Homebrews taste better with time after they had enough time to condition and it’s not a secret, yet many homebrewers overlook the importance of this.
In this article, I will explain what actually happens during the conditioning phase and why does your homebrew taste better. I’ve been experimenting with variety of homebrewers starting with light and heavy beers all the way to variations of mead and the conditioning was the primary reason why some of my brews were spectacular.
When you give time to your homebrew to condition over time the harsh, intensive flavors will mellow and certain notes that didn’t exist before will be pushed out. This is because as the homebrew ages, the chemical reactions which otherwise can not be hasten occur.
You see, these chemical reactions don’t have to necessarily make your brew better, so it’s important to know how you are conditioning your brew, how long and what type of brews are welcoming long conditioning times.
I have written an article that will guide you through each stage, week by week so you can follow the progress.
What makes homebrew better during conditioning?
Sediment drops out (clearer beer, better head retention, and no yeast taste)
The longer you condition your beer without disturbance, the more yeast and protein particles which form the sediment will be cleared out of the beer. This happens due to the help of gravity, but it takes time before the individual particles are heavily formed and fall to the bottom of a bottle.
There are ways to hasten this process by cold crashing bottled beer or by utilizing secondary fermentation and filters before the beer is bottled. In either way whether you want to hasten this process, conditioning will naturally clear the bottle, so anywhere between 2-6 weeks is necessary for the beer to completely clear up without hastening it.
If you are interested what other methods there are to clear the beer check some of my articles that are focused on this particular topic.
In the meantime, let’s get back to how the clearer beer with less sediment makes a better beer.
Well, the sediment interferes with head formation and retention, so in order to make a nice persisting head, you’ll want a clear beer with healthy Co2 levels (or nitrogen). The head quality affects the appearance but also romanticizes the taste buds and makes the beer more enjoyable.
Secondly, sediment always affects the taste and makes the beer taste overly bready and yeast which is not welcomed in most beer styles. These flavors will mask other flavors and aromas from the malts and hops, so muddy beer indeed makes the beer taste different.
Alcohol and hops will mellow
Alcohol in brews has a harsh, aggressive flavor when it reaches high levels, so every high ABV brew has a noticeable alcohol taste when freshly brewed.
Alcohol taste doesn’t allow other flavors and aromas to come out because it’s too dominant and when you don’t let it condition it can be too hard to consume for most people whose morning doesn’t consist of a vodka shot.
Conditioning will mellow the alcohol taste and dramatically improve the homebrew, but it takes time!
The same can be said for the hops, their bitterness will also go away as time goes by, so if the homebrew is too bitter it will become nicer after you let it condition. I once did this mistake by adding too many hops during the boil and it extracted too much bitterness that only went away after a couple of months in the fridge.
Another example of how alcohol mellows with time is when you brew mead. My meads usually have around 12% ABV and when I drink them after the initial carbonation conditioning the alcohol is extremely noticeable. However, when I let the mead sit for 6 months, beautiful honey aromas get manifested and the alcohol mellows significantly.
The malt will change the taste
As time passes by, the malts will also mellow and change a bit which may surprise you quite positively. Do you know how the oatmeal or millet tastes straight after you soaked it in water or milk and how it tastes after a night in the fridge?
The taste will be different, creamy, and wet and the sugars will come out nicely. If you also mixed some cinnamon, brown sugar, or cacao, you’ll feel the entire dish somehow came together and the flavors have blended with each other.
In the beer, the malt will behave in a similar way by reacting with other ingredients, but it will it far longer than a single night in the fridge.
Yeast is a hard, long worker
Although the fundamental job of yeast is to produce alcohol and Co2 by consuming sugars, it’s not the only thing it does. During the process where the yeast eats sugars from malts, the metabolites responsible for the aroma and flavors are produced.
When the yeast continues to be active even at slower pace, it will continue some reactions which are responsible for the taste of your brew. For this to happen, the yeast doesn’t need extra sugars, so the fermentation can be completely dry, but the yeast won’t go completely dormant unless you freeze the brew.
Therefore, if there’s some mistake done by brewer in which some off-flavors occur due to small infections, the yeast may save the day and win the battle over the infection with it’s strong colonies if you give it time.
Can you ferment or condition homebrew too long?
In short, it’s possible to ferment and condition homebrew too long. Let me explain how long fermenting and conditioning times can affect beers.
- Not all beers benefit from long conditioning times, so it’s possible to hurt your beer if you condition it too long. If you age a beer that shouldn’t be aged a long time you may lose it’s flavor profile, while beers that require long aging may gain on it’s flavor profile.
- If the beer has been oxidized at any stage, the longer it ages the worse it will get and create off-flavors.
- The bad lid, cap or cork seal and quality of containers (bottle, keg, can, fermenter) in which the beer is stored can leak the Co2 or introduce oxygen.
What beers age the best?
Wheat and hoppy styles don’t age well
German and Belgium wheat beer and hoppy ale styles should be consumed as soon as possible. Wheat doesn’t like aging because it may produce sour like off-tastes while the hops mellow as they age and the intentionally hoppy beers lose their hoppy character.
These beer styles will ferment for a week and then condition for a few more weeks before they are ready. Drink these beers ASAP, ideally within 2 weeks after they have been fully conditioned. (These beers don’t last long a shelf)
Lagers and most ales age well
Lagers can sometimes take weeks to fully ferment, ales a bit shorter but in either case the conditioning phase will take anywhere from 2 months to 4 months before they age well. This is some average that will work best for most mentioned beer styles as it will allow everything to come together but the beer will still be consumed relatively fresh.
These beer styles is what most homebrewers brew at home, so except to give your next batch a few more weeks next time before you judge the bottle if you are not aging them long enough.
Heavy, high ABV beers age extremely well
Any heavy style, high ABV beer should be aged for a long time to either mellow in ABV or for the malts to reach the optimal flavor profile.
These beers can ferment anywhere from a week to three weeks, but then they are conditioned for at least 4 months and usually not longer than a year. However, there are some special beer styles that like conditioning in the barrels for over a year to extract the wood aroma from the barrel.
Will beer age in the fridge?
It’s possible to age beer in the fridge as long as the temperature doesn’t fall below 40°F. When the temperature gets too low, the yeast will go dormant and most ongoing processes will be extremely slowed or completely stopped until the beer is heated up again.
Room temperature is ideal for yeast activity which is the reason why initial conditioning in which the carbonation naturally occurs is done at room temperature. However, after that the beers are kept at lower temperature around 50°F to preserve them and slowly age them.
It’s possible to go up to 60°F when aging beers, but generally the temperature around 50°F is accepted as the optimal one which also suits most homebrewing projects.
Commercial beers are rarely aged
Every megapopular beer producer and most breweries that went commercial in your state try to push the next batch as soon as it’s drinkable, so they rarely age their beers for more than 3 weeks. The quick demand is the reason for low conditioning times and simple beer styles that don’t demand too much work. Moreover, this is also the reason for forced carbonation and making large quantities in huge batches for the same beer recipe over and over again.
I mean, when something works and makes you money you don’t need to change anything and having a single beer recipe that has been approved by the general public is all they need to stay in the business.
This is among the reasons why craft breweries are making a comeback and are becoming more popular every year. There is plenty of people who crave for a beer that takes creativity, time and technique because there’s a difference between drinking for thirst and enjoying a true craft masterpiece.