What Is The Ideal Time To Condition?

[mickpc]

Ok, I am building up my little cellar, and am wondering what is the ideal time to cellar most beers for? Also how long will they last in total?


Cheers Mick

 

[Sneddy]

I'm no expert but I've had people tell me that they've put beers down for 6-12 months and at the 12 month phase the beers were so good they wished they didn't start drinking them earlier.

I've got 2 on at the moment that I'm planning to leave for at least 4 months to condition. But I willl be drinking 1/month to see what they're doing.

I think about 12 months would be the upper limit of their shelf life though.

 

[manticle]

Ok, I am building up my little cellar, and am wondering what is the ideal time to cellar most beers for? Also how long will they last in total?


Cheers Mick

Completely depends on the kind of beer. If it's darker and/or high alcohol or has a lot of different flavours going on it will probably benefit from some kind of maturation.

If it's highly hopped, it can go either way - the hop aroma and bitterness will settle out. A lot of british ales were traditionally highly hopped, often dry hopped (mainly for preservation) and then stored for several months minimum but highly hopped beers can also have a wonderful freshness and flavour.

If it's a low hopped beer like a weizen then it's probably best drunk fresh.

Make a few styles, set some aside for ageing and see how they work in 6 months time. If they are good leave a couple more for another 6 months.

I make that sound easy - I struggle to leave most of mine anywhere close to that long although it's usually a minimum of 4 weeks before I put them in the bottle.

All things being equal (properly sealed bottles, minimum post ferment splashing, no infections etc) and temperature being kept reasonably low, sunlight not in the picture etc you should easily be able to leave the right beer beyond 12 months.

 

[Silo Ted]

the hop aroma and bitterness will settle out.

So the bitterness will drop as well as the later additions? Im about 30 minutes away from hopping a 10% porter just coming up to the boil that I wish to keep until the end of winter before cracking. Should overcompensate on the bittering ?

 

[Brewlord]

Mick,

Yet again I am no expert but from my experience, +1 for what manticle has already stated. I have about 14 doz tallies and two kegs on the go so I have the ability by default and sheer volume to not drink any batches too early. Most of mine are at the 6 to 9 month mark when I get to them. Tasting from the FG sample prior to bottling usually highlights a greater bitterness and distinct 'mixing' of flavour with no specific hop coming through. After one or two months I try one of the stubbies I get out of each batch just for comparison and then by the 6 month mark when I try the tallies, the flavour has certainly improved. The lagers generally seem to get to a point and dont really change much but as mentioned before, the ales seem to get more mellow and the hop flavour improves substantially. WRT to shelf life, I keep many onto the 12 month mark and as they are stored cool and dark they are still very drinkable. My 2c FWIW.

Cheers.

 

[manticle]

So the bitterness will drop as well as the later additions? Im about 30 minutes away from hopping a 10% porter just coming up to the boil that I wish to keep until the end of winter before cracking. Should overcompensate on the bittering ?

Bitterness is about perception. It won't necessarily drop as much as integrate - as will the other flavours. I'd work with the idea of a balance of flavours rather than trying to blindly compensate with one factor or ingredient. As long as the bitterness is in balance with the sweetness and alc level you'll be fine.

 

[Lecterfan]

Gday Mick,

I am still a bottler and have been for about 5 years (dreaming of the day I can afford a chest freezer that will hold two fermeters for CC and 4 kegs).

This is my little snippet of opinion based on my own anecdotal evidence: once I had my technique down and was able to replicate beers (not identical but similar enough) I noticed a couple of things. First, any beer I brewed needed to taste pretty good at 3 months because anything longer than that would still mellow and mature the flavour, but it didn't necassarily get much better for my taste. Nor was the change in flavour after 3 months (6-12) anywhere near as dramatic as what happenned in the first 3 months.

There are some exceptions, noticeably a very hoppy bock extract brew that I used to do, it needed 6 months to round out (see Manticle's comment about integration). Also some stouts and dark ales I have done seemed to be significantly smoother at 6 months rather than 3. Anything after 6 and I found the increments so small that they were quite possibly psychosomatic anyway.

I found that moving from K+K to all extract (i.e. unhopped malt extract, 60 min boils etc) made the difference even more noticeable - better at 1 month than the others were at 3. (And it's off topic but I found that to be the case exponentially with partials and now AG).

I hope that was some use and not just my ego waffling "to hear myself talk". :icon_drunk:

Cheers.

 

[waggastew]

+1 for doing a bit of research and saving some brews from each batch. Tonight I am in the process of brewing my 10th batch of beer (first step into steeping specialty grains courtesy of the famous Dr Smutro's Golden Ale). I have left all my brews for at least 2 months before I crack them and I have been pretty happy with the results. I don't drink alot but I just keep brewing and pretty soon you have a backlog and can be drinking older beer.

I have also set aside 3 tallies (10%) from each batch and put them into a separate 'Cellar Collection' box. The plan is to sample these over xmas, all will be 6 months to a year old. Will be interesting looking back although my 1st brew (CPA) had a few faults.

As discussed above the exception to this will be my most recent brew, a wheat/weiss/wit mongrel. From what I have read there is not much point cellaring them as they tend to fade over 3 months. I might keep one and test the theory. I have also done a Dubbel'ish brew which won't get touched for 9 months.

 

[J Grimmer]

+1 to Lecterfan, 3 month mark is where i have found most K+K beers at their peck, on the side i did find a couple of lost crates in a storage celler i had forgotten about 4 esb 3kg stout and 4 ironbark dark ales and they had mellowed alot, to the point where i reackon they were at their peak. In hindsight is that my taste evolving or the beer mellowing??? For the most part of it if i could leave beer for 3 months i found i got better head, and better beer.

Jan.

 

[kalbarluke]

For what it's worth, I find that dark beers last better than lighter beers. I have had stouts that have mellowed and tasted very nice after 12 months but light "mexican" kinds lose character after 3 months. Again though, I am mostly K + K with a bit of partials so my advice is fairly limited.

 

[fasty73]

I am finding 6 to 8 weeks is turning out great beer. Mind you I am VERY new to this and don't have any beer older than about 8 or 10 weeks. I also only brew Lagers. Some are awesome at the 7 week mark and some just taste like water.

 

[felten]

Right after you shampoo








sorry, I couldn't resist

 

[fasty73]

Right after you shampoo








sorry, I couldn't resist

hahahahaha, ummmm, I think you are...........wrong. They go down real easy. I have tasted shampoo and it tastes more like a brew that has only been in the bottle for 2 weeks LOL.