Too soon to pop one open..??

My beer has been in the bottles for about 1 1/2 weeks now and I was wondering if its too early to pop the top off one to see how the carbonation is and how the taste is coming along.. What do you all think..??

AB

Do it!

Heck no it's not too early. I pop open a 12 ouncer after 5 days or so everytime. I'd never had a flat one yet by the way. Not DONE mind you, but not DEAD either lol.

It's your brew!

It's both delicious and useful to open a beer every week or so to see how the carbonation is coming along. They definitely get better after 4+ weeks though.

You can do whatever you want, it's your beer. But don't complain or start a "my beer's not carbed" or "My beer taste like crap" thread if you are not happy with the how it is after only 1.5 weeks. There's a reason we stress that the 3 weeks at 70 degrees is the minimum tame it usually takes for normal grav beers to carb and condition. And that's because more often than not, those treads we get on a daily basis begin "it's been 1 week," or "It's been 2 weeks and..."

Some people consider it a learning experience....my experience has been that I don't even begin to open my first one til the 21st day, and I don't count on much yet. But then I'd rather have 2 cases of carbed and conditioned beer than sacrifice one of two, for some supposed "learning" experience which I never got much learning from flat green beer....but that's just me.

Heck - I pop one off each week - it's a learning process! After a while you get more comfortable with the process. Beer tastes good young - just different.

You see professional brewers pulling pints off the brite tanks all the time, this is because they are wanting to see how the flavor is developing. So I say go for it!

Dont drink too many of them though. I ended up blowing throught half a batch after I tried one at 2 weeks in the bottles. The other half I waited another two weeks before touching them. The month old beers were much better, so try one each week, but save most of them for at least a month.

Sounds like this is your first batch, so go with the learning experience. Have ONE now and take notes on the flavor. Pop another in a week. Repeat twice.

You now know why people say to wait and what green beer tastes like.

Grinder12000 said:

Heck - I pop one off each week - it's a learning process! After a while you get more comfortable with the process. Beer tastes good young - just different.

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um... not in my experience. The first batch I ever brewed tasted terrible until about two and a half weeks in the bottle. I thought it was ruined until I came to this site and read up on green beer.

I'd recommend you wait. The beer will taste much better and you won't risk having a "my beer is ruined" freakout.

Count me as one who's been corrected (by Revvy today) as to green beer freakouts. I wonder if the reason there are so many GBFO posts on here is that the main books don't cover this. I read How to Brew cover to cover and don't remember Palmer covering what to expect after bottling. In fact, he says:

"At last, you get to sample the fruit of your efforts. It's been about a month[since brew day], and you are ready to open your first bottle and see what kind of wonderful beer you have created. During the past two weeks, the yeast still swimming around in the beer have consumed the priming sugar, creating just enough carbon dioxide to carbonate your beer perfectly."

After reading Revvy's post and watching that video, it's obvious that what Palmer wrote is not very accurate, or at least not sufficiently contextualized to be useful. My first beer was actually really good at the two week mark. That gave me false expectations. This beer (my second) was completely different. I guess that's the difference between book knowledge and hands-on knowledge.

Thanks again for the info.

1st batch, go ahead and try it to see what it's like. After that, I'd wait at least 3 weeks (I never do, but I always wish I had).

wheatgerm said:

I read How to Brew cover to cover...

I guess that's the difference between book knowledge and hands-on knowledge.

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yep. depending which edition you read, a newer edition may correct that problem.

I've found it very helpful to look at two or three books about most common issues. It's helpful to see how even experienced brewers have different takes on the process AND how their approaches have changed over time. Best example is the changes in the editions of Palmer's book.