How long to age?

[LILJONNYWV]

I just ordered a kit from Homebreweroutpost.com. I Bought the flagstaff honey brown kit and just wanted to know how long to age it in bottles once its ready?

 

[TipsyDragon]

3-4 weeks in the fermenter. 3-4 weeks in the bottle.

 

[Nurmey]

That is a really nice kit, we made it a couple of times way back when. I think we bottled at about 4 weeks and carbonated for 3 or 4.

 

[osagedr]

If your question is "How long should I age it after I bottle it until it's ready?" then the standard answer is 3 weeks at 70 degrees before you even think about drinking it. That's a MINIMUM. I've had beers take over six months to reach their potential (or even be enjoyable) and I know some posters here have mentioned periods even longer than that.

If your question is "How long can I age (store) the beer after it's ready to drink?" then from what I have read and experienced, your beer can be stored for many many months, or even (in some cases) years.

 

[toddzio]

I'm glad I am not the only newbie pondering this question. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing says there is no point in "ageing" your beer at all, unless you are lagering. This goes against what my LHBS says, and the consensus on these forums. Also, I thought one of the reasons you need to bottle/rack to secondary is to get the beer off the yeast before they start autolysis. If you leave beer in a bottle conditioned bottle for a month, won't those yeasts be going through autolysis?

 

[TipsyDragon]

Also, I thought one of the reasons you need to bottle/rack to secondary is to get the beer off the yeast before they start autolysis. If you leave beer in a bottle conditioned bottle for a month, won't those yeasts be going through autolysis?

autolysis is a boogyman for ale makers. its mainly a problem for lagers where an off flavor stands out like a sore thumb. ales can be left on yeast for quite some time with no problems. so have left it on the yeast for over a month some even several months with no ill effect.

 

[Revvy]

I'm glad I am not the only newbie pondering this question. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing says there is no point in "ageing" your beer at all, unless you are lagering. This goes against what my LHBS says, and the consensus on these forums. Also, I thought one of the reasons you need to bottle/rack to secondary is to get the beer off the yeast before they start autolysis. If you leave beer in a bottle conditioned bottle for a month, won't those yeasts be going through autolysis?

That book, as good as the basic info is, is 30 years old don't forget. There has been a lot of change in the homebrewing community, especially over the last few years.

There's been a big shift in brewing consciousness in the last few years where many of us believe that yeast is a good thing, and besides just fermenting the beer, that they are fastidious creatures who go back and clean up any by products created by themselves during fermentation, which may lead to off flavors.

Rather than the yeast being the cause of off flavors, it is now looked at by many of us, that they will if left alone actually remove those off flavors, and make for clearer and cleaner tasting beers.

You'll fine that a great many folks, maybe even the majority on here these days, leave their beers in primart for 3-4 weeks, skipping secondary.

Even John Palmer talks about this in How To Bew;

Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most canned kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.

John Palmer

As a final note on this subject, I should mention that by brewing with healthy yeast in a well-prepared wort, many experienced brewers, myself included, have been able to leave a beer in the primary fermenter for several months without any evidence of autolysis.

People have left it as much as six months. Autolysis is a myth for homebrewers.

Even when Palmer is talking about it, he's talking about it in terms of LAGERS not ales. Most people get so freaked out about in reading Palmer, that they don't notice it is in the Lager chapter, nor do they notice the caveat at the end of the section that I posted above.

I still believe that POSSIBLY autolysis WAS a concern to homebrewers 20-30 years ago, when the yeast came in dry cakes, of dubious heritage and came across from where homebrewing was legalized in the hot cargo holds of ships and may have sat for months in terrible conditioned...In other words was unhealthy to begin with.

And therefore may have crapped out and made for nastiness, (and also was prone to stick fermentation as well.) and tales of it just continued to perpetuate over time, even though yeasts are much more healthy and fresh, and more is understood about them nowaday....people gravitate to the negative and fear and still perpetuate those worries...over and over and over....

And I still maintain that as much as I like Palmer, he contributed to the hysteria.....I mean noone but me seems to notice that that section on the scary autolysis appears in the chapter on lagering. He is not talking about it with ales...or beers in general..just lagers..because flaws are more perceptable in lagers...since in essence most commercial lagers are tasteless...anything would stand out..

and I think most new brewers have crapped themselves at the mere thought long before the notice the closer to the section I mentioned earlier.

This is where the most up to date brewing wisdom and ideas can be found...In fact a lot of stuff has been started on here, and made it into byo or zymurgy or podcasts...in fact BYO DID a piece on no secondary/long primary, along with the BASIC BREWING PODCAST and even they said that there were no issues/harm with doing it and in some beers it did actually improve the flavor and clarity. And I believe that really WAS influenced by the discussion we have had for the last couple years on here.

ANd as to bottle conditioning, some beers NEED to bottle condiiotn and carb for 6 moths to a year...autolysis in the bottle is even LESS of a worry.

Besides it usually takes 3 weeks minimum for a beer to carb and condition.