Aging/scheduling

Hi all, I'm finally able to brew on a regular basis and was wondering how long different styles take to mature. I would love always having some homebrew on hand and any info on this would be a great help in planning thanks

Most styles are in the 2 to 4 week format. Anything higher OG, hence higher abv, will need longer. A barley wine that I just brewed I will keep in my carboy for 8 months or so.

I have a 12% wee heavy aging on some oak cubes that I started in December (2011). It's been on the oak for almost three months now. In a few more weeks I plan to check on it (pulling a sample to taste). Then I'll decide what to do with it.

As posted already, lower OG brews are typically ready for drinking sooner than higher OG (or ABV%) brews. You can have a big brew that's not ready for the glass for well over a year. You can also have a low OG brew that's ready for glass in just a few weeks (plus carbonation time).

Personally, for bigger brews, I let the taste of it tell me when it's ready for bottle/keg and carbonation... So, there's really no set rules to go by.

the fastest i've done a batch is 4 weeks - 2 weeks in primary and 2 weeks to carb. then again i don't try to get beers out as fast as possible. some people claim you can get a low alcohol, simple beer in a drinkable state in less than 2 weeks. for me, 5 or 6 weeks is more typical for an average beer.

i have a belgian strong (something over 9% abv) in secondary that i brewed 2 months ago. i will leave it alone for another 1 or 2 months before i taste it, and which point i'll decide if its ready. even if i declare it "ready", it'll certainly continue to improve with time. some stronger beers don't peek for 6 months, 12 months, or more.

The fastest I've done a batch was about 2 months (much shorter when I first started brewing). It takes a lot of patience to let your beer age for the proper amount of time. For your average strength brew, excluding lambics and the like (~5%), I would say about a month of aging, give or take. As others have said, the stronger the beer, the longer it takes to age. But, the stronger the beer, typically the longer you can keep it.

As the previous posters have mentioned, high alcohol=longer aging. Also note that hops fade with time, so consuming hop-forward pale ales and IPAs a little younger than normal may be beneficial, but let your palate guide you. Also, wheat beers like hefewiezens are supposed to be great fresh, so don't plan on aging them.

Great thanks for the help. This being the first time I put anything on the forum I decided to brew a batch of BierMunchers Centennial Blonde to celebrate. Although in retrospect starting a brew session at 10pm probably isn't one of my brighter moves... Oh well no regrets =)

I'm a noob learning from this post -- when you say "aging" you mean letting it sit in a secondary? Or bottle? Or primary (if you don't secondary)?

What Union said.

Also, keep in mind that when you bottle, you are kick starting another mini primary phase as the yeast attenuate the priming sugar. So if you move too early to bottles, you may still have some byproducts from the initial primary fermentation that makes the yeast working harder in the bottles. This is because they have to clean up the original fermentation byproducts plus those produced in carbing the beer. The result might be some off flavors. That's why most people wait at least two to three weeks before bottling.

If you have a high ABV beer, the amount of byproducts can be greater as more attenuation occurred when your yeast ate through all the sugars. That why you want to leave your beer in the primary or secondary longer to bulk age before moving to bottles when dealing either higher gravity beers.

You can bulk age in either vessel, but keep in mind that most people believe bulk aging in the primary past 3-4 weeks could start to produce off flavors because of autolysis (yeast dying) and perhaps also from the trub (proteins and hops). So if you think your beer needs more time to bulk age then you should consider racking to a secondary to continue your bulk aging. There's no hard and fast rule though, it's all based on your risk tolerance. I'm sure people have bulk aged in the primary for several months with no major problems.

FYI, anything after the primary attenuation phase is considering aging, whether that occurs in the primary, secondary, or bottles is based on the above factors and your risk tolerance for dealing with potential off flavors.

Another thing that you may want to consider for big beers is to inoculate more yeast ( usually a different one you have used to ferment the wort) before bottling. I have some bottle left of a Belgian strong Ale brewed 4 years ago, flavor is still improving. I can also suggest you to undercarbonate big beers for at least a couple of reasons: first because they taste great with low level of carbonation, second because It happens that after a couple of years the beer tend to increase its carbonation level ( to be honest I've no idea if it is because of few level of infection or it is something related with yeast)

i, on the other hand, prefer highly carbonated big beers. duvel & my fav tripels are all 3+ volumes. for me, it further adds to the intensity of the beer - more aroma & more tingling in the mouth.

sweetcell said:

i, on the other hand, prefer highly carbonated big beers. duvel & my fav tripels are all 3+ volumes. for me, it further adds to the intensity of the beer - more aroma & more tingling in the mouth.

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yeah you're right! beers like belgian triple require high level of carbionation, I was thinking about big english barley wine or something like this when I've wrote the message

I know this thread is a few months old so I hope this is an appropriate place to ask my question. I brewed my biggest AG to date - a weizenbock with an OG of 85. I understand the rule of thumb that a bigger beer requires more time to age, but I also know that wheat based beers should be consumed relatively fresh. Does the drink wheat beers early rule only apply to styles like a hefe or a dunkle? What would you recommend I do with my weizenbock? It's been in the primary for 2 weeks so far. I took a gravity reading last weekend and I was at 27 and my target is around 21. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks union. If I'm at my target should I then keg it and start to carb? I probably wasn't very clear in my original post. Basically I brewed this beer for Halloween and I want to know if it'll be ready by then. Thanks

firenemus said:

I know this thread is a few months old so I hope this is an appropriate place to ask my question. I brewed my biggest AG to date - a weizenbock with an OG of 85. I understand the rule of thumb that a bigger beer requires more time to age, but I also know that wheat based beers should be consumed relatively fresh. Does the drink wheat beers early rule only apply to styles like a hefe or a dunkle? What would you recommend I do with my weizenbock? It's been in the primary for 2 weeks so far. I took a gravity reading last weekend and I was at 27 and my target is around 21. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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this should age out quite nicely. no need to rush it. for a beer that big i'd give it 3 weeks in primary minimum, 4+ would be OK to. if you can, warm the beer up about 5 degrees F if you can. that should help with attenuation.

I have just brewed and Imperial Oatmeal Porter based on a Breakfast Stout clone.

64% - Pale Ale
15% - Flaked Oats
7% - Crystal 120
3% - Oat Malt
3% - Chocolate Malt
3% - Carafa I
2.5% - Aromatic Malt
1.5% - Black Patent Malt

(coccoa nibs and powder added at flameout. I will also add cold brewed coffee, vanilla, cinnamon and coccoa nibs when aging)

OG: 1083 (I guess I can expect an ABV around 8?)
Yeast: US-05

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I am pretty much lost about fermentation and aging schedules. I had never brewed such a big beer. What do you guys suggest?

(After a day the beer isnt as brown anymore there is lots of brown thin on the bottle of the sample I got for taking gravity readings. Whys that?)

Thanks already