How long to put bottle in fridge before drinking?

My ale will be in the bottle 2 weeks tomorrow. I know it is best to wait 3 weeks before consuming. But I would like to test it before Christmas to see if I should hand some out to family, plus I want to brew this weekend and want to make adjustments based on this brew.

So no problem.

But I have read to put the bottle in the fridge for 2 days before drinking and I wondering if that is necessary. Why not just one day or half a day. I would think ( assume ) that the beer will be cold and the carbonation will be evenly distributed.

Any thoughts?

It's not necessary at all, but I recommend it. Bottle conditioned beer has yeast floating around and scavenging for sugar, this cleaning up the flavor of the beer and allowing all of the different flavors from the malt you used to be broken down and melded into the flavor of your beer. Yeast sediments at cooler temps, this will take away much of the yeast flavor.

Go ahead a put one in now and drink it up at your earliest convenience, but also put another bottle in with it and wait for 2 weeks and try it. You'll taste a difference. For this reason, I try to stay about 1 week ahead of my habit. Sunday is restock day for, and I restock when I have about a week of bottles left, so that there's plenty of time for the yeast to fall out.

I think a general rule is that carbonation takes about a week. It can be faster at higher temps, but generally it's done in 1 week in a bottle. However, bottle conditioning does wonders and the longer you wait, typically between 8-12 weeks, the better the beer gets.

Try out your beers at different points and ages. Try beers that are fermented, conditioned, and refrigerated for varying amounts of time. You'll be surprised at how snobbish even that experiment can make you.

The longer it sits the more yeast will fall out of suspension. I have put many in during the day and drank the same night with success. I never noticed a huge difference but some may disagree.

In my experience, quickly chilled, newly carbed homebrew won't absorb the co2 that well. It takes about a full day in the fridge for the co2 to actually move from the headspace into the beer. It happens best at cold temperatures, but not in just a couple of hours. After the beer has been fully carbed up for a while, then it can be chilled quickly and be ok but a beer that's just getting carbed up will sometimes pour with some foam and still appear to be flat.

You can try it, though! Put two in the fridge now. Try one later tonight, and try one in a day or two. The second one will be a "truer" indication of the amount of carbonation in the beer. They'll still taste good, even if a bit unevenly carbed.

Mine always seem to taste better after a week or more in the fridge. There's plenty of posts about it you can search. I've tried several batches after only a day or 2 and thought the beer wasn't ready at all and then a week later, it was like a different beer. This has made me a firm believer in the 3 weeks (at least) at 70 and then 1 week in the fridge. It will keep you from wondering what went wrong with your beer (nothing was wrong, it just needed more time)

Really depends on the beer and how it was primed. In my experience, bigger (OG not size) beers can be consumed as soon as they're cold (assuming they've primed in a warm environment for several weeks), but smaller beers tend to need to be cold for a couple days to get the right mouthfeel and to get the carbonation to stay after the pour. When I quick chilled some small beers, they would foam up on the pour, but tasted flat after the head settled. YMMV.

I've been known to put a bottle in the freezer for an hour and drink it...as I'm sure many others do from time to time. It works, it's still beer, and it's cold. So if you're itching for a taste, go for it.

But.... as others have stated, it is definitely better after a day or so, and it clears significantly if given a week or two.

Since I can't seem to remember every detail about every beer I drink, i don't think it really matters.

I like to put it in the fridge for a day or two before I drink it.

I put a bottle in this morning at 2 AM ( had the early shift today ). Tomorrow night I'm sampling. So that will be close to 2 days. This should be fun!

I always do 48 hours of cold to allow the co2 to be evenly absorbed.

also remember your kitchen fridge is much too cold for homebrew enjoyment. 34F is too cold..you'll be missing aroma and flavor in the poured beer.

malkore said:

I always do 48 hours of cold to allow the co2 to be evenly absorbed.

also remember your kitchen fridge is much too cold for homebrew enjoyment. 34F is too cold..you'll be missing aroma and flavor in the poured beer.

Click to expand...

What is the optimal serving temp?

klyph said:

What is the optimal serving temp?

Click to expand...

It varies by beer, from about 40-55. At 36ish the aroma starts to die though, I haven't noticed much flavor difference at that level though. I like it at 38.

I agree about the carbonaion difference on a new brew vs one in the fridge for a day or so, but taste difference? Some people must have really developed taste buds and I wish I could get mine that developed.

Not saying there is not a difference, I just can't taste it.. If I have a properly aged beer whether it be flat, or carbed, or whatever I can tell whether it is good tasting beer.

After 4 or 5 I don't notice the difference anyway

I've drank bottle conditioned beer as soon as it was cold. I think it really depends mainly on how well the yeast flocculates. Yeah it will probably clear and get better in a week or two, but you will probably have drinkable and hopefully good beer before then.

I tried my ale today and I'm happy. The beer tastes clean, no evidence of contamination or serious off flavors. Body is slightly thin but this was an extract beer with 1 lb. of crystal malt, OG = 1.045, FG = 1.014. There is a nice malt/hop aroma balance. Nice carbonation. Cloudy, as expected, 2 weeks in bottle and less than 48 hours in fridge. I'm tasting some hoppy grassiness, not sure if that will go away or not. I've always wondered what "green" tastes like and that may be the grassiness.

Like I said, I'm happy for a first effort in many years.

I've drank bottle conditioned beer as soon as it was cold. I think it really depends mainly on how well the yeast flocculates. Yeah it will probably clear and get better in a week or two, but you will probably have drinkable and hopefully good beer before then

Click to expand...

I agree. I have too. But I'm also drinking an IPA made with Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast that is only slightly hazy with only 45 min in the freezer. Maybe I got lucky but 1084 is supposed to flocculate low. It's weird because I have a red ale that I brewed and bottled before the IPA and it still hasn't cleared like the IPA. Might have to do with the brewing methods... Oh yea, and both beers were in the fermenters for the same amount of time.