I have been brewing a pale ale from kit nothing else has been added as sits only my second attempt at homebrew. I bottled it last week. How long should I leave it before sampling?
It will need 2 weeks @ +19°C to carbonate.
Sure you could have a oul' sample now if you're curious but try leave a few to age a bit :P
its always good to taste your beer through out the whole process, id recommend maybe having a bottle a week, but the beer wont be ready for at least 3 weeks at room temp, it always amazes me the difference some conditioning time makes, i remember i made a beer and i drank the whole batch in about 2 weeks, then i found a bottle after 4 weeks and stuck it in the fridge and was blown away by how much better it was with some conditioning time.
My last pale ale I thought was a disaster after 2 weeks. After 4 I was very happy with it.
Often yeasts get a little strained in primary and produce off flavours, these can be unpleasant. However these by-products are then consumed by the same yeast when the fermentables are consumed.
Its very common (i did it many a time), of rushing a beer, trying to squeeze it out in 2 weeks, once visible primary bubbling is over, but an extra week or 10 days does wonders after primary is finished.
Majority of my beer I would drink between 3-5weeks but recently I did a bitter that had a very young off flavour to it. Tried it for the first time since the rds this week and it is a totally different beer. So ageing does make a difference but balancing that with drinking it is the hard part cause most of us only brew one batch in advance
Quote from: beerfly on September 25, 2014, 11:52:46 PM
Majority of my beer I would drink between 3-5weeks but recently I did a bitter that had a very young off flavour to it. Tried it for the first time since the rds this week and it is a totally different beer. So ageing does make a difference but balancing that with drinking it is the hard part cause most of us only brew one batch in advance
iv been good and have built up a nice stock, problem is i havent got a big enough fridge to put them in when they are ready :'(
Quote from: Phil on September 25, 2014, 12:01:48 PM
I have been brewing a pale ale from kit nothing else has been added as sits only my second attempt at homebrew. I bottled it last week. How long should I leave it before sampling?
No expert but when I was doing kits I got in to a routine of doing them once a month and then left the for about two months on top of the two week carbonation period. I found beers done over the winter were great as I stored them in my shed and the cold bottle condition ing did wonders for the beer.
Shanna
Kits made with liquid malt extract will take a lot longer to condition than AG beers. I found that most of the kits I did took about 2 months to condition fully. Probably not what you want to hear, but the only thing to do is to increase your capacity by getting more bottles and sticking another kit on.
Oh that's interesting. I do extract brewing and always wondered why it's taking two months before I get decent head in my beers. I wonder would ag fix it... *excuses excuses* :)
Why does LME take longer to condition. Is it acetaldehyde or something else?
Quote from: Bubbles on September 26, 2014, 09:32:39 PM
Kits made with liquid malt extract will take a lot longer to condition than AG beers. I found that most of the kits I did took about 2 months to condition fully. Probably not what you want to hear, but the only thing to do is to increase your capacity by getting more bottles and sticking another kit on.
2 months once in the bottle? I want to start AG Beers but need to learn a lot more as I have only been doing LME. Was also thinking that I might start growing my own hops