Someone on the forum recently suggested an off-flavor I'm tasting could be due to green beer even though the beer spends a month in the primary. The idea is that the small amount of fermenting during carbonation imparts a very detectable youth to the beer that needs time to be scrubbed out by the bottle yeast. This off-taste is not noticeable before bottling but very detectable afterward. I have a hard time believing the small amount of fermentation can make the beer so hard to drink (almost undrinkable in some cases). I haven't noticed any significant reduction in badness over a 1 month bottle condition, so I'm not sure what to think. It already takes me 6 weeks from brew day until fully carbonated and I really don't think I should ALWAYS have to wait longer. My thinking is that the off-flavor is something else like extract twang. Thoughts?
It depends....see most of the time a new brewer comes on complaining that their beer tastes crappy and the beer is under 3 weeks, then then they come back at 3 or 4 saying "OHMYGODTHATSTHEBESTBEERIHAVEEVERHAD!!!!. It's the same beer, so, if bottle condition doesn't exist, how can that be? Something must be happening, right?
Like Evil wrote....
EvilTOJ said:
Volatile chemicals break down into more benign ones, and longer protein chains settle out.
Yes, an active process, where a beer isn't tasting good intially, but is later on (like some folks have said, the best beer is always the last beer.) That's an active process that is a result of the yeast in the beer continuing to do their thing. That tiny bit of fermentation, but also the yeast going around and again cleaning up their messes...
Plus like spaghetti sauce the next day, flavors are mellowing out, balance and coming together over that period.
However sometimes a beer still tastes bad after 3 or 6 or a month or so...an no conditioning is going to fix it.. Those are usually the issues talked about on all those off flavor charts like chloramines and issues from too high a fermentation temp, or infection. Those more than likely will never get fixed...
the trouble is, a lot of those "off" flavors taste the same as green beer, the only difference is if it as from simply being green, it will go away.
So how do you know then??????
You wait to see if the Bottle conditioning you doubts exists happens or not....If it does, the beer was green.
If you are sampling your beer before you have passed a 'window of greeness" which my experience is about 3-6 weeks in the bottle, then you are more than likely just experiencing an "off flavor" due to the presence of those byproducts (that's what we mean when we say the beer is "green" it's still young and unconditioned.) but once the process is done, over 90% of the time the flavors/smells are gone.
You can doubt it all you want, but we have tons of folks on here who's beers got better with time...from 1 week to months in the bottle, including me.
So if bottle conditioning isn't real then how do you explain it???? It's a living process.
Yes, beers are going to taste great right away, especially if the conditions that went into making it were optimal, temp control, plenty of yeast, all those great things we recommend. If that's the case enjoy them, more power to you. But if they're not ready, and you give them time and they get better, than that's what we mean by bottle conditioning....
Just because you have a hard time beliving it, doesn't mean it's not true. I mean I have a hard time believing I'm about to have open heart surgery in 10 days.....but that doesn't mean that I don't have an f-ed up aortic valve that needs to be replaced.
We have enough stories in here to disprove your unbelief.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/
It's either than something is going on in the bottle or the beer fairies are blessing the beers and making them all better.
*shrug*