When to bottle up using Nottingham yeast

[azzothegreek]

Hi all, I knocked home brewing on the head for a while as it was too nice and I was drinking too much of it. I found it as nice as anything you can buy in a bottle and it compared well to good cask ale. Chuck into the mix the ability to tailor and experiment with the brew and i had a dangeous recipe on my hands.

I loved making it just as much as I loved drinking it so i've decided to have another bash at it and just give it away to my mates or have people 'round where i would imagine most of it would be gone in one night. This would take away the temptation of having 100 bottles plus of delicious ale just sat there looking at me.

Onto my question. I've used Nottingham danstar yeast for my latest batch and notice that after exactly 7 days it has finished fermenting. There is absolutely zero activity, the water in the bubble valve is completely level. Previous brews using different yeasts have not been so quick, with evidence of activity still going on 2 weeks after pitching the yeast. Based on previous experiences with fermentation times the average recommended time of two weeks in primary vessel has made sense. I read that the yeast does a clean up job after it has finished fermenting.

As there is zero activity with the Danstar after one week I'm wondering if I should bottle up now.

I went on a brewery tour once and they told me they bottle/keg up once the fermentation finishes, which is about 4 days for them. Their beer was good.

Any thoughts?

 

[MyQul]

If you free fermented and it was quite warm it will finish quite quick. My last brew finished fermenting in about 48 hours because it was fermenting at 28C (I used heat tolerant yeast). I then bottled it after a total of 7 days in the FV.
Take a hydrometer reading. If it's hit your target FG, take another two on two consecutive days and if it's the same bottle it.

As far as 20L of irristable lovely beer staring at you, tempting you to drink it. I had/have same problem and felt I was drinking too much. At first I thought I'd make beer to no more than 4%ABV. But now I've decided to make one beer at a time. Give it 3 weeks in the primary (going by the stout that is in my FV for almost 3 weeks, I'm definately a covert to bulk ageing), package then, a further 2-4 weeks conditioning. This will give me 5 weeks or so of not drinking (apart from the occasional trip to the pub) to give my liver a rest

 

[strange-steve]

You actually raise an interesting point and it's is something I've been wondering about recently. As you say lots of breweries including some of the best in the world bottle their beer as soon as fermentation is complete, sometimes only a few days after pitching. Yet as homebrewers we're taught that we should leave it at least 2 weeks so that the yeast can "clean up after itself". Is this something to do with scale? Maybe this is something the Brulosophy guy could look at.

 

[Brightonnik]

I fermented a beer out with a heat tolerant yeast. I split the batches and at the same temperature (28 degrees) both fermented out in 4 days. One batch was bottled and one was left for an additional 4 days plus 2 days of cold crashing. The short fermented beer is cloudy and tastes sweeter. The one with the longer ferment is much clearer and much more in line with the style.
Whilst being drinkable the first beer isn't really my cup of tea!

 

[azzothegreek]

I guess that is the only way to really find out Brightonnik, suck it and see. The best advice in the world is no substitute for hands on experience. I'm going to do the same and see what happens. If I mess up one batch in doing so then so be it.

I'll let you all know how it turned out.

 

[Keviebaby]

I've just finished bottling a batch of Timothy Taylor clone that used Nottingham. Brewed it last Saturday and it started at 1.046 and fermented out to 1.010. I've no temperature control so it was fermented at ambient temperature.

Looks nicely clear and tasted great from the fermenter. Used 95g of white sugar in the bottling bucket for carbonation. (21 l batch).

The only potential issue I would have with leaving it for two weeks is that I understand that Nottingham drops out of suspension really well so it may need longer conditioning in the bottle to get it carbed up with the lesser quantity of yeast left. However, that's my preference because I think this beer will be best drunk young rather than needing aging.

KG