bottle condition timing

[Louz]

After two or three weeks of bottle conditioning does the yeast just run out of sugar to eat (corn sugar etc added to the bottling bucket) and as a result, the carbonation is completed on its own?

Or is the carbonation only stopped once you put the bottles in the fridge, and the cool temps shut the yeast down?

I was wondering if it required to put the bottles in the fridge after a few weeks or can I leave them at room temp for a month or two before I cool them (without them over carbing or possibly exploding due to over pressure). (IPA's btw)

 

[Lefou]

Many yeasts will cease converting sugars when their tolerance to alcohol has been reached and the majority of free amino nitrogen (FAN) has been used up. They really don't die, but more or less go dormant once most of the fermentable sugars have been consumed.
I've pushed ale yeasts past their advertised ABV limit, but only when supplying nutrients as additions to a mead or wine. High gravity musts and worts underpitched or bottled too early have a much higher chance of producing shattered bottles during carbonation because the yeast didn't finish the job.

If you're doing an IPA, it wouldn't hurt the beer to sit for a month or two at room temps before refrigerating. It would have enough hops and alcohol to preserve it for that long with no problem. I've had higher gravity amber bocks sit at room temps for up to a year before consuming them with no problems.

 

[thehaze]

If everything went well and all " calculations " are done properly, bottle conditioned beers should not explode. The yeast will eat the sugar you added for creating the carbonation and will go back to sleep.

Prior to this step, you need to allow the yeast to finish in the fermenter. This means proper fermentation schedule with a raise in temperature when the yeast is about to finish the fermentation. Increasing the fermentation will help the yeast finish and, for some, clean after itself. This is an easy practice, I tend to use myself.

Take your time and take 2 separate gravity readings, with at least 3-5 days apart. If unchanged 5 days after the first reading, the yeast is finished and you can go ahead and cold crash/add gelatin/bottle/keg/etc.

For IPAs ( up to an ABV, but should be OK up to 8% ), I would allow the yeast to carbonate for 10-14 days at 68-73F and then put the bottles in the fridge. Personally, I never had exploding bottles, nor problems with carbonation. I easily have pleasent carbonation after 5-7 days, so the 2-3 weeks rule is a safety measure, so people don't get dissappointed if no carbonation is there after one week. But carbonation is not only about the amount of sugar added, but also fermentation temperature - as the beer itself will have disolved CO2 -, the room temp. where the bottles are stored, OG and the final ABV of the beer, etc.

 

[Lefou]

I've had carbing problems, but not with all grain.
My issue was with an extract batch of wort that stratified into layers and didn't get mixed well. Some of the bottles carbed well, some took much longer and foamed over when uncapped. Those bottles weren't infected, they just didn't finish the fermentation because of an underpitch and unfinished carbing. That wort was about 1.066 or so and one of the first "heavy" ales made as an inexperienced brewer.

 

[ESBrewer]

After two or three weeks of bottle conditioning does the yeast just run out of sugar to eat (corn sugar etc added to the bottling bucket) and as a result, the carbonation is completed on its own?

Or is the carbonation only stopped once you put the bottles in the fridge, and the cool temps shut the yeast down?

I was wondering if it required to put the bottles in the fridge after a few weeks or can I leave them at room temp for a month or two before I cool them (without them over carbing or possibly exploding due to over pressure). (IPA's btw)

You can leave the bottles at room temperature, there is no more fermentation/co2 production without fermentable sugar. The bottles won't explode if you calculated the priming sugar correctly, the primary fermentation had stopped at the time of bottling and there is no microbial contamination in the bottles. If it is an ale I would leave it at room temperature for maybe 3.5-4 weeks and then, depending on the beer, put the bottles in the fridge or some other cold place to lager until they are consumed (this kind of cold conditioning eventually tends to make the beer clearer and the taste may become more clean and focused if that's what you are looking for). But you can keep it longer at RT if you like.