When to bottle my wheat beer

[Tedson]

Hi all,

I've had a wheat beer fermenting for 15 days now, after more or less following this extract recipe https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/citrus-weizen-34404/

I was intending to bottle it on the early side, with it being a wheat, but after 15 days it's still bubbling about once every 50 seconds and there's still a thin layer of crud on top. We've been going through a cold snap recently so the temperature in the room has been high 50s/low 60s, rather than mid 60s, so fermentation has been a little slower than I'd intended.

Anyway, I'm going away tomorrow morning, so today will be my last chance to bottle for about 5 days. Would people recommend bottling now, or leaving it until I get back? I don't want it to clear too much, but obviously I don't want to bottle it prematurely.

A third option would be to move it to a room that will be about 50-55f while I'm away to slow it down a bit. But could that have an adverse effect on the taste?

 

[COLObrewer]

Wait until it's done fermenting to bottle, you have no idea if it's done until you take a gravity reading. Airlock bubbles do not mean anything but it sounds as if the kreusen hasn't dropped yet. I'd check the gravity now, let it rock where it's at and check the gravity again when you return, it the gravity is steady, you can bottle.

 

[Moerdertaktiken]

^^^^ I agree with the above response, but have a few things to add.
1. You need to ferment at the correct temperatures for multiple reasons, and I can tell you right now that you won't be benefiting from the lower fermentation temp, although it isn't going to hurt whatsoever. Strains intended for a classic German wheat beer are fermented at a higher temp to bring out the tasty esters.
2. CHECK YOUR GRAVITY! Don't ever rely on the airlock.
Also, you never want to bottle a beer while it's still under fermentation. I'm guessing your logic on this is that you want more carbonation in the beer, but that is totally not the way to go about it. Once the beer is completely finished with fermentation, THEN proceed to bottle; otherwise you'll create bottle bombs and it'll look like this...

 

[brewguyver]

+1 - at this point you should be free and clear of off flavors from high temps. Get that baby into the 70's an see if you can get some nice banana and clove flavors. When you have the same hydro reading a few days apart, it will be ready to bottle.

 

[Aaron1983]

+1 on the bottle bombs...wait until fermentation is completely done. I've been fortunate enough to avoid bottle bombs, but I have witnessed a homebrewing friend of my make that dire mistake, there where even shards of glass embedded in his sheetrock (kept it in his closet).

Just see about upping the temp a bit if you can, take a hydro reading now and when you return, if these readings are the same, bottle away!

 

[Tedson]

Cheers for the replies guys. I'm back home now, so I'll just up the temperature for a couple of days and see if it's ready to bottle then.

That picture of a bottle bomb looks pretty harrowing, so I'll make sure I'm careful!