Aging rules for stouts?

[rhinoceroceros]

I brewed a pecan brown last year and it was by far my best beer to date, so good in fact that most of it was gone very quickly. A friend that I gave a six pack to forgot about it and a month or so later found it and we cracked a couple open and, of course, these were the best two beers of the batch and, of course, they were the last two.

I recently brewed it again and I'm letting it sit in primary for a month, not for any technical reason, just to remove the temptation of drinking it before its done.

Now, letting it sit for another month in the bottle before drinking will be a challenge I may not overcome! Maybe I'll get really drunk and hide them from myself...

 

[StoutMeister]

So now I need to bottle my beer!

unless you have a keg setup then yeah:rockin:

but honestly i use the 1-2-3 method and most times its good by then
and yeah it is really hard to not drink it all before it is REALLY GOOD!

brew multiple batches and put half away for storage if its a big beer, if you cant keep from drinkging it all before its ready brew more often! lol

 

[BrewmeisterSmith]

I just racked my stout to the secondary and added my Coconut today. It's basically the deception cream stout recipe with a 10 oz coconut addition in the secondary for 1 week. I'll crash cool for a few days before kegging. The final gravity has been achieved at day 15. I pulled a sample of it and thought it tasted fantastic. I think I'll stick to my normal 2 week fermentation routine, then strait to keg (for most). I'm finding that my beer's flavor is great at 3 weeks in the keg. For the coconut cream stout, however, I'll keg it, carb it during a 1 week period and then enjoy. It seems to be a beer that is enjoyable without having to wait a long period of time.

 

[jturie]

Now that I have scored a second refrigerator, I've been doing the 2 week primary, transfer to keg, and crash cooling for at least a week....beer has been amazingly clear. In terms of taste, I don't think it's done much more than just normal aging, but that's just my opinion.

I did once leave a beer on the yeast cake for 4 weeks because of my hectic travel schedule. It was fine.

 

[scottland]

I'm with the majority here. I leave the beer in the primary for 2-3 days after activity ceased. The color of the wort is a great indication of the amount of yeast left in solution, as well as their activity level. When you've been doing this hobby for awhile, it's easy to spot what still fermenting wort looks like in a hydrometer tube.

From that point, it's either straight in the keg, or I rack to secondary for beers that are dry hopped. I used to throw the dry hops straight in, but after finding they sink within 24hrs and get buried in hop sludge, I like to get the beer off the yeast first these days.

Now with that said, I've found most of my beers are in the sweet spot around 4-5 weeks after brew day. It doesn't seem to matter as much where that 4-5 weeks is spent. So if I do a 14 day primary then keg, it's usually 3 full weeks in the keg before my beer tastes its best. If I secondary an IPA for a week, it's peaking 1-2 weeks in the keg. Make sense?

 

[Piratwolf]

what ever happend to the 1-2-3 method??

1 week primary 2 weeks secondary 3 weeks bottle ??
cool and enjoy

Seems to me there's no problem with any method that produces good beer.

That said, those looking for empirical evidence for their practices need not stick to an old saw for the sake of tradition. As I've posted before, the willingness to experiment and post results is perhaps the best feature of this forum (Boneyard aside, of course).

 

[RIC0]

For what it's worth and I know an active airlock is not a meter for reading fermentation my last batch of redneck red ale, which got bottled yesterday, was fartin thru the airlock for 13 days straight. It was in the primary for 3 weeks I wasn't going to go straight to bottle and have bombs going off.

I'm not brewmaster but what little I do know is 2-3 weeks in primary with me leaning more toward 3 every single time. Carbing for 3 weeks, period.

Homebrewing a beer to be "happy with" or just "settling with" are two different things. I have no patience but when it comes to home brews it's 6 weeks at the least.

 

[Piratwolf]

As I said, if it makes good beer for you that's what matters. I think some folks make the mistake of thinking all systems work the same, and therein lies the lesson. For instance, I've brewed about 70 batches in the last 20 months, and I don 't recall a single beer still highly active at 13 days. Definitely had a few coulda gone longer on the yeast but I'm not "settling"-- I just really know my system and it's sweet spots.

 

[Hopper5000]

Just to followup on this, here is a cool article about what leaving the beer on the yeast can do...

Seems like there's isn't a real good consensus really...

http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/1960

 

[StoutMeister]

im going to leave my ESB in its primary for 4 weeks secondary for 5 days if needed and then bottle. i have always been a 1-2-3 guy but the more i talk to local brewers the more i hear i should leave the yeast 4-6 weeks it seems i will give you all an up date on its conditition when it bottles, still in the active fermentation stage

 

[Brewday365]

Just to followup on this, here is a cool article about what leaving the beer on the yeast can do...

Seems like there's isn't a real good consensus really...

http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/1960

The interesting thing about the article is that it really drives home the idea that two or three additional weeks have only marginal affects on the taste of the beer. So this brings up a question. What flavor affects do yeast have after high krausen? We are all schooled on yeast pitch rates and temps (phenols, esthers, and diacetyl). We also know that yeast reabsorbs diacetyl. At that rate, lager brewers have cut weeks off their lagers with diacetyl rests. So after diacetyl, what flavor impacts are left? And are we confusing conditioning (which in my mend mellows flavors) with actual primary or secondary fermentation?

 

[DSmith]

im going to leave my ESB in its primary for 4 weeks secondary for 5 days if needed and then bottle. i have always been a 1-2-3 guy but the more i talk to local brewers the more i hear i should leave the yeast 4-6 weeks it seems i will give you all an up date on its conditition when it bottles, still in the active fermentation stage

Every transfer is a risk for oxidation. I'd skip the secondary if it's just for 5 days. You will have very clear beer at room temperature after a 4 week primary with an English yeast.

 

[StoutMeister]

Which is what i figured, if not i can always use finnings for the 4 days in secondary if its not clear enough

 

[Homercidal]

I have done extended primaries with no issues. And I've done secondaries with no issues.

The thing I like about an extended primary is that I can skip the process of racking to a secondary container and can bottle/keg when it's convenient for me.

The yeast that sits on the bottom isn't really "doing" anything. It's on the bottom not interacting with the wort. The yeast that's actually "cleaning up" is the stuff that's still floating around in the beer. The same stuff that's going to help the beer in secondary.

I don't think extending the primary time has an obvious negative effect (depending on conditions, but that is true of any stage of fermentation). But it IS easier since you are skipping the racking to secondary step.

I keg, and generally rack my beer into a keg at about 3 weeks, sometimes it's more. Now that I have more batches under my belt, and feel more comfortable with my equipment and methods, it's easier to find time to get some of this stuff done, like bottling and kegging. I just don't tend to let it sit on the yeast like I used to. Just about convenience.