The typical homebrew process mirrors that of a normal brewery.
Crushing, mashing, sparging, cooking, cooling, pitching, fermenting, conditioning, clarifying, carbonating and packaging.
Its hard to imagine a Stone Brewery, or a Sierra Nevada, Dog Fish Head, NewCastle Brewery or other top-craft brewer leaving their beer in the primary tanks any longer than is necessary for the fermentation to complete. They may have massive storage for clearing the beer and may allow for extended cask and bottle conditioning, but those primaries are producing their bread and butter. Id be interested in knowing what the timeline is for some of those breweries.
I agree that yeast helps to clean up after itself and is a necessary component for conditioning. But how much is enough? How much might be too much? Lets face it
yeast is always present in beer
even down to that last sip (unless filtered). If there is enough yeast to prime/condition beer in the bottle, how do we know thats not enough for the clean up process as well?
I know that Jamil has recently espoused longer (and exclusive use of) primaries. Im not so sure that is what has won him awards so much as his (self confessed) practice of stashing bottles away for months (sometimes years) and then discovering how theyve matured (conditioned maybe?) to perfection in that time.
Maybe it is simply those trace amounts of yeast in the bottles that sit in his basement for 8 months that are winning him awards
and not 3 inches of trub at the bottom of his primary.
For me...anything 1.045 and higher gets 10-14 days in the primary and then to the secondary for conditioning.
Anything less than 1.045...once the hydro stops moving...tack on 48 hours and rack to secondary.
Will that win me awards???...not unless I bottle and stash for a year like Jamil