Torchiest said:
I happen to have a porter that's been in bottles for a week and a half at cool room temp, maybe around 68ºF. Can one of you guys explain just what temps cold-conditioning requires and how it compares to regular conditioning? I'm a little confused about this.
My personal defintion of cold conditioning is "serving temps or lower"... somewhere below the mid 50's.
Also, I did not mean to imply that it matters whether you cold condition or just condition longer at warmer temps. There might be a difference, but I don't know.
The fact that I cold conditioned mine is simply a byproduct of the fact that I keg my beers. Once they are in the keg, they go into the kegerator.
I might have enjoyed it just as much if I had conditioned longer at warmer temps, but I simply don't know.
Also.. if you are not force carbonating, and want to cold condition, you shouldn't use my numbers as your guide. You should let the beer condition in the bottles at warmer temps until the carbonation level is right. THEN go into the fridge with them. If you put them in the cold before the carbonation levels are right, you will retard the yeast and the beer might be flat.
Cold conditioning or lengthier warm conditioning is up to you, and I have no idea what specifically will be different based on which way you go.