Fermentation Question

[stormbringer]

Making a Brewer's Best Cerveza style kit. Primary fermentation is going as expected. Looks like when the batch will be ready to bottle, I will be tied-up at work for about a week. So here are a couple of questions on the primary:

1. Since the batch is sealed in the primary bucket with an air lock, will the brew be O.K. to sit in the primary an additional 4-5 days after the bottling S.G. is reached?

2. If not, I can rack to glass and secondary ferment. If so, for how long does the secondary need to sit? [until fairly clear?]

3. Will the secondary fermentation affect the natural carbonation in the bottles when primed and bottled?

4. Does the beer need to be - or can it be - filtered similar to the filtering when bottling wine? Any benefit or adverse affect? </font>

 

[Wade E]

You will be OK for that amount of time but try not to let it go any further or you can rack to glass and that wont effect carbonation at all. Filtering would remove to much yeast and that may not let it referment in bottles so you would have to add more yeast which negates the whole purpose.

 

[smurfe]

You will be fine leaving it in the primary for the extra time. I routinely leave batches in the primary for 3 weeks. If you rack to a carboy you can leave it for quite a while. You can filter but as Wade says you will strip out a good chink of the yeast. I filter some beers that I keg as I use CO2 to carbonate. Many do filter bottle conditioned beer though but may add a yeast back to the beer to aid in fermentation.

 

[fratermus]

I'd let it sit in primary until you are ready to bottle. Many HBers are starting to forgo secondary altogether and just let the beer sit in primary.

My normal time in primary is 2wks. Shorter for some low-grav styles, and longer at lower temps (and about 2mos for ApfelWein).

 

[stormbringer]

Thank you all for the info. After 2 weeks in the primary, the beer appears to be just about ready to bottle. I'll double check the final S.G. tomorrow and if it's good, I'll bottle. There appears to be just a very small amount of activity in the primary at this time. I'm thinking that this is the small yeast amount needed to cause the priming sugar at bottling to carbonate.

This is my first boil-type kit. Coming from a winemaking background, it takes a little getting use to. But after experiencing the excellent smell of the batch during fermentation, another beer kit will soon be started.

It'll be a long wait between bottling and tasting.

Thank you.

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