Bottle conditioning. What to look for?

Your beer will be slowly transforming, mellowing,etc. I've brewed enough that I know what to expect for most of my brews. I suggest set a 6 pack a side and mark each bottle. For example 2,4,6,8,12,16 weeks. This will allow your to learn how a beer transforms with age, pop one open on these dates you will see a big difference.

When I first started I was to anxious to drink them and learned I consumed them before they were in their prime. Normally I do not cold store my beer until they are carbed. If you fridge them before fully carbed you will cause yeast to go dormant and may not fully Carb up. Good Luck!

 

Not a silly question, but the answer is no.

 

Drink one after 1 week, it should be mostly carbonated, and write down how it tastes. Then drink another at 2 weeks and compare. Drink another at 3 weeks and it should taste better than the other 2. This will allow you to learn through experience the rate at which your beer ages and mellows. And because it's an IPA you don't want to let it sit for too long, so once it tastes damn good to you, have at 'em.

 

CFC10, has a good point. With an IPA they are one of those beers that reach a peak bottle conditioning. They will hit a peak and then lose some hoppiness,flavor etc over time.

 

Yea if you have enough drink them whenever you want, to see how they develop. I usually have one after 5 days and they have always been carbed. I like to see how they change over time. I usually do like 5, 10, and then 14

 

I usually mark an 'X' on the cap of the last two that I bottle because they may have more trub in them that was at the bottom of the bucket, or they may have been exposed to more bubbling when your siphon line went dry. I usually try one after 10 days, but if you can wait two weeks, that's better for carbonation as well as flavor conditioning. Listed for the whoosh when you open that first one to help determine how carbonated it is. And it's also a good practice to be close to the sink and have your glass ready in case you over-carbed them. If they are over-carbed, get them under refrigeration right away to stop the carbing process.

 

I bought a case of 500ml PET bottles from one of homebrew shops. Fill one of those with each batch, when it gets rock hard your bottles should be finished carbing.

 

Depending on how clear your beer was going into the bottle, sometimes you can see when the yeast get done fermenting the priming sugar and floc out and the CO2 will fully saturate into the beer within a few days. I don't recommend using that as a gauge of carbonation though. The best and most accurate method is to open bottles and taste.

It's hard to wait with your first batch but once you have a few batches under your belt and start developing a collection of homebrew it will be less difficult to wait to pop open the bottles.

 

In my experience some beers get better with age. I focus on Belgians, triples,abbey style beers. These all seem to get better with age. Also these are strong beers 8% average and the hold up well in a bottle.

The IPA brews I have made usually are great at about a month after bottling and get even better. For what ever reason they just seem to fade out if you store them long 6 months plus," In my experience" By fade out its usually the hops. You can have 60 IBU beer for example. After several months it will taste like a 40 and lose character.

 

Buryme, I ran across an old thread IPA freshness or something like that a few days ago. You may be able to find it by search.

 

I'm drinking a 7 month old 100% nelson ipa right now that I did last summer and it's still damn good. It's pretty amazing how long some of these IPAs we make can hold up.

 

I rarely bottle anymore unless its higher ABV beers, or beers that will age well like sours, but when I bottled IPA's, they generally peaked between 3-6 weeks, sometimes a little longer. Around that time they get a good level of carbonation, and the beer has had time to adjust and balance with the addition of CO2. Just because the beer is carbed, doesn't mean it's ready. But like others have mentioned, it's important to open a bottle every few days or so between 2-6 weeks to see how it is progressing and when it tastes the best for you.

 

You should expect some obvious sign of yeast on the bottom of the bottle, a prove of active fermentation resulting CO2 in the beer.
If you look at the picture below, that's one or two bottles I save and call it "Tester Bottle" and is need to have some characteristics such as:

1. Be clear, so I can see yeast sediment build up (brown works too)
2. made out soft material, pressing the big toe, you get to feel if pressure is build inside the bottle (test it every day with out getting drunk out of stale beer)
3. small better size, preferbly 8oz (12oz in my pic)
   
4. most cases, 14 business days (70 °F ) will get your beer carbonated to the calculated level.
5. date bottling label (Feb, the 28th) already got yeast on the bottom and hard stiff bottle.

 

Interesting idea!