When to bottle

[rsg46]

So I have recently brought a Copper Tun starter brewery and the instructions say that after 1 week with 48 hrs of good sg readings you should bottle using the carbonation drops. But after reading this forum I'm confused as lots of people are talking about leaving it for a few weeks, can anyone clear this up?

 

[Puddlethumper]

So I have recently brought a Copper Tun starter brewery and the instructions say that after 1 week with 48 hrs of good sg readings you should bottle using the carbonation drops. But after reading this forum I'm confused as lots of people are talking about leaving it for a few weeks, can anyone clear this up?

First thing, do you have a hydrometer?

Its a really crucial piece of equipment. It will tell you what your beer is doing and when it is time to bottle.

If you do have a hydrometer (or if you have decided to go out an buy one) check the specific gravity of your beer with it. Take a sample (oops, you'll also need to buy a sample jar and either a wine thief or a turkey baster). It would be helpful to know what the specific gravity of your beer was when you put it into the fermenter, but it isn't absolutely necessary. (Sanitize the wine thief or turkey baster before you stick them into your beer!)

The specific gravity of your beer should be somewhere in the vicinity of 1.010. (Check the internet for U Tube videos to explain the use of a hydrometer.) Pull another sample tomorrow and check it. If you get the same reading three days in a row you can figure that the yeast is done fermenting your beer. If the gravity drops, then the yeast is still working. Leave it alone until its done. Time means nothing. In most cases there is no harm in allowing the beer to set on the yeast cake for 3-6 weeks.

That being said, I've found that most beers are done fermenting within a week or two. I choose to move my beer to a secondary fermenter to aid in clearing but it is safe to bottle whenever fermentation is finished.

One caveat...if your fermenter has been kept in a cool location, slosh it around a little and move it to a warmer area for a few days before bottling. You may find that fermentation resumes with the warmer temperature. Bottling too soon will lead to "bottle grenades" at worst and severly overcarbonated beer at best.

Cheers!

 

[RM-MN]

So I have recently brought a Copper Tun starter brewery and the instructions say that after 1 week with 48 hrs of good sg readings you should bottle using the carbonation drops. But after reading this forum I'm confused as lots of people are talking about leaving it for a few weeks, can anyone clear this up?

The instructions assume some perfect (or maybe not so perfect, too warm does it too) fermentation conditions and wants to rush your beer. Yeast don't conform to schedules and sometimes they get going really fast and sometimes they are laggards. Regardless of how fast or slow they get going, bottling that soon will leave you with lots of sediment in the bottles as it hasn't had time to settle out. Forget their time schedule and give the yeast all the time they want so they can eat all the sugars and process the byproducts and then go dormant and settle out and you'll get better beer. Learn the temperature range your yeast prefer and keep your fermenter at the low end for a few days before you let it warm up and you'll get better beer too.

 

[Trox]

You will generally want to let teh beer sit in the fermentor for a week or 2 after the FG stabilizes so as to give the yeast a chance to finish cleaning up. Yeast produce a lot of byproducts when they are eating the fermentable sugars, but once they are done with the good stuff they'll go back adn start eating up the byproducts. Giving them the opprutunity to do so will help clean the beer up some.

It seems to me that a lot of the insturctions for kits is about getting from point A to point B as fast as possible, but with brewing you really should let it things take their time so as to get a better end product.

 

[skw]

The gravity of your brew will tell you the earliest time to bottle without risking bottle bombs (with the exception Grünschlauchen, but I wouldn't recommend that to the unexperienced brewer). While fermentation has finished, the beer is still changing and yeast and other little particles will settle at the bottom. Leaving it in the fermenter for longer before bottling will leave more of that trub in the fermenter instead of the bottles.