subject: Bottling Home Brew Too Soon [print this page] When I first started brewing I started asking a bunch of questions and now that I'm experienced, I'm finding that I was not alone and that many other brewers were asking these same questions...
One that I struggled with particularly has to do with fermentation and when is the right time to bottle?
At first I wasn't sure if leaving the beer sitting in the fermenter too long would cause the beer to spoil or go bad, or if it would actually benefit the beer. I guess I just wasn't sure about the shelf life of beer, and then again I had no idea why I was leaving the beer sitting in the fermenter for a certain amount of time. The instructions just said 2 weeks and I followed it to a 'T'...
Of course, I didn't just stop there. I read and re-read many books, blogs, forums and anything I could find on the topic and came across all kinds of conflicting information. The kind that makes your stomach cringe because you may have done something wrong with your brew... worse when you find out that the instructions on most kits are generic and for the specific style you've been sold! I guess these are the least of our concerns when we find out you can brew beer at home and can't wait to try it out...
Anyways, the general consensus seemed to be to ferment and condition for 3 to 4 weeks before bottling...
I only did 2 weeks and the beer came out good, which made me wonder if there were benefits to leaving the beer sitting longer... or if I could just bottle after 2 weeks and why not sooner?
Well, here's what I've found...
When you pitch yeast into the fermenter, the yeast begin to eat up the sugars. This is why SG begins to drop until you've hit your Final Gravity (FG) reading. If you were too bottle before SG stops dropping it means you still have fermentable sugars that the yeast will be eating. These leftover sugars, plus the amount of priming sugar you add can make the yeast produce more CO2 than the bottles can handle and make them explode from the pressure.
So too soon to bottle can be when you bottle before SG stops dropping.
Now the question of whether bottling right after that has many different answers so here's how you would decide. First off, when the yeast are done eating sugars (when you reach your FG) they don't just die. They continue to live and they do so by eating the by-products created during fermentation. These are the by-products that cause some off-flavors in beers such as green apple, buttery, etc.
So the beer is often left sitting in the fermenter after fermentation is complete so cleans up. However, this is not always the thing to do... some beers like Hefeweizens are preferred young and some of these by-products can accentuate the flavor of the beer. On that same note, I've had Hefe's that were left sitting and conditioning in the fermenter which tasted amazing!
So really it is a matter of preference. You may hear that 3 or 4 weeks is the perfect time, but some beers actually require more time. Your lagers or some scotch ales are often cold conditioned for long periods of time...
Some of these beers will be conditioned for 2, 3, maybe 4 months... maybe longer!
It depends on the style, and you can overdo it. It really depends on the style of beer and how long you are safe to leave the beer sitting on the yeast before the yeast begin to die and give beer a nasty and undrinkable rubbery flavor...
