the law of diminishing returns

Ok i get it. wait as long as you can in almost every stage and you will be rewarded. BUT there has to be a point where waiting will only give you the slightest benefit and is best left for a more advanced brewer trying to refine technique. i aint talkin the 1-2-3 method but more like 2-2-4 or somethin like that. would the same beer (all other thing equal) really taste better at 3-3-4 or 3-4-8.......you get my point ? i mean if all we do is wait then we never drink. when should you just get on with it and make more batches ?

I would surmise it would all depend on the style of beer. If you were talking about a Belgian Witbier, then the 1-2-3 method may not even be best. Something like a 2-0-3 would be fine.

However if you were talking about a Russian Imperial Stout, something along the lines of a 2-8-52 would be more ideal. How much each additional week adds to the benefit would not be known unless you were dedicated enough to taste one every week and make detailed tasting notes. But i assure you a RIS or barleywine would be best aged several months to years.

If you keep the pipeline going, you'll never be forced into drinking young beer.

Bobby_M said:

If you keep the pipeline going, you'll never be forced into drinking young beer.

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+1 to this!!!

The only "diminishing returns" come from wasting your beeer while drinking it while it is still green, and not giving them some time to come into fruition...the only law of diminishing returns has been in discovering that the last bottle in the batch ia ALWAYS the best...and if we had delayed gratifcation, then they all would have tasted that way.

Suck it up Yeasty, IT WILL BE WORTH THE WAIT!!! ....You're not making coolaid...you're making something fantastic...You're own excellant and fresh beer. It's very common for new brewers to voice arguments like you are, but it doesn't take too many batches, or finding a couple of 8 week old bottles you forgot about, before you too will become a convert and realize that patience is a virtue in brewing...and waiting improves most beers.

You want more, then brew...and you will have things at various levels of readiness...

Hefes and milds can be made and drank young..the rest of them benefit from our waiting...even Lagers take a couple months..

You will get to a point where it won't bother you and you will be brewing beers THAT NEED time to reach their peak.

I leave 99% of my beers in primary for a month...then I bottle...and right now I can't get 70 degrees in my loft to save my life...so I don't expect ANY of my beers to be carbed on time....so in the interim, I buy mix sixers of various beers to try as research for the next beers I plan on brewing and to build up my bottle stock.


For Example, I brewed my Pumpkin Ale for Thanksgiving on Labor Day...figuring at 8 weeks, I MIGHT have some ready for Holloween...But they were still green, so I only brought a couple to my annuual Halloween thingy, along with a sampler of commercial pumpkins...BUT come Turkey Day the beer was fantastic, and was a hit at the holiday.

Right now this is my current inventory...

Drinking....IPA, various bottles of Oaked Smoked Brown Ale, Smoked brown ale, Poor Richard's Ale, Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde (but as a Lager,)
Avoiding....Marris Otter/Argentinian Cascade SMaSH (It sucks)
Bottle Conditioning..... Chocolate Mole Porter, Belgian Dark Strong Ale, Peach Mead
In Primary.....Schwartzbier, Vienna Lager
Bulk Aging....Mead
Lagering....Dead Guy Clone Lager (Which I am going to be bottling this weekend...
I also have year old apfelwein, that is smooth as pornstars genitals, and much more tasty (and potent.)

Pretty much anything still in Primary or Lagering I will not be drinking til the end of March, but more than likely April....The Mole Porter needs a minimum several more weeks as well....but the Belgian Strong is prolly going to need 3-6 months to be ready...

The Swartzbier has 3 weeks more in primary, then another month lagering, THEN 3 weeks at least in the bottles...

Some weeks I take a break from my own beers to drink a couple sixers of samplers, so I don't drink ALL my current and other ready beers before the others comes online....Plus I'm craving a couple of styles that I don't have ready (like Vienna Lager) so I will make a bottle run....I also get to try new styles to come up with new ones to brew down the line.

And I'm also probably going to brew something this weekend...don't know what yet...maybe a low abv mild that I would only leave in primary till fermentation is stopped then bottled..so hopefully in a month they will drinkable.....

But do you see...you too one day will have a pipleine....and the wait will be nothing...you will have things at various stages...

This quote from one of my friends sums it up....

dontman said:

The nice thing is to get to a point in your pipeline where you are glancing through your BeerSmith brew log and realize that you have a beer that you have not even tried yet and it has been in bottle over 6 weeks. This happened to me this weekend. The beer was farging delicious.

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Patience is a virtue, Padwan.



You wanna See a convert to the waiting thing? Look for threads by Joemama, he was a beerpedophile in his first batch...practically drank it out of the bottling bucket...then he got ahead of the game and actually got to taste some of his beers when they matured...now he is the first one to jump into threads about letting your beers mature a bit...

^^^^^^^^^^
+Many to this...

I hated the wait! But I always recognized that the last 6 beers or so were drastically better than the first 6 or so.

The biggest thing that made a difference for me was to sit down with a calendar and plan out like 6 months worth of brewing. I now brew a minmum of once a month and then bottle those 3 weeks after. They sit in the bottles for almost 6-weeks now. The point is that I'm brewing at a faster rate than I drink it so I almost have no hope of being a beer-pedophile with new batches. I'm in no hurry whatsoever and the new batches keep my mind off of what I just bottled.

I also pull out about a 6-pack and hide it somewhere so I won't even think about it. I plan to re-discover a case of samplers no sooner than the 6-month point. Maybe I'll take a case to the beach this summer...

-Tripod

yeasty said:

when should you just get on with it and make more batches ?

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right away - unless you've already got all your fermenters filled - brew.

maybe double up on a batch the next time or two till you get ahead

i see what the OP is trying to get at: he wants to know what is the point-in-time where waiting doesn't seem to improve your beer. i can't answer this, as i am a noob, but the vet's advice is very true also. if you have plenty of beer in your pipeline, you won't have to calculate the asymptote for diminishing return to discover the best tasting beer at that time.

every style (i believe) would require a different ferment/bottle time. so just run over to the LHBS, pick up 3 kits you'd be interested to try, ferment them a minimum of 2.5 weeks, and try 1 bottle every week from each batch and find the best time.

on a side note, i'm now intrigued to keep a file of times in bucket/bottle and running some statistics on taste

Revvy said:

+1 to this!!!


But do you see...you too one day will have a pipleine....and the wait will be nothing...you will have things at various stages...

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exactly what i am getting at. trying to negotiate the pipeline and be efficient as possible is the goal. i dont want my english pale ale sitting in the secondary for 4 weeks if it doesnt need to be. on the other hand i was foolish and put a stout in my only primary and i suppose i will buying a new one before its ready to move.....gotta keep the flow going. (i am on my sixth batch since jan 1st) this goes back to the crappy directions with the kits. if they are going to all the trouble of typing "stout" or "porter" at the top of the page then why not include a few notes on the style and expected times/characteristics of the brew ??? that way i wouldnt come here and ask all these silly questions.

Revvy said:

You're not making coolaid...you're making something fantastic...You're own excellant and fresh beer.

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Thank you for a new .signature line.

Revvy said:

You want more, then brew...and you will have things at various levels of readiness...

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Agreed... and plastic food grade buckets are relatively cheap. The best advice I got from the HBT crew to-date was to brew often and start building up that pipeline. I've already had to start checking BeerSmith to figure out when I'm supposed to bottle or when some bottles should be ready. It wasn't more than 6 weeks ago that I could have told you all those dates off the top of my head.

Right now I've got a wit in one bucket and a tripple in another. The best of both worlds - one will be ready to drink in 3 weeks, the other in 3 months. On the 8th I'll be brewing Coastarine's Winter Brown Ale and EdWort's Haus Pale Ale ... again, one will be ready quick, the other will require some time in the bottle. I get to wait patiently for some beers while having instant gratification on the others. I live a truly charmed beer life...