Peculiarities of bottle conditioning

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Christ71

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Eight months ago I brewed a Westvleteren 12 clone. At bottling it had all the right flavours: burned sugar, nuts, cognac, alcohol, chocolate and dark fruit.
Then, a month later, I opened the first bottle, expectations were high. Reasonably carbonated, but a cola-like fizzy head that disintegrated within ten seconds. The beer was flat, sweet and generally bland. All the flavours seemed to have disappeared. For the past six months I've opened a bottle once a month with no significant change, until yesterday!
I opened a bottle last night, a good pssst indicating more carbonation then before. The beer poured a good fine head that lasted until the final sip. The beer has lost some/most of its sweetness and gained more flavour. Not quite as layered as at bottling, but definitely a step in right direction!

Anybody familiar with beer evolving like this during bottle conditioning?
 
The residual sweetness you were tasting may have been priming sugar that had yet to be consumed by the yeast. Big beers take quite a long time to fully carb and flavors to meld.

I'm sure others will chime in with more meaningful feedback, but congrats on the brew turning out! Now save some for a couple years down the road and see how they continue to mature!

:mug:
 
Eight months ago I brewed a Westvleteren 12 clone. At bottling it had all the right flavours: burned sugar, nuts, cognac, alcohol, chocolate and dark fruit.
Then, a month later, I opened the first bottle, expectations were high. Reasonably carbonated, but a cola-like fizzy head that disintegrated within ten seconds. The beer was flat, sweet and generally bland. All the flavours seemed to have disappeared. For the past six months I've opened a bottle once a month with no significant change, until yesterday!
I opened a bottle last night, a good pssst indicating more carbonation then before. The beer poured a good fine head that lasted until the final sip. The beer has lost some/most of its sweetness and gained more flavour. Not quite as layered as at bottling, but definitely a step in right direction!

Anybody familiar with beer evolving like this during bottle conditioning?

Beers always have their own amount of time to mature and when they do they change considerably. Light color beers and beers with low alcohol mature much faster than dark and/or high alocohol beers.

Early in my brewing I made a robust porter and at 3 weeks when I sampled I was let down because my robust porter was anything but robust, thin and watery with not much flavor. I was pretty disappointed but I didn't throw it out and would drink one occasionally. At about 3 months I sampled another and WOW it suddenly had flavor and the body I expected from a robust porter. I now know to put the dark or high gravity beers away for some time to let them mature.
 
Each beer takes its time to reach its potential. Belgian dark beers really shine with A LOT of age on them. I brew Belgians a lot. Tripels get their first taste at 4 months and often are better with even more age. Dubels also like a minimum of 4 months to come into their own but continue to get better. Belgian darks require a lot more time to really reach their peak. I usually take the first taste at 6 months, just to see how they are progressing. But usually are best with a year.

I have Belgians that are 5+ years old. I pulled out one at Thanksgiving and it was awesome. Belgians do improve with age, much like wine. Of course, assuming you had good sanitizing and precedures.

Look at the recommended aging time for the recipes here.. http://www.candisyrup.com/recipes.html
 
Thanks guys! It's just very confusing after having several quads being very drinkable within weeks to a few months and then having one batch that literally takes almost 9 months to carbonate. I've got a Tripel which seems to be going the same way right now, still quite sweet after 6 weeks, despite being bottled at three weeks with sufficient and very active yeast.
Guess I'll just have to be patient.
 
what temp are you letting them carb up at? 70 degrees F is what's said to be the typical temp. If it's lower it will take it a lot longer to carbonate and condition.
 
I'm guessing it's a steady 68-70 degrees up in my attic. I've brewed quite a few Belgian beers without any problems.
I just realised what the common factor is between the Westvleteren 12 clone and the Westmalle Tripel that I'm having trouble with...: yeast!
They are both brewed with the Westmalle strain. And Westmalle absolutely loves heat! I even had to put a heat belt on to get the fermentation going properly.
You're right Bobeer, it's just going to take longer. Thanks!
 
I had a Wee Heavy that I hated, but couldn't bear to pour it out so I stuck the bottles in the basement and forgot about them. I'd pull one out every three months or so and it gradually got much better. I entered it into a competition when I had three bottles left after it had been bottled for three years and it won a gold. I savoured the last bottle which was amazing, but now it's all gone :(
 
I brewed an altbier that was “OK” but a more fitting descriptor would probably be “tediously mediocre,” which is probably the worst place to be with homebrew, i.e., not bad enough to make dumping an obvious thing to do, but not good enough to enjoy slogging through 50 bottles of the stuff.

Figuratively I had my finger hovering over the dump button, but never actually pressed it. The beers kind of sat around, I gave away 2-3 here and there to guests, until one night I decided to have one myself and it was so much better. I look through my tasting notes and I can see comments like “4 weeks in bottle, this beer sucks, might dump it” but by the time I had the last one which was about 5 months old by that point, it was quite good; not something I would brew again, but certainly something I would use as a first try and apply some changes (in this case, a bit more IBU).
 
I had a Wee Heavy that I hated, but couldn't bear to pour it out so I stuck the bottles in the basement and forgot about them. I'd pull one out every three months or so and it gradually got much better. I entered it into a competition when I had three bottles left after it had been bottled for three years and it won a gold. I savoured the last bottle which was amazing, but now it's all gone :(

It's past time to brew another. Do one every 6 months and let all of them sit for at least a year. Fill in the gaps with lighter color beers for quicker maturity.:ban::mug:
 
I brewed an altbier that was “OK” but a more fitting descriptor would probably be “tediously mediocre,” which is probably the worst place to be with homebrew, i.e., not bad enough to make dumping an obvious thing to do, but not good enough to enjoy slogging through 50 bottles of the stuff.

Figuratively I had my finger hovering over the dump button, but never actually pressed it. The beers kind of sat around, I gave away 2-3 here and there to guests, until one night I decided to have one myself and it was so much better. I look through my tasting notes and I can see comments like “4 weeks in bottle, this beer sucks, might dump it” but by the time I had the last one which was about 5 months old by that point, it was quite good; not something I would brew again, but certainly something I would use as a first try and apply some changes (in this case, a bit more IBU).

At 5 months it was just starting to come around. Try letting a batch sit for a year before you sample, then another year to get awesome. Don't think dump on a dark beer or a high alcohol beer until at least a year has passed.
 
It's past time to brew another. Do one every 6 months and let all of them sit for at least a year. Fill in the gaps with lighter color beers for quicker maturity.:ban::mug:

This was early in my homebrewing career and I didn't do another because I simply didn't think I liked the style. Three years later I've changed my mind and yes, I plan to do another.

Now I've got a Belgian Strong Dark that is boozy and just plain unpleasant to drink. It's about 6 months old. Into the basement it goes!
 

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