1 Week Warm Conditioning Cant be Enough

[johnnyboy1965]

After replying to another post Ive just realized "1 week in the warm" is just not long enough, it should be 2 weeks. My thinking...if it take 2 weeks to ferment your beer out fully.....lag phase, growth phase, etc etc etc Why do we stop secondary fermentation after 1 week?
P.S. Im from the "Old School of when its done its done"

 

[pittsy]

the standard IS 2 weeks , that's what most have always done ( 1 week for cornie though)

 

[adomant]

well primary fermentation is to bring the beer from say 1.050 to 1.012 which is quite a lot of fermentation, the beer would only come down a couple of points usually in secondary and doesn't need any lag phase since it is just the residual yeast munching up the last of its meal to condition the beer and clean up diacetyl etc... therefore it does not need to go through the same again in secondary since the nutrients are all used up and you are talking about residual or priming sugars so 2 weeks is unusually high, 3-4 days should be sufficient before going into a cooler conditioning phase which could be many weeks depending on the beer style.

For a standard bitter, 2 weeks warm conditioning could produce off flavours e.g. yeast autolysis and could blow bottles or cask shives.

again, it may depend on the style but I would consider 1 week too long

 

[johnnyboy1965]

well primary fermentation is to bring the beer from say 1.050 to 1.012 which is quite a lot of fermentation, the beer would only come down a couple of points usually in secondary and doesn't need any lag phase since it is just the residual yeast munching up the last of its meal to condition the beer and clean up diacetyl etc... therefore it does not need to go through the same again in secondary since the nutrients are all used up and you are talking about residual or priming sugars so 2 weeks is unusually high, 3-4 days should be sufficient before going into a cooler conditioning phase which could be many weeks depending on the beer style.

For a standard bitter, 2 weeks warm conditioning could produce off flavours e.g. yeast autolysis and could blow bottles or cask shives.

again, it may depend on the style but I would consider 1 week too long

Interesting...wrong, but interesting

 

[Greenland Stinger]

well primary fermentation is to bring the beer from say 1.050 to 1.012 which is quite a lot of fermentation, the beer would only come down a couple of points usually in secondary and doesn't need any lag phase since it is just the residual yeast munching up the last of its meal to condition the beer and clean up diacetyl etc... therefore it does not need to go through the same again in secondary since the nutrients are all used up and you are talking about residual or priming sugars so 2 weeks is unusually high, 3-4 days should be sufficient before going into a cooler conditioning phase which could be many weeks depending on the beer style.

For a standard bitter, 2 weeks warm conditioning could produce off flavours e.g. yeast autolysis and could blow bottles or cask shives.

again, it may depend on the style but I would consider 1 week too long

Interesting...wrong, but interesting

Why I am interested as I usually keep my bottles warm for 2 weeks.
Greenland Stinger :drink:

 

[azzothegreek]

I'm new and eager to learn. I got sucked into the first reply, thinking, that makes a lot of sense. Can you elaborate why it's wrong?

 

[adomant]

Interesting...wrong, but interesting

perhaps you can point me in the right direction, how exactly does lag and growth phase occur in secondary fermentation ?

 

[calumscott]

Interesting...wrong, but interesting[/quote]

perhaps you can point me in the right direction, how exactly does lag and growth phase occur in secondary fermentation ?[/quote]

He's right... blunt, but right.

The OP is about bottle conditioning rather than a partial ferment, rack, complete ferment style of "secondary fermentation".

Primary will have completed and finished, no more sugar. The secondary ferment is of racked (probably bright-ish) beer with a priming load. You have a roughly two point sugar load with not a huge number of reasonably dormant yeast cells.

Further, a 2 week primary and 2 week carbonation is never going to produce off flavours from autolysis, I regularly leave my beers 4 to 5 weeks in primary if they're being awkward. Not ideal, granted, but not going to spoil your beer.

Yeast, particularly in the home setting needs time and plenty of it. Give it two weeks in primary, bottle it and give it another two then tuck it away some more weeks to get good.

 

[Wezzel]

This is my experience if it helps.

I put 23 litres of ale in a King Keg (fitted with a pressure gauge), gave it a shot of co2 and then purged it down to 1 psi. It took exactly 7 days at 20 degrees in my brew fridge for the gauge to read 10 psi.

The brew was fully fermented (1.008) prior to kegging and primed with 85 gms of dextrose.

 

[adomant]

Not sure if I want to get into the "right / wrong" thing, but for me this forum is about continuous learning and I wont be afraid to post for the fear of being wrong, I'm ok to be told that but it is helpful to have some pointers so thank you Calum for your reasoning.

Perhaps because I haven't experienced it, but I don't get why ordinary brews would regularly take 2-5 weeks in primary and 2 weeks warm conditioning to get to the cool conditioning stage.

I usually get target FG 7-8 days and warm conditioning in a bottle or cask within 4 days, I'll leave for a number of weeks cool conditioning depending on the gravity/style.

If it takes longer, then it would seem to me to be indicative of a problem somewhere.

 

[calumscott]

Not sure if I want to get into the "right / wrong" thing, but for me this forum is about continuous learning and I wont be afraid to post for the fear of being wrong, I'm ok to be told that but it is helpful to have some pointers

...and that is the attitude we like on here! :thumb:

so thank you Calum for your reasoning

You are most welcome.

why ordinary brews would regularly take 2-5 weeks

Neither did I until I had a really good in-depth chat with the head brewer at Inveralmond. It seems it's mostly down to pitching rates and aeration in the growth phase, we tend to do not enough of either. He even suggested re-aerating at the end of lag, start of multiplication phase to really get things going. With commercial kit he's fermenting out in four to five days before diacetyl rests and conditioning etc.

Can I just say I still haven't been brave enough to try that yet...

I'd also like to point out that for out kit brewing members, there is next to no chance of achieving FG in those time frames and the conditioning (certainly from my previous kit brewing experience) is much longer. Could be the low pitching rate of kits yeast packs, could be way the hopped extract is made, who knows but I would never consider trying to drink kit beer inside 6 weeks from bottling.

With AG beers I have, as have you, found that on the whole the greater part of primary fermentation is done in around 6 or 7 days (bothersome ones excepted!) but the extra week hanging around isn't going to cause autolysis off flavours in that timespan.

 

[mike77]

While I can't think of any reason why not to leave it in the primary for 2 weeks I don't usually see why it is necessary. My beers seem to ferment out in about 3 or 4 days with a 1.050 starting gravity. In my most recent brews I have been using either Ringwood or Nottingham and found that they have fermented out and completely cleared very fast. As for naturally conditioning a week usually seems long enough to carbonate. I can see the benefits for aging beer but at a push I think I could get a decent beer in a corny in about a week and about a week and a half in a bottle if I really wanted to.

 

[Ceejay]

My AG brews are usually all fermented out within 7 days, less if the OG is around 1.045 or lower. I usually do 3 days' diacetyl rest at a couple of degrees over my fermentation temp and then 2 days at as low as my fridge will go, 1 to 3 degrees or so.

Conditioning time, for me entirely depends on the beer your trying to produce. I like really hoppy beers - AIPAs, American Pale Ales, West Coast Reds etc, and so I drink them as soon as they are carbed up, which is usually around 10 or so days after bottling, having been kept at room temp. That's because I want that really fresh hop aroma a flavour, which starts to drop off after a few weeks as the hop oils oxidise.

I'm also partial to an oatmeal stout, and I found when I've brewed those, that I drank them all before they were at their best. So dark, malty beers probably need a good couple of months, and probably more to be at their very best.

What I'm saying is, there is no "rule of thumb". You have to let your taste buds decide when a beer is at it's sweet spot, write it down and know it for the next time you brew that beer. Remember, conditioning time isn't necessarily the time it takes to fully carb up the beer. I consider it to be the time it takes for that beer to be at it's peak in terms of flavour. For something like a RIS, that could be 18 months.

 

[IPA]

Interesting but nobody has mentioned the difference in time it takes to condition in casks as opposed to bottles!

 

[morethanworts]

For anyone who says less than a week is always enough to carbonate, I've currently got a plastic tester bottle that was primed to around 3.5 vols, stirred well, that has been at room temperature for over a week, but which is still barely firmer than when it went in. It is the slowest yet, and the beer had been cleared in secondary for a few days, down to 2C for a bit, and it was a 1.075 beer... But these things can clearly take a while!

 

[graysalchemy]

I have a barley wine which took 18 months to carbonate. :evil:

But it got there eventually :lol:

 

[morethanworts]

That is good to hear, in a way!

Does anyone ever Invert the bottles to get the yeast back into suspension? I had one kit that recommended it once.

 

[Aleman]

OFFS

WHEN IT'S DONE, IT'S DONE!!

it's a rough guideline, not an absolute fundamental law!!

 

[Ceejay]

That is good to hear, in a way!

Does anyone ever Invert the bottles to get the yeast back into suspension? I had one kit that recommended it once.

Yep, I like to give 'em a spin every couple of days, if I remember.

 

[StevieDS]

Can I ask, is it really necessary to cold condition the bottles after carbonation?
I know there are benefits from doing so but what I mean is will it do any harm if I don't cold condition?
I live in a small flat with limited storage space, so all my bottles are stored in the electric cupboard at around 17-18c. I don't really have the facilities for cold storage.