Beer Forum

How long is too long to keep it beer in secondary?

Depends on the beer, A wheat beer is ready in a couple of weeks, and a barleywine might take 6 months or longer. When I used secondary, I usually let stuff sit for a couple of weeks and then keg.

Dirk McLargeHuge wrote:Depends on the beer, A wheat beer is ready in a couple of weeks, and a barleywine might take 6 months or longer. When I used secondary, I usually let stuff sit for a couple of weeks and then keg.

What about laziness?

I have a red ale that has been sitting there for 3 months.

I have been super busy and when I have time (the little) I have, I stare at the walls for hours on end.

Is it okay, I feel like I should be arrest for abandonment.

Three months, eh? I'd keg or bottle it. It should be fine.

Get off your lazy ass and bottle it you douche bag!

If you had nice, healthy yeast and temps that were not too high - you should be fine. Pull a sample off and check for autolysis (meaty, or rubbery aroma/taste). If it tastes good then hurry up and get that beer off that cake.


Mylo

I try not to let beer set in the primary for more than 4-5 weeks, but some of the best beers I've made have sat in the secondary for months.

If you are bottling, then dump a pkg of rehydrated US-05 into your bottling bucket along with your priming sugar, just in case.

If your yeast is ok, this won't hurt. If it all settled out, then this will replace it.

HTH-