how long in the bottle?

[ncoutroulis]

My first batch has been in the bottles (hopefully carving up nicely) for 1 week today. It's a Belgian Mustache Pale Ale.

How long should it stay in the bottles?

What should I do next?

Cheers

 

[chuckcomm]

Im impatient so normally have a "test" beer after a week....normally they shouldnt be consumed for three weeks or more after bottling.

 

[ZeKeef13]

Yeah I do the same thing. I wait about a week and have a test beer. If the top pops and does not taste like a flat beer I put my case into the fridge and wait a couple of days and enjoy.

 

[flars]

I've learned to be patient. It takes at least two weeks, for a low gravity beer, to carbonate. Three to four weeks for higher gravity beers. You will be into months for high gravity complex brews.
Patience is easy to learn, when you have 10 or 15 gallons of other beers on hand.

 

[RM-MN]

I'd say it should stay in the bottles between 3 weeks and 3 months. At 3 weeks of room temperature it will have fully carbonated and matured to give you a nice, long lasting head and good lacing in the glass. By the end of the third month it will have lost quite a bit of the hop aroma that makes a pale ale so palatable. It will still be good beer but won't have the aroma punch that it will for the first couple of months.

 

[unionrdr]

With average gravity ales, I give them 3 weeks before fridging a couple for 5-7 days. Bottle carbing & conditioning isn't a quick process. They get better with time. And bigger beers will take more than 3-4 weeks, more like a couple months to a couple years. My whiskely ale needed 10 weeks.

 

[photobru]

Along these lines then, I have an IPA around 7% ABV I bottled last weekend and left to condition in the low 60's. I couldn't wait to try it so I poured one last night and it was very well carbonated. Should now be worried about bottle bombs?

 

[MaxStout]

Patience. Every beer you drink when it's not ready is one less you will enjoy when it is ready.

 

[flars]

Along these lines then, I have an IPA around 7% ABV I bottled last weekend and left to condition in the low 60's. I couldn't wait to try it so I poured one last night and it was very well carbonated. Should now be worried about bottle bombs?

This is a maybe/maybe not situation. Was the CO2 pressure in the head space, or was the beer fully carbonated that you have a stream of CO2 bubbles coming up from the bottom of the glass?

 

[unionrdr]

Good question. I've had some beers carb up fast that still needed time to condition or mature.

 

[photobru]

When I poured it I got a ton of head, 3/4 of the glass was foam. And it tasted right, so I think it was fully carbonated? But based on what everyone is saying in this thread that seems impossible.

 

[flars]

When I poured it I got a ton of head, 3/4 of the glass was foam. And it tasted right, so I think it was fully carbonated? But based on what everyone is saying in this thread that seems impossible.

It is possible for the beer in the bottle to be fully carbonated if to much priming sugar is in that bottle. It's like kegging beer. They beer will be carbonated faster at 60 PSI than 12 PSI.
Fast carbonation doesn't mean it is fully conditioned. Conditioning also involves flavor maturation.
I would chill another bottle, from the middle of the bottling batch, to see if the carbonation is the same. You may have only a few bottles at that carbonation level.

What are the priming sugar details? Volume bottled, weight and type of priming sugar used, and temperature used for calculating sugar amount?

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

It all depends on gravity, style and temperature. I've had IPAs ready to drink after conditioning in the 70s for a week. I say "ready" in that they were well carbed. For full aroma, flavor and maturity, the sweet spot was more like 4 weeks. I also did a Belgian last year that took a good 4 weeks to carb. It tasted OK for the first few months. But around 6 months it transformed into one of my all-time favorite brews. I still notice subtle changes a year and a half later.

So I guess the answer to "How long should it stay in the bottles?" is definitely one week .... or 3 weeks .... or 6 months. The answer to "What do I do next?" is easier. Drink it when it tastes like it's ready and brew your next beer! Cheers!

 

[photobru]

What are the priming sugar details? Volume bottled, weight and type of priming sugar used, and temperature used for calculating sugar amount?

It's hard to say exactly how much sugar, I think 15 tsp, stupidly that's the one (and now possibly most important) thing I didn't write down. But I bottled about 1.5 gallons in this batch and used table sugar. Someone suggested cold crashing the bottles to stall the fermentation, so I think I'm going to wait either until the end of the week or they start exploding and put them all in the fridge.

And what do you mean by temperature used for calculating sugar amount?

 

[flars]

It's hard to say exactly how much sugar, I think 15 tsp, stupidly that's the one (and now possibly most important) thing I didn't write down. But I bottled about 1.5 gallons in this batch and used table sugar. Someone suggested cold crashing the bottles to stall the fermentation, so I think I'm going to wait either until the end of the week or they start exploding and put them all in the fridge.

And what do you mean by temperature used for calculating sugar amount?

Priming sugar calculators use an estimation of how many CO2 volumes may be left in solution after fermentation is complete. Solutions will hold less dissolved gas at higher temperatures, compared to how much gas will remain in solution at low temperatures.
The temperature you would enter into a calculator like this one
http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
would be the highest temperature the beer fermented or rested at. You would not use a cold crash temperature, if a cold crash was done, because more CO2 is not produced during a cold crash.

I would definitely get a scale to weigh the priming sugar amount to use. Much more accurate than volume measuring.

 

[photobru]

Ok, I'll use a scale and that calculator next time. Thanks. Didn't occur to me that temp would effect CO2 absorption when bottle conditioning, but that makes a lot of sense, especially with what I've heard about force carbonating kegs.

 

[unionrdr]

So far as the priming calculator is concerned, the temp refers to the highest temp during primary. Not in the bottles. Higher temp in bottles doesn't matter, but lower temps do. Too low & the yeast goes dormant.