Maturation

[timbowden]

Hi All,
i've recently done my first AG (Hurrah!) and it was an Adnams clone. After fermentation a day or so after kegging i tried some just to check and it did'nt taste great :sick: I thought that it was off! Anyway i left it a few more days and tried again. Still very sour tasting although now it was a bit more like bitterness. I kept trying it evryday as i was sure it was off and aslo because about 1/2 an hour after each tasting i felt sick! :sick:
I was a bit annoyed, especially as it was my first AG so i left it to start a few kit beers :evil:
Well, its been about 4 weeks now since its been in the keg and WOW what a difference! The sour/very bitter taste has changed to a more rounded Adnams style bitterness and no sick feeling :party:
So my question is how long should we leave beer for its best taste (bitters not stouts) and how long do breweries let their beers mature for? :hmm:

 

[Aleman]

Most breweries produce running beers, From FV to cask to pub as quickly as possible . . . Apparently Beer tastes best fresh :wha: A good general rule of thumb is to store the beer for a week for every 10 points of original gravity. so a 1040 beer should be stored for 4 weeks . . . minmum. . . . However there is nothing to say that they cannot be drunk earlier than that :whistle: Indeed the way the beer taste changes with time is interesting to note.

I've an imperial Stout that I have been maturing for 12 months so far, and based on the QC sample I had a couple of weeks ago, it needs around another year.

 

[timbowden]

thanks AM, i'll bear that in mind for my Big Kenny thats recently been kegged :thumb:

 

[bones]

to get the beer in condition is there a minimum temperature for the yeast to work?

Its getting colder now... what do the brewery's do?

I brought a keg to the house a while back to lift the temperature and had a spillage through to much gas.

I would like to be sure it will condition outside in the shed