Can i leave my lager?

2budbuck

Hi all,new to brewing and i am currently brewing a 23 litre Better Brews Export Lager kit. My question is, the instructions suggest 10 days for brewing to a specific gravity of 1008 or below. Ten days is up today, (thursday 25th oct). Currently the SG is 1012 and bubbles still seem to be rising, albeit very lightly. My concern is as I have to go away for a few days from saturday to wednesday, should i bottle on friday or leave the brew until i return on wednesday. Will it spoil if left for those extra days? Please help!      

HBO_Staff

Firstly, an excellent choice with the Better Brew Export Lager, we've made it with a kg of enhancer and it was great, leave it in the bottles for a few weeks and you will have a really great tasting lager. Because your reading is not yet low enough, and there are still bubbles rising, it is important that you don't yet bottle it, as this would create excess pressure in your bottles and you don't want that, there is nowhere for the pressure to escape safely. In an ideal world, once it has finished fermenting you would bottle it, as this gets the brew off the sediment, but it is common for people to leave a bit longer before bottling, such as when waiting for the weekend to do it, and an extra few days wont harm the brew. It is not exactly critical, it is best to make sure it has fully completed fermenting rather than bottle too early. The brew may be taking a little longer if the temperature is down, etc, but don't worry as it is very close and another 5 days or so will be perfectly fine.

People have forgotten to bottle or keg brews before and left them for weeks too long in the fermenter and we, i mean they, had no problems, the brews turned out great!

2budbuck

Thank you, I thought that would be the case, but good to get confirmed.