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I had put down an american ale on tuesday with american ale yeast and it is fermenting away nicely in the fridge around 15degrees. Just curious how long do you think it will take to ferment out and should i still rack after a week and should i cold condition it before i bottle or is that not nessecary for this type of brew?

Sounds like a low temp for that style- I thought that the mid-20's would be better to get the nice fruity esters that the yeast produces. At normal temps you could probably rack at about 5 days but I don't know when the primary ferment would be finished at those temps. I think you can tell by the hydro reading but I've never tried.

I would CC this brew as it will clear it up. I think that most brews benefit from this anyway.

Cheers,

Tim

its a US056 american ale yeast. The one in the pink packets. HBS guy said to brew at 15-16 and on the packet it says brew between 15 and 20.

I'd go 18*C personally. It'd keep the yeast happy, and still produce a nice fruity finish.

Aside from that, a week in 2ndary and 2 of cc will do a nice job. If you can't be bothered with the cc, then don't worry about it.

US056 actually ferments okay at the lower end of the spectrum - I'm not sure why but it's what I have observed. A lot of ale yeasts would take about 2 weeks to finish primary fermentation at that temp, but you might find that US056 takes less time than that - maybe 8-10 days. But even so give it couple of days after you think it's finished as this type of yeast doesn't clump to the bottom too well and needs a bit of time settle out, at least in my experience with it.