When to Bottle?

[theobrew]

So...
All of the kits and the guy I first talked to at the homebrew supply store said beers should go 2 weeks in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, and 2 weeks conditioning.

I have two batches going right now:
an American Pale Ale that has been in primary for 11 days

and an altbier that has been in primary for 4 days.

I'm still new to homebrewing and new to the show but I recall hearing something about the secondary being an old school idea and only needed for dry-hopping or fruit additions. Also, I think it sounds like 2 weeks is the far end of fermentation and that I could potentially bottle earlier than that. Could anyone shed some light on what the proper lengths of time for fermentation are before I bottle. I have not checked the gravity in them yet but I have an OG on both and if figuring out the gravity in them is part of the process I can go down to the basement and check.

Thanks for any and all help. Love the BN army...

[spiderwrangler]

It depends man... gravity, yeast health, yeast amount, strain of yeast, TEMPERATURE, etc...

I take a very relaxed approach to it, I keep a good handle on sanitation and fermentation temp, and pitch a good amount of healthy yeast, so I'm not worried about stuck ferments. So once I don't see any more airlock activity, I'll usually give it another week or so to clean up whatever it's gonna do before bottling. Any times that you are given as part of a recipe are just a guess... your beer will vary. Give it more time, it'll be fine.

[siwelwerd]

I take a very relaxed approach to it, I keep a good handle on sanitation and fermentation temp, and pitch a good amount of healthy yeast, so I'm not worried about stuck ferments. So once I don't see any more airlock activity, I'll usually give it another week or so to clean up whatever it's gonna do before bottling.

+1. I usually plan on about 3 weeks total from pitching to packaging.

To elaborate on Spider's commend on "cleaning up things", yeast will naturally produce things like diacetyl (tastes buttery) and acetaldehyde (green apple) during fermentation. If you take the beer off the yeast immediately after fermentation is done, these flavors will stay in your beer. However, if you give the yeast a little time after you reach terminal gravity (a few days to a week), it will reduce these compounds.

[spiderwrangler]

To elaborate on Spider's commend on "cleaning up things"....

Yes, thanks! Additional time also gives more time for things to settle out. I'll often go off appearance of a beer I know is done, if it looks like it's still settling, I'll leave it. If it looks like there is yeast hanging up in suspension, and I need the ferementor, I may use gelatin finings to drop them, but I generally want to give the yeast time to do their jobs.