I have personal feeling, that holding the beer longer during secondary fermentation gets its taste better. The beer bottled 2 months ago is better that the same, but bottled 3-4 weeks ago. Is it true? How long you keep your beer for secondary fermentation?
Taste of beer with a time
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FensterBos
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It all depends on the style of beer and the method in which you are carbbing it. Here is my two cents on the matter:
Secondary fermentation has its benefits when dry hopping or adding fruit to your beer. That being said, after two to three weeks on the yeast cake I generally go straight to the bottle or keg. If I am bottle conditioning the beer I will wait an average of one week to six weeks to drink the beer depending on the ABV% of the brew. The higher the alcohol content the longer I let the beer sit to ensure full carbbing and to let the yeast settle down again.
I definitely see the taste of a beer improving with age, especially with high alcohol brews, but majority of the time I do not rack to a secondary fermentation since I let all conditioning happen in the bottle.
Secondary fermentation has its benefits when dry hopping or adding fruit to your beer. That being said, after two to three weeks on the yeast cake I generally go straight to the bottle or keg. If I am bottle conditioning the beer I will wait an average of one week to six weeks to drink the beer depending on the ABV% of the brew. The higher the alcohol content the longer I let the beer sit to ensure full carbbing and to let the yeast settle down again.
I definitely see the taste of a beer improving with age, especially with high alcohol brews, but majority of the time I do not rack to a secondary fermentation since I let all conditioning happen in the bottle.
I don't rack to a secondary either.
But I have increased my times from 3/3/3 to 4/4/1 as I had an IPA on it's first day taste very similar to New Belgium's Ranger, but by the time my friend stopped by to try it a week later it was nothing close. It had changed dramatically.
So now I just give them all 4 weeks/4 weeks/1 week, and I believe it makes for a little better beer in the end. And if nothing else if I call a friend and describe a beer it ought to taste like that by the time they come over.
Right now I have had 2 beers sitting past their 4 weeks primary as I had a collapsed lung and need to take it easy. My friend across the street has been working some mean hours (14 hr days) and so they sit back there taunting me...
But I have increased my times from 3/3/3 to 4/4/1 as I had an IPA on it's first day taste very similar to New Belgium's Ranger, but by the time my friend stopped by to try it a week later it was nothing close. It had changed dramatically.
So now I just give them all 4 weeks/4 weeks/1 week, and I believe it makes for a little better beer in the end. And if nothing else if I call a friend and describe a beer it ought to taste like that by the time they come over.
Right now I have had 2 beers sitting past their 4 weeks primary as I had a collapsed lung and need to take it easy. My friend across the street has been working some mean hours (14 hr days) and so they sit back there taunting me...
Depends on the style and how it was brewed. Many wheat styles, IPAs, Berliner Weisse, etc should be consumed young. Also if your brewing process creates off flavors, a longer primary can dramatically improve the beer. Bigger more rich beers can benefit from extended ageing too.
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