noob question about conditioning

[cveez11]

I bottled my first ever batch of brew (cream ale) 6 days ago. i couldn't stand the wait so i put one in the fridge and drank it. It was really good, had a nice head and was well carbonated. my question is do i put them in the fridge now to avoid over carbonating them, or do i let the sit for another week or two?

 

[Revvy]

Read this- Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

If you like your beer now, you will like it even better when you leave it at 70 degrees for a couple more weeks.

 

[JJL]

Don't worry about overcarbonating them. As long as you put the right amount of priming sugar in, the yeast wil stop eating when there's no more food to eat. Besides, by this point, most of the fermetation has finished anyway. I also agree with Revvy, beer almost always gets better with age.

 

[tfrost12]

Let them sit. Sometimes they are good now, so have a few, but stop for a few weeks and try them later. You wont notice an improvement if you have one every day though. You should have a better beer in 4 weeks.

 

[Pappers_]

+1 to everything above from Frost, JJL, and Revvy. One thing that can be fun is to try one every week for a few weeks just to see the difference. Anticipation can be excruciating!

 

[cveez11]

thanks for the responses. Yes, the waiting really sucks. i plan on letting them go at least 3 weeks (trying 1 or 2 each week). maybe i'll let a six pack go longer.

 

[BrewDocND]

I am a very impatient person, but I always listen to the people with 10 million comments when they say "wait". The key is to get another batch going ASAP so you forget about how much you want to drink those cream ales.

 

[Revvy]

thanks for the responses. Yes, the waiting really sucks. i plan on letting them go at least 3 weeks (trying 1 or 2 each week). maybe i'll let a six pack go longer.

I wrote this awhlile back,

I think a lot of new brewers stress this out too much.

I mean, I sort of understand, you want to drink your beers, now.

But honestly, the difference between good beer, and great beer, is simply a few more weeks.

When you brew a lot, and start to build a pipeline, you are used to waiting, because you have batches at different stages, fermenting, secondarying, lagering, bottle conditioning and drinking.

And you can't drink everything at once anyway.

For example right now I have a red and an ipa that I am drinking currently. I have a chocolate mole porter that is sort of coming into it's own, that I am entering in a contest the first week of Feb.

I have a few bottles of my year old Belgian Strong Dark, that is still aging, and I pull one out every now and then.

I Have a vienna lager in a secondary lagering for at least another two weeks, if not more.

I am going to probably bottle my Belgian wit this weekend, or I may give it another week to clear, but more than likely I will bottle sooner rather than later since it's coming up on a month in Primary, and I'm on a wit kick right now (in fact I've been buying wits lately rather than drink my red and ipa.)

I also have a 2.5 gallon barelywine that I partigyle brewed on New Years eve which more than likely will get racked to a secondary for a few months, and then bottle conditioned for a few more.

The second runnings, which is sort of a dark amber ale, I will more than likely bottle soon, I'm not sure. I really haven't looked at it and the barelywine since I brewed it.

And I am thinking about brewing something this weekend, maybe another lager.....

As you can I have beers at all stages or fermentation, so if something needs a few extra weeks to carb, or condition, I'm not going to sweat it. I'm about quality beer anyway. If nothings not to my liking/readiness, then I go buy some.

I've only ever made one mild, most of my beers are 1.060 or higher, so they're going to take longer.

I'm not out to win any races, I'm out to make tasty beer.

Hell I once found a bottle in the back of my fridge that had been there 3 months. It was pretty amazing; crystal clear and the cake in the bottom was so tight that you could upend the bottle over the glass and not one drop of yeast fell in the glass.

 

[Bricetrine]

To quote the wisdom above: "I'm not out to win any races, I'm out to make tasty beer." Well said sir... well said!

I'm learning this the hard way... I had a beer that we "thought" tasted great, but 2/3 weeks later I was wishing I had waited, because it was so much better, but I had so little left.