Aging beer: Facts, myths, and discussion

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Go ahead and age your IPAs if that's what gives you the best results. My personal experience has been in line with what others have said about the hop character diminishing over time.

Thanks for the replies. Based upon those and reading a bit more on the subject, what I think I may try is a compromise: brew a batch and enjoy some of it after a more typical conditioning time, but also set some aside to condition longer. This should work well in my case because my girlfriend really likes hop amora and flavor, but not extreme hop bitterness (we've consumed many batches of Saaz hopped Pilsners this season).

The original IPA's spent months in transit so the end result should resemble something historically accurate.

Mabye next season I'll try a really big Barley Wine....
 
"but the hops actually mellowed out nicely after 1.5 years."
Well, as you might deduct from my screen name, I'm not really into 1.5 year aging techniques. Green bananas are just marginally on my radar. :-D
 
I am planning brew up an IPA and leave it to condition/age while we are gone (about 6 months). My current version of the recipe (using BrewSmith), has an OG of 1.068, IBU of 55.8, and estimated ABV of 7.0%
If it were me, I would just plan on dry hopping a ton for 7-10 days after I got back (or if you keg, keg hop it). The bitterness will likely still be present, but little aroma/flavor.
 
Resurrecting a long living thread as I haven't been able to find my answer searching. My question is for anyone with knowledge or opinion on the best conditions to bottle age beer. Is there any data on the value of bottle aging at 68F vs refrigeration temps? I have been brewing since October 2011 and have successfully retained 3 bottles of every batch for future tasting and wanted to make sure I am storing them under ideal temps. So far they have been at 68F or so in the same spot I carb full batches.

Anyone have experience with the ideal bottle aging temps?

Thanks!
 
68 is not "ideal" I think the rule of thumb is that for every 10 degrees, the speed at which aging happens doubles. (so 68 means that your beer with age twice as fast as a beer kept a 58)
That being said, the entire subject is quite complicated.
You have hop bittering and aroma that will disappear faster, oxidation will happen faster, and any infection will be more noticeable with more time at higher temps. With good sanitation and higher ABV beers, room temp has worked well enough for me. it just means that my beers mature much quicker.
To add to the complexity of the issue, I always LOVE my beers 3 weeks to 5 weeks in the bottle, then they aren't as good until 2 months later. (omit hoppy beers from this, fresh is best)
Someone once mentioned bottle shock for wine, and I would love to learn more on that subject, and see if it applies to beer. There isn't very much literature on storing beer at room temp though.

To answer your question:
I don't have the ability to store beer below 68, so I would say drink IPAs within 2 months, and make a lot of bottle conditioned Belgian Beers, they seem to do best at room temp.

Best temp: low 50s for ales, lower for Lagers.
Too cold or too long drops alot of flavor out of ales for me. I like more character in porters and darker belgian beers, and I find that if I leave them in the fridge, some complexity gets lost. There are tannins that I don't want to drop out too quick. I like to let lighter beers (lagers, Belgain Pale Ales, APA/IPA...) sit cold in the fridge, as I want the malt to be clean.

In the end, If I could get a cellar for my beers, at 50 degrees, i would be a happy camper, and so would my beers. they would have a good condition to mature, but at a much slower rate than room temp- which is the best of both worlds.
 
Thanks for the detailed answer. In searching a bit more today I found a BrewStrong episode from last August that cleary made the statement in that lower temps are better and that every 10 degrees compounds the timing. I think I have room in my tiny wine fridge to store these "aging beers" for a while around 50F, but if I run out of space I guess I'll just have to drink them to make room!

Thanks for the feedback!
 
To comment on this one (because I am new) I have to say
28 days IS my typical grain to bottle time. 2 weeks to ferment, and 2 weeks to age.

sometimes I cant wait that long and have to refrigerate my beers so they don't foam-explode when I open them, but yea, that is pretty much the time tables I use for my beer.

If I juice my beer with sugar to bring its alcohol levels up, yes, ageing a extra week or two is a good idea, but on most grain bills 28 days is the time I should wait till drinking time.
 
I am really looking to ramp up my brewing in the near future and I was thinking that a reasonable turnover time for mild brews (1.035-1.060) would be 21 days. This would give me 7 days in primary, 2 day diacetyl rest, 3 day cold condition and 9 days to carb in a keg. The carbing is what I'm hesitant on but I feel like if I get my process down then all should go well. Something like 30 psi, shake for 2 minutes, leave overnight at 30 then turn down to serving pressure for the remaining 8 days. What do you all think?
 
flanneltrees804 said:
I am really looking to ramp up my brewing in the near future and I was thinking that a reasonable turnover time for mild brews (1.035-1.060) would be 21 days. This would give me 7 days in primary, 2 day diacetyl rest, 3 day cold condition and 9 days to carb in a keg. The carbing is what I'm hesitant on but I feel like if I get my process down then all should go well. Something like 30 psi, shake for 2 minutes, leave overnight at 30 then turn down to serving pressure for the remaining 8 days. What do you all think?

I do the set and forget method at 12 psi and it's ready in 9 days. It won't hurt to force carb it for a bit but I've found that it's pretty much carbed up in a week with just setting it to serving pressure.
 
I am really looking to ramp up my brewing in the near future and I was thinking that a reasonable turnover time for mild brews (1.035-1.060) would be 21 days. This would give me 7 days in primary, 2 day diacetyl rest, 3 day cold condition and 9 days to carb in a keg. The carbing is what I'm hesitant on but I feel like if I get my process down then all should go well. Something like 30 psi, shake for 2 minutes, leave overnight at 30 then turn down to serving pressure for the remaining 8 days. What do you all think?

I do the set and forget method for everything.
Primary: 10 days
Secondary: 14 days
Keg: 5 days

Ten days in the primary is (almost) always enough for the beers I normally brew. I do check the airlock activity every couple days just to make sure everything's going normally.

I use a secondary for two reasons: I dry-hop some of my beers; and because of my limited equipment - two 6.5 gal and two 5 gal carboys. I need to free up the 6.5's for the next 10 gallon batch.

Fourteen days in the secondary is about right for dry-hopping. To keep things simple, I stick with fourteen days whether dry-hopping or not.

When I keg, I pump it up to 30 psig to seal the lid, shake for a minute or two, burp it, then turn down to serving pressure (10-12 psig). It's usually ready to drink in 5 days.

I'm lazy and forgetful!

Taking daily gravity readings is for the birds. I forget to count the airlock bubbles every day. I forget when I brewed or transferred or kegged it.

So I use blue painter's tape (almost always on sale at HomeCheapo or Lowes) and a Sharpie to make two date schedules - one goes on the carboy. I cover the carboy with a green trashbag since my wife forgets to turn off the light in the pantry. So the second schedule gets stuck on top of the airlock, since I'd be too lazy to lift the bag to see the first one. After kegging, the airlock schedule gets stuck on the refrigerator door. So the "schedule" is always right there in front of me.

Now if only I could remember what day today is!

I tried the overnight 30 psig once, but I forgot about it the next day, and ended up with a fizzy mess. Never did that again.

This "schedule" method works well for someone of my limited braincells. Another benefit is that doing it the same way each time eliminates some of the variables - so I can concentrate on improving other parts of my brewing process.

Dave
 
Nice post, some good ideas and advice. I only wish I had your sense of organization. It seems I seldom use the same procedure twice. It's a good thing that brewing can be so forgiving in a lot of ways. Despite my worst efforts I almost routinely get good tasting — not prize worthy I'm sure — but beers my wife and i enjoy more than anything that we get from the supermarket.
 
There's way too much here to read in my current state ;-) but I want to add something about big beers in case no one's said it yet. I routinely get fast turnarounds on my big beers, too! The key (including all the steps in the original post sans "keep it small") is to pitch onto a big cake of a yeast that flocks well (and agitate!). I've gone from brew day to bottle or keg with many barleywines and iipas in three weeks by racking them on cakes of Fuller's yeast from ESBs with delicious results. Caveat - this might not be a good idea if you get lots of trub in your beers.
 
How well does low ABV homebrew age? With something like a low ABV spiced beer that's going to take a while to infuse is this going to be a problem?
 
How well does low ABV homebrew age? With something like a low ABV spiced beer that's going to take a while to infuse is this going to be a problem?

Hard to predict with a low ABV spiced beer without knowing what one it is. In general low ABV styles don't age well since there isn't much in them that improves with age.

Spice infusion depends on how you treated the spice in the first place...did it go in whole or ground? Does it dissolve in water or alcohol? I could imagine a situation where a spice becomes overwhelming because the beer backbone degrades with time throwing the balance out of whack.
 
All dried, solid spices I ground by hand. Cinnamon sticks, black/red/white peppercorn, star anise, anise seed, candied ginger, and some cilantro that was in with the peppercorn. It's gonna be interesting. They're at reasonable levels. Some wormwood in there from the boil - if it turns into a Jager beer I wouldn't complain. And if it's too strong I'll just mix it.

I did a month in primary in a better bottle, then added honey and spices a week ago.The honey kicked off some CO2 I'm hoping blankets the headspace. Shoulda let them sit in vodka or brewed a spice tea and added it - my first go at adding dried goods. They came right out of the new containers so no contamination other than what was already there and the ginger was technically boiled.

My apartment is 60F where the fermenter is now and 55F or less in the basement. I'm planning on bottling when it starts to warm up outside and then use the spring temps to bottle condition.
 
I just wanted to offer my experience. I typically wait 3 weeks to bottle my beer, but recently I tried bottling some batches at 14-17 days (I don't use a secondary and I usually crash cool in the 30s-40s for a couple days). While the beer tasted perfectly fine, each batch came out over carbed. I assume there was still a fair amount of CO2 in suspension that threw off my priming estimates. I'd probably package sooner if I kegged where I could better control carbonation levels, but waiting 3-4 weeks before bottling seems to give me more predictable results. Has anyone else experienced this?
 
"If you see a beer, do it a favor, and drink it. Beer was not meant to age." -- Michael Jackson

Fact: Budweiser goes from grain to bottle in 28 days.

Source: Modern Marvels, History Channel; USA Today

Whoa....Budweiser uses grain?
Haha Great post. I think i am going to try going from primary to keg. I just started doing 5G Cornys. I'll be sure to be a proud poster of my first pour.
 
I just wanted to offer my experience. I typically wait 3 weeks to bottle my beer, but recently I tried bottling some batches at 14-17 days (I don't use a secondary and I usually crash cool in the 30s-40s for a couple days). While the beer tasted perfectly fine, each batch came out over carbed. I assume there was still a fair amount of CO2 in suspension that threw off my priming estimates. I'd probably package sooner if I kegged where I could better control carbonation levels, but waiting 3-4 weeks before bottling seems to give me more predictable results. Has anyone else experienced this?

By day 14, the beer should have been done fermenting and no new co2 would occur between then and day 28 anyway. So the overcarbed beer must be due to overpriming.

I'm not sure what a "carbing estimate" is, but for most beers (including German lagers), I use .75 ounce- 1 ounce of corn sugar per finished gallon of beer.
 
I'm certain no extra CO2 is being created after day 14. Most of my beers are pretty much done in 7-10 days. I just think the extra week in primary allows more of the CO2 that's left over from fermentation to come out of solution.

Sorry, by "priming estimate" I was basically referring to the calculator in BeerSmith that tells me how much sugar to use to reach 2.6 vols, or whatever my target is. 4 oz of corn sugar in my beers bottled in 14 days consistently has more carbonation than the same beers when bottled in 21 days, at least that's been my experience.
 
Rogue Dead Guy is grain to glass in 8 days. Now that I'm really dialed in on my yeast and have my pure O2 system going well, I'm at 14 days grain the glass on just about everything. Styles that aren't dry hopped are in the keg on day 10.
 
wow 8 days for rogue dead guy? not disputing it, and they've got a way different setup, but what's their process??
 
wow 8 days for rogue dead guy? not disputing it, and they've got a way different setup, but what's their process??

Heard from an ex-brewer who used to brew it. Not sure what in their process lets them go that fast. Just mentioned they know what they're doing with that beer in particular. He did say it only takes them a few hours to carb, which helps.
 
As I am trying to "catch up" and get the pipeline full after restarting my brewing addiction, I have been "cutting corners" from my old process. I no longer have my 15 corny kegs in the garage to keg and keg-as-secondary (although I have the space, my renters stole all that stuff while I was in Iraq). I have been going from 7-day primary to a few 22-oz bottles and the rest in the tap-a-draft bottles.

One 6L goes straight to the fridge and force carb'ed. The other two naturally carb. Two days latter I tap the the forced bottle. 14 days latter I tap the first naturally carb'ed bottle. I taste only minor differences in in the hop profile.

Granted, I have been doing mostly milds and bitters (1.035-1.042 OG) for the summer so that I have good session beers and all have been extract with specialty grain. I am a firm believer in big starters so the next beer gets pitched on the last beer's yeast cake half the time and from 1/2 gal starter (stepped once or twice depending on timing) the rest of the time. I use Whitbread, London II and US-05 for about everything ale.

This weekend I do my first all-grain in almost 6 years...with 2/3'rds of my gravity 3-tier I built when I was 21 (almost 20 years ago). The only change is the switch to an electric HLT and no more welded up step stand...just three nesting platforms that when put together store the brewery in a 4 sq ft space in the garage full of woodworking equipment and race car.

Back on topic, since I "perfected" my all-grain method at about my 9th brew I have only had one beer that significantly benefited from long lagering of any sort and that was a double-bock. Kegged at 2 weeks in the primary then stuck in the winter crawlspace. Drunk and out of beer my neighbor and I sampled it at 3-weeks in the keg and decided to walk to the liquor store for more beer verses finishing the glasses we had. Forgot about it until March (now 8 months in the keg) and tapped it to decide if I should dump it to free up the keg. Best beer I ever made! Gave you massive sulfur farts but everything has a trade-off.
 
Over the years I have gathered the short turn around of commercial beers is mysteriously aided by a few factors . I have heard;

1) pressurized fermentation - it's harder on the yeast and makes autolysis a real concern, but allegedly pressurized fermentation helps either minimize the production of off-products or, more likely, the speed at which they settle or are re-absorbed

2) filtration - after the yeast are done in the secondary the aging and flavor of a beer are almost exclusively acted upon by settling of off flavor causing compounds. Time will help because they will settle out eventually. In the absence of time if you filter a beer cold you remove a great deal of the fermentation compounds and therefore don't need to age.

3) cold storage/filtration - in terms of haze, the colder you get the beer, the more the micro sized particles (and flavor compounds associated with them) flock together. The bigger the flock the quicker they settle. It's my belief that this is one of the main reasons people who keg believe kegging is so far and above better than bottling (unbeknownst to most of them). Bottlers tend to keep the beer at room temp so the yeast can stay active and carbonate - (higher temp=longer time till "aged"). If you keg, most likely you keep your beer colder longer to help the co2 stay in solution or because you are using the co2 on your draft system ( in the cold Keezer) to pressurize your kegs.

As I see it... These 3 things are the great truths about shortening how long it takes to get a beer to its greatest potential.

EDIT: these would be the UNTOLD TRUTHS. That is to say, fermentation temps and cellaring procedures as well as proper pitch rate and Oxigenation are all the primary factors, but everybody knows about that and I think there are very few people in our hobby who don't understand this to at least some degree.
 
Brewskii said:
Over the years I have gathered the short turn around of commercial beers is mysteriously aided by a few factors . I have heard; 1) pressurized fermentation - it's harder on the yeast and makes autolysis a real concern, but allegedly pressurized fermentation helps either minimize the production of off-products or, more likely, the speed at which they settle or are re-absorbed 2) filtration - after the yeast are done in the secondary the aging and flavor of a beer are almost exclusively acted upon by settling of off flavor causing compounds. Time will help because they will settle out eventually. In the absence of time if you filter a beer cold you remove a great deal of the fermentation compounds and therefore don't need to age. 3) cold storage/filtration - in terms of haze, the colder you get the beer, the more the micro sized particles (and flavor compounds associated with them) flock together. The bigger the flock the quicker they settle. It's my belief that this is one of the main reasons people who keg believe kegging is so far and above better than bottling (unbeknownst to most of them). Bottlers tend to keep the beer at room temp so the yeast can stay active and carbonate - (higher temp=longer time till "aged"). If you keg, most likely you keep your beer colder longer to help the co2 stay in solution or because you are using the co2 on your draft system ( in the cold Keezer) to pressurize your kegs. As I see it... These 3 things are the great truths about shortening how long it takes to get a beer to its greatest potential. EDIT: these would be the UNTOLD TRUTHS. That is to say, fermentation temps and cellaring procedures as well as proper pitch rate and Oxigenation are all the primary factors, but everybody knows about that and I think there are very few people in our hobby who don't understand this to at least some degree.

And by process of artificial selection they have yeast that are tuned for a specific temp, gravity and other fermenter conditions. They also have the benefit of distribution time to retail.
 
Yuri, I'm thinking he meant a keg that was shaken to expedite carbonation, not one that had priming sugar (dextrose) added to it. I could be wrong.


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I found this topic very interesting. I just brewed (for the 2nd time), a pale ale (Deschutes Mirror Pond Clone). I brewed it on Friday, it appears to have hit terminal gravity (Monday, I'll check tomorrow). Lots of free English Ale yeast pitched (thanks to Ninkasi Brewing). I will keg it on Friday (dry hop in the keg) and have it ready the following Friday or Saturday for family coming to town. This beer cost me about 25 cents a pint due to being all homegrown Cascade hops, free yeast and grain purchased in built. It was so delicious last spring that I would literally shake my head and just smile that I brewed this beer. Many people at a retirement party I held at our home said the same thing. So, yes, I agree…you can brew a good/great beer and have it very drinkable quickly. I used to bottle and other than low gravity or wheat beers, I found they weren't great until the magical 6-week after bottling mark.


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So what is the effectiveness of well taken care of liquid wyeAst. Is there a way to enhance the start up of the liquid after popping the bag inside?
 
I guess it depends on how old, and how well-taken care of it is.

No better way I can think of than to make up a good starter. You can add some yeast nutrient to the starter as well.


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The recommendation of waiting 2 to 3 weeks for bottles to condition doesn't seem like a hard and fast rule either. I am on my second batch (yes, I know that I am a newbie), but both of my batches have carbonated and tasted delicious after a week in the bottle. This was even after cold crashing the second one.
 
When I started out I couldn't wait either. force carbonated the keg and started drinking right away. I know now to just set the psi to about 12 - 15 and leave it alone for a couple of weeks. The beer will certainly taste better.
 
When I started out I couldn't wait either. force carbonated the keg and started drinking right away. I know now to just set the psi to about 12 - 15 and leave it alone for a couple of weeks. The beer will certainly taste better.

I had to learn that over time as well. The key is to built the pipeline so you're drinking while you're waiting.


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I've been having problems lately with acetaldehyde in my finished beers. Aging doesn't seem to change anything so I've attributed this to under pitching and then removing from the fermentor too early.

The thing that gets me with Yuri's original post is that he says he doesn't Aerate but rather pitches 15g of dry yeast. It makes sense to me because I think my off flavours are coming from underpitching and under aerating causing my yeasties to stress out.
If I just pitch enough yeast then who cares if I have good yeast growth right? Am I missing something here?
 
I've been having problems lately with acetaldehyde in my finished beers. Aging doesn't seem to change anything so I've attributed this to under pitching and then removing from the fermentor too early.

The thing that gets me with Yuri's original post is that he says he doesn't Aerate but rather pitches 15g of dry yeast. It makes sense to me because I think my off flavours are coming from underpitching and under aerating causing my yeasties to stress out.
If I just pitch enough yeast then who cares if I have good yeast growth right? Am I missing something here?

Aerating or oxygenating is used because the yeast need to produce sterols which become part of their cell walls. These sterols create a special channel in the cell wall that helps the yeast survive as the alcohol level in the wort increase.

Aerating and oxygenation really don't have a lot to do with yeast growth directly but do effect the yeast populations health as fermentation progresses. This is why even breweries that pitch directly from their harvested yeast still use air or O2.
 
Aerating or oxygenating is used because the yeast need to produce sterols which become part of their cell walls. These sterols create a special channel in the cell wall that helps the yeast survive as the alcohol level in the wort increase.

Aerating and oxygenation really don't have a lot to do with yeast growth directly but do effect the yeast populations health as fermentation progresses. This is why even breweries that pitch directly from their harvested yeast still use air or O2.

Hey helibrewer, do you have a source for this? I'm not doubting you, I'd just like to read the article or book you pulled it from.
 
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