when can I bottle

[druids_keep]

first batch - pale ale - started 1/27/06, haven't taken a SG reading but I can still see activity in the carboy (little bubbles) ... enough to make me curious - so that's about 6 weeks - I expexted the bubbling to stop altogether in about 3 weeks. Do I need to wait until all the bubbling in the carboy has stopped completely? I'm a winemaker and I know it's ok (and preferable) to let wine sit for ...well ... ever and wait it out - but I figured beer making was a bit more time conscience so I'm questioning the length of this apparent fermentation...

any ideas?

 

[AGBrewer]

Bottle it... tonight.

 

[BierMuncher]

If you're patient enough to wait the six weeks, I would transfer it to a secondary and give it a week to clear up. You want to get your brew off of that yeast bed to prevent any off-flavors. 6 weeks is long time.

Rack to a secondary, wait a week and bottle.

Oh...and take a reading for crying out loud....

You'll want to take a reading at bottling time too so you can properly disclose the ABV to your drinking audience.

 

[Tophe]

I would rack to secondary also and let it sit for another week.

 

[Pumbaa]

go ahead and bottle

Unless you really had it onthe low end of the temp scale after 6 weeks your probably done fermenting. If ya want to let it clear out some go ahead and rack it to a secondary but by this time I dont think you'll have a problem with clearing. The tiny little bubble you are seeing are probably just disolved CO2 that are slowley being released

 

[TheJadedDog]

I would either rack it to secondary or bottle. In the future, you should rack to secondary once fermentation seems to be 80% done or so and you should take hydrometer readings to determine when fermentation is complete.

 

[druids_keep]

first batch - pale ale - started 1/27/06, haven't taken a SG reading but I can still see activity in the carboy (little bubbles) ... enough to make me curious - so that's about 6 weeks - I expexted the bubbling to stop altogether in about 3 weeks. Do I need to wait until all the bubbling in the carboy has stopped completely? I'm a winemaker and I know it's ok (and preferable) to let wine sit for ...well ... ever and wait it out - but I figured beer making was a bit more time conscience so I'm questioning the length of this apparent fermentation...

any ideas?

oh - i did take an SG reading when i started fermentation - i said that wrong above ... sounds like i should rack to another secondary, take an SG reading, and bottle in about a week...

 

[david_42]

Lagering and wine making have similar time cycles. Ales are faster, except for barleywines, and don't generally age the way wines will. Rack it, give it a week and bottle.

 

[tbone]

I read on "How to Brew" by John Palmer that you can sanitize bottles by placing them in the dishwasher and allowing the thing to cycle through the heat/drying process. Has anyone done this? This seems like a very easy method to sanitize and the bottles should be ready to use right away. What do you think?

SORRY: I MEANT THIS TO BE A NEW TOPIC. WILL NOW POST IT AS SUCH.

 

[druids_keep]

Lagering and wine making have similar time cycles. Ales are faster, except for barleywines, and don't generally age the way wines will. Rack it, give it a week and bottle.

that's the right on - i racked it and tasted it tonight - it tastes good and i figure it'll be real nice cold and bubbly ... i did notice that i actually did take an SG reading on 2/1 of 1.2 and the one i took today (3/11) is 1.16 - i'm real sure that fermentation was complete some time ago (just using the law of averages)

so - chock up to a learning experience - thanks y'all