Bottle Conditioning ?

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bmbox12

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I know longer is better, which like everyone else I lack patience. I am wondering, as a general rule, is it better to leave ale's condition at basement temperature (aprox. 68 degrees) or can I throw them in the refrigerator. How does that affect carbonation?
Thanks
 
I concur with quickerNu, they won't carb in the fridge. Just leave them at room temp. if you can for at least 21 days, test the carb level on one and if it's carbed to your liking then you can stick em in the fridge. I try to wait a month on mine.
 
I don't bottle much anymore but when I do I prefer to bulk age my beer for 6-8 weeks in the carboy until it's crystal clear, and add fresh yeast at bottling time. The advantages are that you have plenty of viable yeast so it carbs quickly, and you can choose a flocculent strain like S-04 or WLP002 for bottling since it won't impact the flavor of the beer which is already fermented out. If you wanted to carb in the fridge you could use my method and choose a lager strain... many commercial breweries bottle with a lager strain and age at ~50*F (especially German breweries).
 
Thanks for the quick responses guys. I appreciate it. Better go pull out the 2 sixers I put in the fridge.
 
It should also be noted, in addition to all the good info given here, that the time can vary from one beer to the next. As a very general rule, I keep my just-bottled beer upstairs where it's generally over 70F for two weeks before moving it to the basement, where it's normally in the low '60s, and can drop into the high '50s in Winter. But how long it's going to be down there before it's really conditioned varies. I can almost guarantee you that a hefeweizen will be ready to drink within a week or two after being put down there. I have an Imperial Stout down there that didn't get really nice until a year after brewday.

As "Revvy" already said, patience is definitely a virtue of the homebrewer. The best aid to patience is to have a pipeline that's always having beer put in one end as it's being drunk at the other. The more beer in the middle, the more time to condition. The pipeline is your friend.
 
rico567 said:
As "Revvy" already said, patience is definitely a virtue of the homebrewer. The best aid to patience is to have a pipeline that's always having beer put in one end as it's being drunk at the other. The more beer in the middle, the more time to condition. The pipeline is your friend.
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Yep. Only two things that are meant to be drunk young, IMO, are Wits and Pliny clone. :D
 
Thanks again for the input that will help. I am trying to work on the patience thing however that is tuff, I am on about my ninth batch. I can't quite seem to get the pipeline full either. I have to agree with some of the other posts on green beer, sometimes that green beer tastes pretty damn good. Even if it's not at its best it is still as good as some of the microbrews that I've bought, and there's the added benefit of it being something that I made.
 
bmbox12 said:
Thanks again for the input that will help. I am trying to work on the patience thing however that is tuff, I am on about my ninth batch. I can't quite seem to get the pipeline full either. I have to agree with some of the other posts on green beer, sometimes that green beer tastes pretty damn good. Even if it's not at its best it is still as good as some of the microbrews that I've bought, and there's the added benefit of it being something that I made.
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Well you're only shorting yourself. Personally I just wait out the time, and don't crack any of my beers until 3 weeks....

In the meantime, if I don't have anything else drinkabe I try different micros....I try new styles to consider brewing, or different versions of the same style to see how different breweries and brewers do things....

One of the coolest things I found is that one of the beerstores near me has a cooler for mixed sixers for 9.99. ANd you never know what will be in there...I have found some really rare or expensive beers in there (the owner told me that if the cardboard sixpack is damaged or a bottle gets dropped he just puts the rest of them in the mixed cooler.) He's even had a couple bottles of Dragonmead Final ABsolution in there, and that normally sells for 15 bucks a 4 pack....

That is really how I discovered Belgian Wits. THere were a couple hoegaardens in the cooler one night, and I grabbed them along with several different IPA...

I look at buying beer as research for future brews, and to expand my beer horizons. And to stock up on bottles.

Even Trader Joe's allows for mixing 6 packs.

I know it's hard to wait, for your beer...but since you invested time and money in making it....wouldn't you want to drink it when it was at it's best?????
 
You're not the first one who's faced this issue...nor are you the 100,000th brewer on here who does. :D

captianoats said:
How did you manage to keep a delicious chilled beer for 3 months? I'm lucky to keep a six pack cold for 3 weeks without downing them all.
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Revvy said:
It's called having a pipeline, beers at different levels of readiness. With a pipleine and a full fridge with many choices it is easy to not have a taste for a certain beer for a while, or just not grab it from the back..this was something I wrote a few months ago, it sums up my pipeline at the time....


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

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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Click to expand...

You can do it, I know you can. :D
 
I agree. 3 weeks at 70 degrees was exactly what I was looking for. So now when I jump the gun and start drinking my green beer, I won't get too excited if it don't seem quite right. I'm working on the pipeline issue also along with my patience. I also do the 6 pack mixer thing at our local grocery store, they have an awesome beer variety. It also allows me to add bottles to my collection for reuse, and to try different varieties
 

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