it for a month in the carboy, with the last week being a dry hop period, but if my temp control was spot on, which it was by dumb luck, do you think I could bump that up by a week if my hydrometer samples show that active fermentation has indeed stopped after 2 weeks?

I'm using the White Labs Kolsch yeast strain, by the way, so if you have any experience in this strain and needing to leave it be for an extended period of time, please let me know.

 

[theredben]

If your temperature, and amount of yeast was proper, then 4 week primary is not neccesary. It would not hurt, but if you want to speed up the process you will be okay.

 

[SC_Ryan]

If your temperature, and amount of yeast was proper, then 4 week primary is not neccesary.

And your wort was properly oxygenated. If you have the ability to ramp up temperatures, a week at 70* will help speed up the process as well. If the beer is in a bath already, an aquarium heater is a good (and inexpensive) way to heat it up and hold it steady.

 

[android]

i usually don't go past 2 weeks. but i know i'm pitching the appropriate amount of yeast and controlling the temperature of fermentation within 1 degree F, so i'm fairly confident that the yeast has done what it needs to do in that time period. this is for average strength beers and doesn't include any dry hopping or anything like that. kolsch yeast isn't all that flocculant, so you may benefit from a longer bulk aging/conditioning... in general, the main krausen/fermentation period is done within a week for me and then i like to let it sit for a week to clean up/condition (i always bring the temp up to the upper 60s or 70 to make sure it 'finishes'), and it sounds like your beer has been through a similar fermentation profile. i'd go ahead with your plan after 2 weeks.