Bottle Conditioning vs Storage Temps

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NothingRhymesWithCurtiss

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Apologies if this has been covered. I tried searching, but couldn't find anything.

We've all heard to bottle condition/carbonate at around 70 degrees F, but what is the ideal temp for long term storage/aging homebrews?

I know that beers with a lot of hop aroma should be drank fresh (IPAs, Pales), but I have a batch of porter that I'd like to put some age on.

My thought is to let the entire batch sit for 4 - 6 weeks at around 70 degrees F in our water heater/furnace closet, and depending on how the beer tastes and how the flavors have melded, move the rest to my crawl space which is around 55 degrees F, to age for anywhere from a few months to a year.

I'm hesitant to leave it at 70 for the duration, as my last porter was great at around 6 weeks, and I let about a quarter of the batch sit at room temp for about 6 months. Big mistake! It tasted stale and watery for lack of a better term.

Can anyone point me in the right direction or does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks.
 
Apologies if this has been covered. I tried searching, but couldn't find anything.

We've all heard to bottle condition/carbonate at around 70 degrees F, but what is the ideal temp for long term storage/aging homebrews?

Long-term storage, or "cellaring" is usually done at around 50-55° F. Your crawl space sounds perfect!

:)
 
Apologies if this has been covered. I tried searching, but couldn't find anything.

We've all heard to bottle condition/carbonate at around 70 degrees F, but what is the ideal temp for long term storage/aging homebrews?

I know that beers with a lot of hop aroma should be drank fresh (IPAs, Pales), but I have a batch of porter that I'd like to put some age on.

My thought is to let the entire batch sit for 4 - 6 weeks at around 70 degrees F in our water heater/furnace closet, and depending on how the beer tastes and how the flavors have melded, move the rest to my crawl space which is around 55 degrees F, to age for anywhere from a few months to a year.

I'm hesitant to leave it at 70 for the duration, as my last porter was great at around 6 weeks, and I let about a quarter of the batch sit at room temp for about 6 months. Big mistake! It tasted stale and watery for lack of a better term.

Can anyone point me in the right direction or does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks.

IMO, 2 - 3 weeks warm is good in most situations for bottle conditioning and 55F is a nice temp for aging. If you use fresh yeast at bottling, you may find the re-fermentation is complete in 2 -3 days. Of course more time is needed for the CO2 to fully dissolve but that can happen at cooler temps.
 
This has raised a question in my mind that I have to beg all of you for answers - pardons on the thread-hijack, NRWC.

When aging out darker, bigger beers, like stouts & such, do you cellar after carbing, or condition them at 70° for all those months? I have been letting them sit warm...
 
This has raised a question in my mind that I have to beg all of you for answers - pardons on the thread-hijack, NRWC.

When aging out darker, bigger beers, like stouts & such, do you cellar after carbing, or condition them at 70° for all those months? I have been letting them sit warm...

I leave them to carbonate at room temperature (which these days in the low 60's) for two to three weeks. I test a bottle after two weeks, placing it in the fridge for a couple of days before opening it. If it is carbonated to my liking, I haul the boxes of bottles downstairs to my basement where it is now in the low 40's. It will get up to the low 60's in the heat of summer, but is pretty much underground. I've got 12 packs for at least three years down there and they are really great when I 'sacrifice' one of them.

Right now I have stored the remains of 4 batches of Scotch ale, 2 of Doppelbock and one Belgian Dark Strong.

In terms of keeping the beer for the most amount of time, having it near freezing will give you the longest shelf life, let's say about 3 C or 4 C. For every 10 C above that, you can expect a halving of the shelf life.
 
I store beer for bottle-conditioning in a room at around 70-72, but once it's carbed I move it to my crawl space, where it's mid-50s in winter and never above 65 in summer. I have inadvertently left beer in warmer temps for longer times and found that they degraded faster.

For hoppy beers, I bottle-condition, then put them all in the beer fridge.
 
I do a batch of barley wine every year or so.

First batch i moved to my cellar at bottling and let it carb at 55ish until i started drinking it at about 8 months. The most recent batch I carbed for about 2 weeks at 70, and the stuck in the cellar for about 6 months. Its 7 months old now and it is great. Very similar to the cellar carbed beer. Its been well over a year since i finished that cellar barbed batch though...
 
And thanks for all the answers to my hijack question!

:)

Now, I just gotta find somewhere for my winter warmer until Thanksgiving... maybe I'll dig a hole a few feet deep under the house.

:D
 

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