Last week i started brewing a belgian strong ale for a party comming up, its curently sitting in my fermenter and im planning on bottling on wednesday next week so that i have enough time for a second batch. My question is if the 10 days i want to ferment are enough to finish the fermentation process, im not worried about taste from the lack of conditioning i just dont want to blow up my bottles.
Batch size 8L OG ~1.104 (my hydrometer goes up to 1.100) Expected FG 1.014 And i made a 750ml starter 24h in advance
Update I measured the sg and it was 1.016 so it needs to drop by 2-3 points to be ready which i figured will be done in about a day so i decided make the second batch and keep in the boil kettle to transfer to the bucket with the yeast cake tomorrow.
10 days is plenty of time for a normal, healthy fermentation. But it is impossible to tell if you have achieved this.
1.016 is a reasonable FG for a BGSA but you have no idea what your brew should finish at, because you didn’t do a forced fermentation test (Google it). Predicted numbers from software or kits are mostly meaningless. Empiricism always wins.
You brewed a second batch and chilled it and are letting it sit there? It will be very oxidized and brown tomorrow. Did you take any steps to keep out oxygen?
For Belgian ales, it finishes when it finishes. This is especially true if you’re using a yeast from White Labs; their Belgian yeast strains are slow rollers. Even if your Belgian Strong ale finishes in 10 days and hits your intended FG, I have found it beneficial for Belgian ales to condition for a week or so. Get the beer off the yeast either into another fermentor or keg and just let it cold condition for a bit. As long as there isn’t a chance of oxygen ingress, you should be okay. This added step allows the finished beer to not only clear out a bit on its own but allows the alcohols to mellow out as well. Hope this helps.
I believe yeast doesn’t follow a calendar. It doesn’t care that your recipe says “bottle after X days” or that you need it Thursday. Leave your beer until it’s 100% done fermenting and maturing. Whenever I rush a beer I usually regret it.
Very, very risky. You might luck out and it might be fine, but it is equally likely to gush or explode if bottled after 10 days. For me, most Belgians take 3 to 4 weeks to complete the fermentation. It is the last few points that take the longest. If you were seeking reassurance, you won’t get it from me.
I can offer one recommendation to speed things along. It’s something I’ve been experimenting with lately: sequential pitching.
Theory goes the flavor profile is established within the first 50% of attenuation. This is the principle that raising fermentation temperature after 50% is based on (see Tasty’s Fermentation Profile).
So, if the flavor is set, and a strain that produces that flavor is a slow finisher (Belgian strains), the thought is to sequentially pitch a faster finishing strain at 50% AA. Maybe Nottingham, US-05 or other clean ‘super attenuator’ to get the beer to the finish line faster.
Theory is that the beer will present the flavor profile from the initial pitch and the faster, complete attenuation from the sequential pitch. Jury is still out but preliminary results are promising
Estimated final gravity is a wild guess, at best. That’s a huge beer, but you already hit 83%AA and 11.6% alcohol, which is impressive if your measurements are correct. If the beer isn’t done, it’s close. I would bottle in heavy Belgian bottles and aim for 2.5 volumes. If you get a few extra points of attenuation, it will approach 3.5 - 4 volumes which is well within the range for the style.
Actually, let me qualify that : if you used a regular Trappist/Abbey yeast, I wouldn’t expect much more attenuation. If you used a STA1 positive yeast like some saison yeasts or Duvel (WLP570), I’d be more cautious. As always, taking hydrometer readings a couple of days apart will tell you how much active fermentation is still occuring.