so my first brew will reach 2 weeks in the bottle in just a few days and i think sufficient carbonation due to a sample. I know a lot of people on here tell me my beer will really be at its best at about 3-5 weeks in the bottle. Does this mean 3-5 weeks in the bottle at room temperature or should i get the bottles cooled in the fridge after their properly carbonated to avoid bottle bombs?? I used 1 cup of corn sugar and a pint of water for my bottle conditioning.
If you measured your priming sugar properly, you shouldn't be concerned with preventing bottle bombs through refrigeration. Instead, you want that priming sugar as thoroughly fermented as possible for the best quality beer.
When you should drink (your recently bottled 1st brew) depends on you and what you brewed. Most beers will benefit from at least a month in the bottle...and even that might not be enough if you impatiently reduced the bulk (fermenter) process down to less than 3 weeks. If you are even remotely like me, you are impatient and being this is your 1st brew, you want to taste the fruits of your labor now. Crack a bottle and use that as a baseline to compare your bottles to over the next 6 weeks. Finally, enjoy your brew...and always give as much detail on your beer and procedures here. Example: Style, OG, FG, ingredients used, priming procedure, and political affiliation (just kidding). Cheers and welcome to the obsession. : )
The bulk of my bottles are stored at room temp, they only go into the fridge 6 or so at a time when I plan on drinking them. It it good practice to measure your priming sugar by mass if you can; the amount of sugar in a 'cup' can very quite a bit depending on how fine the brand of sugar you bought is, how old/moist it has gotten, etc.
Volume not as good as weight, but better than not measuring. I usually used 4 0z or <3/4 cup when I was bottling (for most styles).
the package said 5 oz. but pretty much filled up my cup container. It came with my pale ale ingredient kit. Really happy with the taste after a week in the bottle although it is quite darker than a traditional pale ale which is to be expected with mostly LME malt bill i suppose
refrigeration will almost stop secondary fermentation. almost. refrigeration is not however the answer to bottle bombs. if you overprimed, then by all means put those suckers in a cold spot. you will have overcarbed sweetish beer, but not bottle bombs. even if you do not have bombs, you may have gushers. in which case you should keep them as cold as possible as this will reduce but not eliminate the gushing. as for general storage, it depends on the beer. warm storage accelerates deteriation of beer, homebrew or not. the dreaded effects of oxygen are increased dramatically in warm storage. hop aroma and flavor fade alot faster if the beer is warm. warm storage is really no good all around. some beer styles are more tolerant, and sometimes you will go through all 5 gallons quickly. it is usually best to keep beer cold, or at least cool, if you can. beer is food, and like almost all food it will remain fresh longer if kept cold. also, priming by weight is alot safer. small variations in the amount of priming sugar can make quite a big difference. you should consider using an online priming calulator. you will eventually need a small scale for hops if you don't have one already. scales have become very cheap too. Cheers.
In my 3+ years of home brewing I've not had a single bottle bomb, knock on wood. I don't think you should have much to worry about with your 5 oz of priming sugar. While I certainly agree with everything billandsuz had to say in the post above me, I also have to say that all is not lost if you do not have the ability to store your beer in a cool spot. I currently have on hand bottles from 4 batches of home brew that are all at least 2 years old and they are all styles that are not 'supposed' to be aged. These have all been stored in the nook under the stairwell in my house here in FL. I would guess the temp in this nook is pretty steady between 75-77F. They are certainly all very different now than they were in their supposed prime, but none of them are bad, and in fact a couple of them have IMO gotten MUCH better with age. One of them is a honey-orange wheat beer that I made with local orange-blosssom honey and oranges (gotta love living in FL). This beer was brewed in late 2009 and last month I found a 6er that had been overlooked. I cracked open a bottle and it was absolutely incredible. For some reason the honey notes had exploded, I shared samples with several of my homebrew buddies and everyone was amazed by the honey aromas and flavors. The other styles that I have 2+ year old bottles of are a raspberry brown, a big IPA (which I would no longer consider an an IPA b/c the hops have faded but it's still very interesting), and my first-ever all-grain batch which was a SA Summer Ale clone. So the moral of my very verbose response is that I wouldn't worry too much about your storage conditions. If your process is sound and the storage temps are consistent then you should have nothing to worry about.
