What's worse?

[Murika]

The beer has been on the trub for 4 weeks.

It is juuust starting to clear but hasn't quite cleared yet.

But from what I understand, after 4 weeks you want to take it off the trub or bad flavors can result.

Secondary fermentation is not an option with our currently available equipment.

Do we bottle now to take it off the trub even though it hasn't cleared, or do we wait for it to clear before we bottle?

 

[day_trippr]

You're referring to yeast autolysis, but that's really not a major issue at the typical home-brewing scale where we don't have hundreds of barrels of beer sitting in a humongous vessel with the yeast cake squished at the bottom.

What style of beer? What strain of yeast?
And while a month is almost always way more than plenty of time for wort to reach terminal gravity, have you been checking the SG?

Do you ferment with temperature control? If so, can you chill the fermentor?

Finally, have you poured a small sample into a clear glass and checked the clarity?
When you look through a fermentor there's a heck of a lot of beer and that can make even a slight haze look like a cloud...

Cheers!

 

[schematix]

if it hasn't cleared after 4 weeks you have some other brewing processes you need to investigate.

but in general it's best to get it to final packaging as soon as possible.

i normally get ales to keg in about a week, and lagers 10-14 days. the gravity will tell you what to do.

 

[Murika]

Og was around 1.081. Temperature is a steady 20°C. Yeast was two packets of Safale US-05.

 

[Murika]

Looks like this

 

[day_trippr]

Wow. I've used US-05 countless times and it never looked like that after two weeks, never mind four.
I mean, that would look totally normal at the end of the first week.
It's a slow floccer, but not that slow - especially when run that warm-ish.

What's the Specific Gravity now?

Cheers!

 

[JosephN]

Maybe that's a butt load of dry hopping matter? At least that's kind of what it looks like. Yeah that's pretty bad but I agree that you don't have to bottle yet. Let that sucker sit there and settle out more. If you can chill it that will help and if you can use gelatin that would help even more, but you'd have to chill it.

 

[Murika]

Also it's a gluten free beer. It's mostly sorghum syrup, with some rice syrup

Also steeped some oatmeal and toasted buckwheat

 

[Murika]

So, is clearing more important than taking it off the trub?

 

[day_trippr]

Ok, I honestly would not know what to expect from a brew using sorghum syrup, rice syrup, and steeped oatmeal and buckwheat, and if it would ever "clear".

Have you brewed this or a similar recipe before?

Given what you've provided, I believe the only reasonable way forward is to do a cursory gravity check for your historical records and package that brew.
There's no way two packages of US-05 pitched into ~5 gallons of 80 point wort and run at 68°F would not have hit terminal gravity within ~5 days (probably 4).

Everything since that point has likely been akin to watching grass grow

Cheers!

 

[RM-MN]

So, is clearing more important than taking it off the trub?

Leave it to clear. If sitting on the trub was a problem then the one of mine that set 9 weeks should have been a dumper....but it was one of the best. One brew I talked with left his for 6 months and said that that wasn't too long.:rockin:

 

[ncbrewer]

I'd let it go 8 weeks to see if it clears, assuming you haven't opened it. I think oxidation would be more of a concern than autolysis.

 

[brewbush]

What about sanitizing the boil kettle and racking it into that. Clean out the fermentor/resanitize and rack back into it to allow it to settle some more?

 

[RM-MN]

What about sanitizing the boil kettle and racking it into that. Clean out the fermentor/resanitize and rack back into it to allow it to settle some more?

Much better to leave it where it is. Racking has the problem of oxidation and can open the opportunity for infection. Racking twice doubles this. :rockin:

 

[Murika]

This was our first beer. We chose to bottle it (12 days before). We had our first taste last night and it's delicious. Hoppy, very citrusy with grapefruit notes. It's gluten free and actually tastes like real beer. Needs a bit more time to bottle condition.

We refrigerated two bottles. The first part came out clear, but the third fourth of the bottle started to be cloudy. Didn't dare try the last fourth as I heard yeast in the bottle isn't quite that tasty. I think the refrigeration sort of cold crashed the beer in its own right?

I appreciate the input from everyone on here.