How long should i bottle condition

I am doing a brown ale, that has been in bottles for a full week at 70degrees in my closet. My question is how long do I need to bottle condition before I can chill and crack these babies open? I did a two week primary ad one week secondary.

Maybe another week, then a couple days in the fridge and you should be good to go.

i always did 2 weeks then tested one. never failed

Try one at one week. You will have adequate carbonation to enjoy your brew. Two weeks from now it will be better. 70° is a very good temperature to bottle condition. Higher gravity brews may take longer.

I do 3 weeks usually at 70-72F...then 1 week in fridge......

Thanks guys I appreciate all the advise. I do want more carb and a little thicker head so it sounds like I'm at least another week or two out.

At least 2/1 for me but have been know to steal before and seen the differences.

I tried my first brew at weeks 1,2, and 3. By far the week 3 beer is much better, and will continue to get better over time. I put the beer in the fridge for 24 hours and it was great. I would say the minimum time for beer is 3 weeks in the bottle at 70 degrees. Higher gravity beers will take longer unless they are in a warmer climate.

BTW....not a bad idea to put a beer in frdige at 1, 2, 3 weeks and see how the tate and carbonation improves over the additional time...

You think bottle conditioning at 64 will be ok guys? If not, how would you best warm up a small cupboard? Cheers!

I found even after I have left them in the bottle for two weeks, the flavors and head retention did not develop as thoroughly as when I had also cold conditioned them for another couple weeks.

You can open them after just two weeks, but you won't get as good a flavor as had you waited longer. Patience is a brewer's best friend.

nickybhoy said:

You think bottle conditioning at 64 will be ok guys? If not, how would you best warm up a small cupboard? Cheers!

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My wife did not mind boxes of bottled beer in the dining room for extra warmth. If you must leave them in the cool cupboard; An electric blanket around them. Pay attention to the safety instructions! A light bulb or heat lamp with the bottles protected. Any flammable surface would need to be protected also. A smoke detector in the cupboard will be a necessity if something like this is done. No heat if the house is unattended.

With me every batch has varied, my 1st batch after three weeks was still not very carbonated, my third batch was awsome at only 1 week and got better with time, 4th is very carbonated at 1 week, but has a taste of myrrh that isnt pleasing to me, Im going to give that one another week or two to see if the flavor improves, that was a coopers IPA that I picked up for 10.00. Just did no.5 and cant wait to see if its as succesfull as batch no 3. keeping the fingers crossed.

You bottle condition until the beer is finished carbonating and it tastes to your satisfaction. The three weeks at 70 degrees that we talk about here, is about the average minimum for most 12 ounces average gravity beers. Some beers take longer, some less. It's an organic process, and takes just as long as it needs to, but if you look at all the "it's been 1 week or 2 weeks and my beer's not carbed yet" threads, you'll see that most of the time when someone says "it gets better after 3 weeks" it means they wasted all the beers they drank before that.

nickybhoy said:

You think bottle conditioning at 64 will be ok guys? If not, how would you best warm up a small cupboard? Cheers!

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In my house I fould that the higher the warmer the air, I am speaking of the primary ferm, I found that the floor is 65-68 degrees and the top shelf in the closet is 70-72 degrees, my airlock had no activity when I had the bucket on the ground, but when I elevated it, it went crazy, this was for a hard cider and an ale that just finished.

I'll leave them in the cupboard for 3 weeks and then chill for a week in the fridge. Hopefully they carb up but if they don't then I'll need to look at getting a heat source in there for the next batch. Cheers troops

Forgot to mention union, its a lager. You still think 56 is too cold to carb?

I guess I'm lucky that my furnace room keeps an exact temp all the time of 70 degrees.

From what I've heard from people here is 3 weeks is needed for bottle conditioning.

I tried my first brew (an English pale ale), after only one week of being bottled and it was completely flat but it did have a little spritz of air from being uncapped.

I'll try another at the 2 week mark and again at 3 just so I can see how it's coming along.

Take what I say here with a grain of salt, as I've only done 5 batches so far.

But, three weeks minimum for bottle conditioning. If you really want to try them at 1, 2 & then 3 weeks you can, but you're going to A.) waste your beer and B.) Give your self unnecessary worry.

My suggestion is to brew another batch, get your fermentation temperatures and aeration processes down, and then start researching mash-tuns!

I have beer sitting in boxes in my basement that I bottled prior to New Year's and I'm REALLY trying not to drink it because it's so damned good now!

Aboo said:

If you really want to try them at 1, 2 & then 3 weeks you can, but you're going to A.) waste your beer and B.) Give your self unnecessary worry.

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I've heard many people here say this and I don't think it's true for new brewers. It helps you really appreciate how a beer matures and develops. For me, people talking or writing about how that happens is much different than tasting the evidence. Plus it helps build your confidence and helps you calm down during the subsequent brews.
I primary for three weeks and bottle condition for three (Generally speaking, high grav/more complex brews longer). I'm always trying to tweek/perfect my own process and methods. YMMV. Cheers, Pete

We all have different approaches and opinions on the matter, And I agree with Aboo, I think it's a waste of beer. To me "Understanding how carbonation develops" is really un important, it's gonna be flat, it's gonna be slightly carbed, or it's going to be carbed. There's nothing to learn about. Who really cares about the other stages, it's only when it's finished does it matter.

It's the same with green beer. What's the point of wanting to know how it develops or changes. How's it going to help us make better beer? It's AFTER the beer has passed the window of greeness where we find out if our recipe/brewing/fermentation process is sound or not. Green beer is an evolution, in the process to maturation. It doesn't tell us anything. Only after a beer is drinkable do we find out if we did a good job. And THOSE off flavors are what we learn from. Not what the beer taste like on the journey.

I just never had gleaned anything substantive from that. Despite the rationalization that many new brewer say is for 'educational purposes' I find there's very little point to tasting a beer at 1 week, and again at 2....that to me just means there 2 less beers that are actually tasting good and are ready at the end. I don't buy budweiser because I don't like to taste "bad" beer. So why would I drink my own beer when it was "bad" especially since I know it's going to be delicious a few weeks later.

It's a great rationalization, and I hear it every time I make my assertion. But the thing to remember is that since every beer is different that 5 day old Ipa you may have decided to crack open is not going to taste anything like that 5 day old brown ale you opened early in your next batch. They're two different animals. There are so many tiny variations in things like ambient temp at fermentation and carbonation, pitch count phases of the moon, that even if you brewed your same batch again and cracked a bottle at the exact same early time on the previous batch, the beer, if you could remember how it tasted, more than likely wouldn't taste the same at that phase....Heck even in the same batch if you had grabbed a different bottle it may seem carbed or tasting differently at that point.

A tiny difference in temps between bottles in storage can affect the yeasties, speed them up or slow them down. Like if you store them in a closet against a warm wall, the beers closest to the heat source may be a tad warmer than those further way, so thy may carb/condition at slightly different rates. I usually store a batch in 2 seperate locations in my loft 1 case in my bedroom which is a little warmer, and the other in the closet in the lving room, which being in a larger space is a tad cooler, at least according to the thermostat next to that closet. It can be 5-10 degrees warmer in my bedroom. So I usually start with that case at three weeks. Giving the other half a little more time. Each one is it's own little microcosm, and although generally the should come up at the same time, it's not an automatic switch, and they all pop on. They are all going to come to tempo when their time is right...not a minute before, and then at some point they all will be done.

So you're not, to me learning anything special from it. But It's your beer, but there's not gonna be anything right or wrong at that point, except that you're out a beer that 2-3 weeks later you're gonna post something like"Sigh, they always say that last beer of the batch is the best, now if only I hadn't "sampled for educational purposes" all those weeks back I could be having another on of these delicious beers."

But it's your beer. There's not one right way to do things, or one right philosophy brewing, it's whatever works for you. *shrug*

Just new brewers, if you do open one at 2 weeks, and it's not carbed or tastes funny, don't start a thread to ask for re-assurance that your beer will "be okay." Because that's why we point out that it takes usually a minimum of three weeks for most beers to do their thing. And just because, you don't heed that, it doesn't mean your situation is any different than the thousands of brewers who start those thread. We don't tell new brewers to wait just to yank their chains and tell them to wait because we're being mean...it's because we know how long it tends to take, and we want you to enjoy your beer.....every last bottle of it.

Legend revvy, good post!

While I trust in the gospel according to Revvy, I plan on putting one bottle of my first batch in the fridge after one week, and one bottle in the fridge after two weeks. I doubt I'll learn anything helpful by doing this but I have read so many concerns about how bad their beer is after I week that I am genuinely curious to see the difference between a beer that has conditioned for 1, 2, 3 and 4 weeks.