Cold temps ******s aging...high temps accelerates?

Check this out. May help answer some questions. Basically, there are a number of reactions at work, and they operate at different temperatures.
http://www.wineperspective.com/STORAGE TEMPERATURE & AGING.htm

 

Drinking a beer that had been in a 100 degree attic for a few months would definitely qualify as ******ed

 

yeah, bad idea. there is a reason you haven't heard of this being done more often. it will accelerate the positive and negative effects of aging.
The reason ideal cellar temp is 55 degrees is because that is the temp. that gives the ideal balance in favor of positive effects vs. negative effects.

It's science.

 

nothing expert, but like that link, i know in other arenas the idea of "aging" in the same context & acceleration have been explored. mostly from what i see & hear it's a mixed bag that leans more towards negative results when energy is applied or accelerated.

from a different perspective, light typically generates heat. there aren't that many people left that don't believe light is the anti-Christ when it comes to beer exposure. if possible, i'd try to adhere to theory that lower is better than higher.

 

Especially for this big takeaway

"But it doesn’t end there. Another concern is that higher temperatures will result in undesirable chemical reactions taking place that were either too slow or nonexistent at the lower temperatures..."

 

Something very important that has been left out here is that once you pass the 80 degree mark and higher aging stops forever. The reason is because the yeast inside the bottle dies. The yeast is the reason the beer improves and changes with age. It is ALIVE in there, eating the sugars and making it more a complex flavor. When you see "bottle conditioned" as well they are adding more yeast and sugar at bottling time. On the flip side when you go below 45 degrees you put the yeast into a dormant, sleeping state. Warm it back to 55 and things start again. So over all keeping it in the regular refrigerator which is about 35 degrees won't let your beer evolve. I feel your pain on wanting to speed the process but just hang in there and give it time. I even more so feel your pain about the warm climate as i'm not far from you in Lancaster. Just be mindful when your out buying beer at the shops out here what the temperature is in them. If its a liquor store that ALWAYS has its doors open, you might not want to waste the time aging any of those beers with how hot it gets here. You can get on craigslist and look for a used wine cellar. Thats what I did and they are cheap! Search Vinotemp for the good ones. I found a 240 bottle for $200, great investment for our area.

Good tasting!

 

I don't think that is 100% true. Think of the bottle of beer as a reaction vessel. You have a ton of different chemicals in there. Heat up the vessel and you increase the reaction rate whether there is yeast in there or not.

 

This article again? It's got some great messages, but makes some terrible assumptions.

Good reactions having low energy barriers and bad reactions having high energy barriers is ridiculous. Good and bad reactions take place at cellar temps. We know this because beer goes bad at cellar temps. And the table is flawed (see below).

They're not that high. The arbitrary 'high energy' barrier the author chooses is way too high. He's chosen a reaction activation energy that is available to a miniscule percentage of chemical molecules bounching around at room temperature. Probably not available at 90F either. I'd run the numbers again to figure out exactly what high ativation energy he's using, but didn't get much interest when I posted on the old site. The 'low energy' is ~50 kJ/mol I think.

They were slow at the lower temperatures. Probably as slow as all the good and bad reactions. There's only so much energy available at cellar temp - the difference isn't that crazy at room temp.

---

My thoughts:
Cellar to room temp is fine. The energy available to molecules doesn't change much between the two temperatures - I don't think you're opening up any different reaction pathways. The same sets of good and bad reactions will be occurring, although in slightly different ratios. Your beer will age faster and you'll need to crack bottles more often to find the sweet spot. I wouldn't go anywhere near 80 or 90F.

 

Pretty much that all is totally wrong. For one thing beer will age/improve without yeast.

If anyone is interested here is a good look at when happens when beer ages and the brewers concerns.
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/475

 

This seems to support that a higher storage temperate does not accelerate all aspects of a beer aging equally.

Apart from oxygen concentration, storage temperature
affects the aging characteristics of beer, by affecting
the many chemical reactions involved. The reaction rate
increase for a certain temperature increase depends on
the reaction activation energy. This activation energy
differs with the reaction type, which means that the rates
of different reactions do not equally increase with
increasing temperature. Consequently, beer storage at
different temperatures does not generate the same relative
level increase of staling compounds.

p 358,
http://nfscfaculty.tamu.edu/talcott/Food%20Chem%20605/Spring%202011%20Class/2011%20Papers%20and%20Class%20Presentations/Review-Beer%20Ageing.pdf

 

I had to remove my beer from my fridge that was set to 52'F, I put all that beer in cardboard boxes and they will sit in a dark room at about 68'F average for a couple weeks before I can get them back in the 52'F celllar.

My question is, I have a refrigerator that I could use and chill the beer at 41-42'F, or box them at the 68'F. Which would be best?

 

This paragraph is describing the Arrhenius equation. Reactions with higher activation energies will see a larger acceleration than reactions with lower activation energies. The acceleration would be equal only if all the reactions occurring in the bottle had the same activation energy (along with some other assumptions).

The questions you need to ask are:

- What energy is available to the chemical molecules in beer at cellar temp? At basement temp? At cellar temp?
- What is the likely range of activation energies for the reactions that are going to be able to occur?
- Is it possible to determine whether 'good' aging reactions have lower than average activation energies than 'bad' aging reactions?
- Is it possible to determine the major/dominating 'good' reactions? The major/dominating 'bad' reactions?
- Given the temperature difference between two storage spots, what is the increase in reaction rate for reactions at the low range of activation energy? At the high range? While the higher storage temperature does not accelerate all aspects of a beer aging equally, is it possible to say that the general aging profile will remain the same?

- Are the differences enough to be noticed? Are they enough to be noticed given bottle-to-bottle variation?

- Since the reaction rates are faster, how much more often will you have to sample a bottle at the higher temperature versus the lower temperature, in order to not miss the 'sweet spot'?

- What else may higher temps do to a bottle? At what temperature should you be concerned for yeast when aging a bottle-conditioned beer?

- Which scientific articles are useful? How different is wine than beer? How different is a mass-produced lager than the average beer we are aging?

- What can you purchase for cheap that will allow you to answer the question for yourself?

 

Yes, I know that you've posted that before the BA meltdown and I'm not trying to be difficult, but since you seem to be agreeing/expanding the quoted statement that would be all that matters.

After all I like the cardboard notes in an old Fullers Vintage Ale, others my not. I like the sweetness of a 10 year old DFH 120 and that all the booziness went away, others my not, etc. All the rest seems to be dogma.

 

I think the most important question I posted is:

And along with that one:

- When you taste a beer that has aged perfectly for you, do you have multiples of that vintage aged in the same manner so that you can put them in a fridge and hopefully recreate the experience?

 

This is completely wrong. The optimum culture temperature of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, aka brewer's yeast, is 77-86F (or 25-30C). The yeast will survive well into the 90s, although byproducts will be undesirable. Studies have shown that the yeast begin to slow reproduction around the 40C mark.

 

I do understand your point, but frankly I'm just a beer ****. I just don't see the romance of the perfectly aged beer. There isn't such a thing. I don't do many verticals. There are a lot of beers that I buy a full case every three years or so. Normally those are non-vintage dated beers like Rochfort, De Dolle Stille Nacht, St. Bernardus. There are a few like Gouden Carolus Cuvee Van De Keizer that I'll get four or five of a year. But basically a three year gap seems to be a sweet spot to pick up changes. Then again buying a case forces you to put all your eggs in one basket so to speak which can bite you if you get an improperly shipped case.

But at times I'm picky. What I might like today I won't want in a month or so. And at times I don't even want anything out of the cellar. Right now I'm enjoying some admittedly a bit too sweet homebrew. The thought of Cantillon just doesn't cut it.

 

I kind of had to wonder about this, too. Doesn't most imported beer get here by container ship? I doubt they bother with the extra expense to keep it cool on the ship. A non-reefer CONNEX could likely see temps far above 80 during certain times of the year.

 

I'm sure imported beers hit 80F+ on their journey to the states, and I'm sure that's one of the main reasons why they don't taste the same as in their country of origin! The problem with high temp is not about the yeast dying..it's about undesirable by-products being created at a faster rate than if the beer were cool.