Prolonged fermentation

Brewer #43935

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Good morning. I am a relatively new brewer and well established winemaker. Started brewing with kits and am now working up some personal recipes, all partial mash. I currently have a Saison brewing that was fermented with recycled Saf-brew S33 harvested from a batch of Biere de Mars. The Saison is taking a long time in secondary, as did the BDM. I finally got tired of worrying about the bubbles with the BDM and bottled when it had been at 1.017 for a week and a half (OG of 1.064). The Saison seems to be following the same course, still sending a bubble up the bubbler every couple minutes after three weeks in secondary, but SG hanging at 1.016. It's still a bit cloudy and a little foamy where the CO2 is collecting at the surface on it's way up the carboy. Is this still active fermentation or just expelling of residual CO2? Is it safe to bottle? My experience with other beers has been once I bottle, the yeast drops out of suspension quickly and things carbonate fine, no explosions yet. Thanks for the assist. How do you experienced beer makers do it? Wine making is 100 times easier! :)
 
everyone might do this different but I don't go by time for fermentation, I go by starting and ending gravity, if its done in 5 days I call it done, never mind the bubbles. Bubbles can be several things other than active fermentation
it can be trapped co2 under the trub, something dry hopping releasing small amounts of oxygen while exploding apart, the same goes for fruit

if you match your recipe, your done. nothing is worse than fermenting too far and the beer texture is too watery for the style
 

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