Warm Aging for Ales?

My first batch was a red ale. It was made with mostly hopped LME. I think the LME was a little past it's prime.

Frankly, I don't like the taste. It is too strong for me. Like barley wine strong.

The batch is kegged in my kegerator. Will it age better if I sit the keg outside the kegerator? Maybe even bring it inside, to my office, where it can age at about 70*?

How long did you let it age?

I, like a lot of people on this forum do at least 3 weeks in primary and I shoot for 3 weeks in bottles at room temp.

Two weeks in the primary, two weeks in the seconday and it has been kegged for about a month.

Cpt_Kirks said:

Two weeks in the primary, two weeks in the seconday and it has been kegged for about a month.

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That sounds about right for a Red. The extract is basically the backbone of your brew, so if something's up with it, you'll notice. I don't know what the story is with the strong alcohol notes. What does your recipe look like?

LOL - WHAT is room temperature anyway.

BTW - I believe most beer taste's best with 2-3 months aging . . . but very few bottles make it that far.

Well it shouldnt be green since its 2 months old.

What do you mean by too strong like barley wine. Alcohol wise? What kind of taste is it? Yeasty? Alcohol? Green? Sour?

You have to back track your progress on the batch and think of what went wrong. Did you keep the fermenting temperature in the 60's? Higher temp can result in different kind of alcohol to be made which could potentially make you think it is stronger. Another "strong" taste from personal experience is leftover yeast. I bottle so I know that when you pour the whole bottle the beer has a kick to it. I leave the yeast in the bottle now, lose some of the beer but dont get any of the yeast. I dont think it can be a problem for you since you used a primary and I am assuming you did a good job transferring and leaving the trub behind.

Pelikan said:

That sounds about right for a Red. The extract is basically the backbone of your brew, so if something's up with it, you'll notice. I don't know what the story is with the strong alcohol notes. What does your recipe look like?

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It's not the strong alcohol so much as the strong flavor. Really intense, and not really pleasant.

This was a Midwest "20 minute" kit I got just to break in all my gear.

Recipe:

4 lb Edme Microbrewery Series Red Ale hopped can kit
2 lb of Light Dried Malt Extract
1 oz of aroma hops

Hmm. Based upon what you're saying, it's hard to diagnose. I think I know what you're referring to though -- kind of a sharp, wine-like taste? With that much extract, the overall alcohol content can't be more that five-ish percent, so it may be fusel alcohols from wacky fermentation temps, as someone above suggested. Here's some basic info about fusels:

Excessive concentrations of [fusels] may cause off flavors, sometimes described as "spicy," "hot," or "solvent-like."

Fusel alcohols are formed when fermentation occurs:

* at higher temperatures
* at lower pH
* when yeast activity is limited by low nitrogen content

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All the above considered, there's a chance the hopped extract could have gone south. It doesn't have a very long shelf life. There's also a chance that the flavors you're getting are the result of some form of contamination...but from what I've read contamination flavors are so strong that it's fairly obvious.