My Hefe is almost at final gravity after one week at 66 degrees. Is this a yeast/style that could use another week or 2 in a secondary? Or is it best to leave it alone?
you should leave it alone until you/it are ready to bottle. Which for this style won't be long at all.
Using that yeast, this guy kegs after 10 days. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/bee-cave-brewery-bavarian-hefeweizen-35679/ I made a similar recipe using White Labs version of this strain, and let it go for 2 weeks. Some people seem to have lingering sulfuric aroma when bottling that soon. I decided to wait the extra few days and had no issues. So, you can bottle after 10 days...but I'd err on the side of caution and go the full two weeks.
Brewed on the 6th. Actually bringing the fermenter out of the swamp cooler to bring it up to 70 or so. This saturday will be 2 weeks so good day to bottle. Thanks.
With hefes I bottle once two conditions are met: 1) The beer reaches a stable Final Gravity 2) The sulphur produced during fermentation has subsided Depending on your strain, pitch rate and temp, you may have more or less sulphur in your hefes. I wait until all detectable (nose and taste) sulphur has escaped before bottling. I really like my hefes mit (yeast suspended, super cloudy) and fresh so I tend to bottle or keg as soon as the conditions above are met.
So.. Crack open the bucket and give a whif for sulphur. Basically. Smell sulphur. Wait a bit. No sulphur AND gravity reached. Bottle it up.
Yep,that's pretty much it. I taste the hydrometer sample as well to make sure my nose isn't lying to me, but 99% of the time if I can't smell sulphur I can't taste it.
