When to bottle?

[jfrank85]

Hey folks im new to this home brewing mess but ive done alot of research on the matter prior to the adventure. I recently bought and made the Emma brown ale extract kit from Northern Brewer and i had a few noob questions.

I started fermentation on 2/4/11 and bubbling started to trail off on 2/9/11. I understand that just because im not seeing bubbles in the airlock that fermentation may still be taking place so im not worried about that. SG was at 1.051 and one week later my FG is at 1.010. The directions call for racking to a secondary at week two and bottle at week 4, should i just wait it out for another 3 weeks then condition it into bottles skipping the whole secondary process? IMO i let alot of break into the primary is that a good reason to secondary?

 

[malkore]

Let it go 3 weeks in primary, then rack to bottling bucket and bottle.
I dump all the hop break in to primary. Main reason for secondary is to clear really cloudy beers, especially if using a low floculating yeast (that tends to kick up when racking).

 

[MistyMountainHops]

You are going to get an array of answers on this as everyone has their own method. I'm a big fan of leaving it in the primary for 3-4 weeks skipping the whole secondary altogether (unless I am dry hopping). I also keg more often than not.

If I am bottling I typically go primary for 4 weeks then bottle ensuring I rack high enough off the trub to minimize the amount of trub that goes into the bottling bucket.

 

[jfrank85]

WYeast Thames 1275 has low-med floc does that make any difference when considering a secondary?