How long should I let my beer sit in the bottles?

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brewboyrsl

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I just bottled my first brew this last Thur, its a 6% chocolate coffee porter. Its sitting in the hall closet at about 68-70 degrees. How long should I wait to open one of these bad boys up? I'm really anxious to start drinking it.
 
The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience." ;)
 
Nice info Revvy!

Any thought on storing the bottles on their sides?? I was loosely following a recipe for a Fat Tire clone and it suggested storing the bottles on their sides??? Never heard of this before…..
 
Then you won't have clear beer the sediment layer is going to form down the entire length of the bottle. My understanding of laying wines on their sides is to keep the cork from drying out. Not really anything we need to concern ourselves with. I can't see any reason for a beer recipe having that except that the creator of the recipe is clueless where that is concerned.
 
IMO on your first batch you have the right to try one early! I could never resist trying one after a week. Try one Friday night. Put it in the fridge Thursday night. It will be close to where it will end up. But not there yet.

In the mean time, go buy some beer, and then make some more beer so you don't have this problem again any time soon.

:mug:
 
To me trying beer early is a waste of beer, first batch or not....I'd rather wait a couple weeks longer and have exactly 2 cases of carbed and conditioned beer than 2 cases MINUS how many green and under carbed beer, in my noobish impatience I couldn't keep my grubby hands off off. IMHO, there is little to be learned about the beers journey by repeated samplings in the bottle over the few weeks it takes to acheive beery nirvana. And I'd be better off "adding to my empty bottle collection" for future batches by sampling commercial beers in that period instead.

There an old saying here that your best bottle of a batch of beer is always the last one, because that one has had the longest time to condition. I'd rather wait and start with conditioned beers myself...
 
+1. Start your next batch now so that you have something to do to keep your mind off of the bottles that are conditioning.
 
...there is little to be learned about the beers journey by repeated samplings in the bottle....
:D
My first batch was a Mr. Beer so had a tap on the fermentation bottle. I couldn't help tasting a sample every day or two for the entire two week fermentation period. I just finished brewing my first all grain batch. I tasted the first and second sparge, the cooled wort, spent grain, AND the trub! I also popped a pellet of hops in my mouth. I learned a lot!:p
 
Nice info Revvy!

Any thought on storing the bottles on their sides?? I was loosely following a recipe for a Fat Tire clone and it suggested storing the bottles on their sides??? Never heard of this before…..

Of the 250 or so bottles of beer that I bottled, I've had 3 that weren't carbonated or not very carbonated because the cap wasn't on good enough. Had I laid those bottles on their sides, I would have had beer all over from leaking out the cap but standing on their bottoms (upright position), all that leaked was a little carbon dioxide. Much easier to clean up. :ban:
 
I just opened a bottled Holiday Cheer after having conditioned for about a month. The psssst was crisp, high-pitched and quick. The brew was perfect - be patient and wait at least 3 weeks.

B
 
The real question should be, "Do you want it fast or do you want it good?" I've brewed a porter and a stout and it takes more than a week to get them good. In fact, it takes longer than 3 weeks too.
 
I know everyone that posted before me has more experience but I'm more of the attitude of do whatever you want to do and make your own decisions about it. This is a hobby after all.

I really like all the tips and experience I get from these boards but there are certain things you want to learn on your own and I think this is one of them. You just brewed your own beer. Want to try one? Awesome, try one.

My second batch has been bottled for a week and I tried one. And it was good. Not great but good. It certainly got me excited about what it will taste like in the future. Am I sorry I tried it because it will mean I have one less beer in the case three weeks from now? That's one of the silliest things I've heard. If that last bottle makes me wish there were more, guess what, I'll brew another batch.

If you decide to wait 3 weeks to try one now, or in ten batches from now (or never) who's to say that's not cool? But I think it's important to come to that decision yourself.

Just my inexperienced 2 cents.
 
Obviously bottle conditioned beers get exponentially better with a little wait time. Revvy's advice about being patient is wise indeed. That said, I've had lower gravity, paler beers that were damn good after two weeks of bottle conditioning. They probably peaked after three weeks. Stouts and porters, however, are definitely MUCH better with a little time.
 
I tried my Pale ale that I brewed from a kit yesterday, Which is one week in the bottle, and was very relieved to hear that is was carbonated and had great head. I was amazingly disappointed to find that it tasted horrible. No Hop flavor, and tasted like bad bread and yeasty. UGG.

So I hear some people say after a week it should taste somewhat like it will finish... Is there hope it will be better in 2 weeks?
 
They tend to get noticeably better in taste after a few weeks of bottle conditioning vs. just one week. I had a beer taste pretty disappointing when I tried it after one week once, but then it cleaned up, carbed properly, and tasted great after a couple more weeks. If there is something significantly wrong with how it was brewed or fermented or bottled, then a couple weeks probably won't do much... but it certainly is possible (likely) for a beer's flavor to improve a lot with more bottle conditioning. Good luck!
 
I’m a new brewer and an anxious one!

I’ve not long bottled my first batch and will be trying them pretty regularly throughout the process of carbonation and conditioning, regardless of the advice...I want to see and taste the journey from bottling to drinking, I will probably only do this once as people have said the best ones are the last ones, but it’s damn exciting to brew your own beer.

the way I see it is it’s yours, you do what you want, the quicker those bottles are empty the sooner you get to fill them again😏
 
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