Fermentation time?

Lacking a hydrometer to measure your beer's specific gravity, you can either wait until the airlock bubbles, say, less than once in five minutes or so. In my very limited experience the process takes about two weeks. You don't want to rush beer anyway, since the longer it sits the clearer it becomes as solids drift to the bottom of the fermenter.

Siphon the clear beer off into another sterilized container while adding the boiled/cooled sterile sugar-water solution before bottling, if you want to avoid cloudy beer. The muck in the bottom of the fermenter may be full of nutrients, but it isn't pretty.

Karl S.

How long should it take? There's time, temperature, the activity of the yeast, the amount of sugar, the minerals in the water and various conditions added by your technique . . . Lot of variables and no clear answers.

Rule of thumb: a couple of weeks. But if your wort wasn't aerated at the start or the wort and water not mixed enough, yeast sluggish or not proofed, un fermentable starches or sugars . . . longer.

Another rule of thumb - all first timers worry about it. Don't. Beer frequently gets made in spite of what you do. You'll get better, and worry less, with practice.

I would assume, since you are new at this, that your fermentor is a plastic bucket? Only one bucket? You will put corn sugar dissolved in boiled water ~one cup per five gallons of wort? Stir it up? then bottle?

A lot of people start out that way, so you're in good company. My first batch was pretty bad. It wasn't until I forked out the money for glass carboys and switched to two stage fermentation and using blow-off on the primary that I could make better tasting beer than the imported stuff.

If batches two and three tasted like number one, I would have quit. It is possible (but less likely) to get a good drinkable brew with one stage plastic bucket fermentation.

Most people buy the basic system "to see if they like it." I say add the carboys etc. then decide.

There was a chef I worked for, many years ago, he was fond of saying "You want to learn how to cook? Eat your mistakes; you'll learn."

As a full time brewer 60 hours is all that you need, the yeast will start to die-off because the ethanol content is too high.

Would you like to explain a bit more about that ?

Cheers KAsper

I don't buy the part about the yeast dying off because of ethanol content. Depending on the strain of yeast the ethanol can be as high as 15%, most people brew beer that is much lower in alcohol than that.

Temperature is the largest single governing factor (assuming the wort is properly mixed, oxygen content high enough to start the yeast off, yeast active and numbers adequate)

Now a commercial brewer, who is more concerned with time and profit, might get a product out the door in a few days - but he has the filtration apparatus, carbonating equipment, controlled temperatures, and a good yeast stock. And did I mention the profit motive?

A home brewer, doesn't have as good control of the variables, will wait for the particles of grain and hops to settle out of suspension. And - probably get better results.

May I respectfullt say "No way"...maybe you can finish a beer in 60 hours in a commercial setting, but we're homebrewers...we're not under the gun to crank 'em out like the pros. And as far as the yeast dying off due to the ethanol content...are you sure you're a pro???

---------->Denny

Is this because your wort is starting at 1100 and in a concentrated form? You dilute at botteling to expand your efforts into $$.

My regular beer is more beer then water, my lite beer is more water then beer. hahahahahaha

__Stephen

Let the beer dictate it's own schedule...it might be domne in that timeframe and it might not.

----------->Denny