What is the best way to age a beer? Primary, secondary, bottle or a combination of them all. Cold or room temperature? New to brewing and looking for your opinions and wisdom on this subject.
Thanks Cat. My first batch I made last month I had in the primary for two weeks, secondary for a week, and bottle for two weeks. I did notice that it became better with time. Unfortunately I didn't have the patience to let I age....it was my very first batch. I have about 16 bottles left that I am going to try and let age in the bottle for a bit longer. I just made a new Extra Pale Ale last week and I am going to try and leave it in the primary for a month. Do you think it is more important to primary on the trub longer than secondary to let the yeast clean up after themselves?
Thanks Cat. My first batch I made last month I had in the primary for two weeks, secondary for a week, and bottle for two weeks. I did notice that it became better with time. Unfortunately I didn't have the patience to let I age....it was my very first batch. I have about 16 bottles left that I am going to try and let age in the bottle for a bit longer. I just made a new Extra Pale Ale last week and I am going to try and leave it in the primary for a month. Do you think it is more important to primary on the trub longer than secondary to let the yeast clean up after themselves?
Thing is, every beer is different. :rockin:
RM-MN said:Your extra pale ale probably won't benefit from the month in the primary, at least not as much as a darker beer. Assuming you fermented at the proper temperature you could leave it for 10 days to 2 weeks, dry hop it for 3 to 7 more days and then bottle it. You aren't trying to meld the complexity of the dark grains since you should have none in a extra pale.
I just made a new Extra Pale Ale last week and I am going to try and leave it in the primary for a month. Do you think it is more important to primary on the trub longer than secondary to let the yeast clean up after themselves?
"Secondary", as described by most folks on here is just bulk aging in a second carboy after fermentation is complete. True secondary is a transfer just after the high kreusen (peak fermentation) begins to fall. This allows the rest of the ferment to continue off of the trub, but still leaves behind residual yeast to "clean up" or absorb off flavor compounds.
This is something that had been confusing me for a while and i'd like to get cleared up. People tend to give examples or beer aged a short vs. a long time in bottles or a long time vs a short time in primary but not about total aging time covering both.
What's the difference between a beer aged two weeks in a primary and four weeks in a bottle, vs. three and three vs four and two. (ie all with six weeks aging)?
This is something that had been confusing me for a while and i'd like to get cleared up. People tend to give examples or beer aged a short vs. a long time in bottles or a long time vs a short time in primary but not about total aging time covering both.
What's the difference between a beer aged two weeks in a primary and four weeks in a bottle, vs. three and three vs four and two. (ie all with six weeks aging)?
So the darker or bigger the beer the more time benefits it in a primary? Sorry for the ridiculous questions but I'm pretty green with brewing. I brewed my EPA from an extract kit. Wasn't planning on dry hopping. Maybe I just need to move to 10 gallons and do 5 one way and 5 another way to get a comparison? Wife would love that!
This is something that had been confusing me for a while and i'd like to get cleared up. People tend to give examples or beer aged a short vs. a long time in bottles or a long time vs a short time in primary but not about total aging time covering both.
What's the difference between a beer aged two weeks in a primary and four weeks in a bottle, vs. three and three vs four and two. (ie all with six weeks aging)?
A six week old beer is a six week old beer, regardless of the vessel.
It's been my experience that bulk aging conditions a beer faster than aging in a bottle. I've experimented with it and it's worked for me every time.
A six week old beer is a six week old beer, regardless of the vessel.
As a winemaker, I think it's been the reverse for me. Aging in a carboy seemed to make the entire batch "even" but it may slow the aging just a tiny tiny bit. The difference was really not appreciable, though.
woozy said:That's kind of what I was assuming. Thanks for clearing that up.
It's just that so many people have such strong and insistent opinions of "how long you should bottle" and isn't that missing the point in that the issue is how long you should age not how long you bottle? Isn't the date you begin bottling and thus the day you calculate bottling time rather arbitrary and thus the amount of time spent bottling (other than as a factor of the overall time spent aging) pretty much irrelevant?
Enter your email address to join: