It’s really a hard question. I have had beer of that gravity in the keg after two weeks and have left it for 4.
Keep checking the gravity, and the taste. even after the gravity has stabalized I notice significant improvement in flavour with a little extra time on the yeast.
I will often cold crash a finished beer for a week or two on the yeast also. don’t know if that matters or if it would be fine if I kegged it and cold crashed but I like what it does and the kegged beer gets consumed so the second half of the keg is always better than the first half.
For normal-gravity ales I usually bottle after about 14 days. Bigger beers (above 1.065-1.070) sit for a good long while(4+ weeks), just to be sure. Most of my batches are in the 2-3 gallon range, so I really don’t want to be taking a bunch of hydrometer readings if I can avoid it. I know my process/yeasts/temperatures well enough where I can just leave things the hell alone until I’m comfortable that it’s done.
We need a virtual stripper pole on this site. I have a striper rod at home, but stripers are hard to find in the desert(actually about as hard to find as strippers).
As for the original question, unless it’s a beer I need for a special occasion or something like a hefeweizen or mild that I know will be ready fast I don’t even check gravity for 2 weeks.
Minimum 2 weeks unless I see something “fishy” about the fermentation (fishy being weird, not fishy like the aforementioned stripers). Usually they sit for 3 or 4 weeks because I don’t have a keg empty. If they’re gonna sit more than about 4 weeks without taking them off the yeast I’ll make sure to put them in cold storage (usually it’s a lager that I end up doing this with - I just drink ales too quickly).
Oh, I think I get it. You were replying to the “What exactly is” thread?
You may be right…I didn’t look it up, just loved that movie when I was younger.
I keg everything so for most ill wait 2 weeks then put it in a keg for a weekish(sometimes shorter) long secondary/hang out in the keg time for the yeast to clean up, then ill carb it up. 3 weeks in primary or maybe even 4 for big gravity beers or beers that have clearing issues.