I put my NB Belg. strong golden in my secondary yesterday and noticed that they recommended 2-3 months. I currently only have 1 secondary fermenter and am feeling a tad cheap in not wanting to buy another secondary fermenter. Is 1 month going to be sufficient or am I being too cheap?
Only you can tell for certain by tasting the beer, but I’d guess a month will be fine. Or just bottle or keg and age in the package.
I was wondering, are there any real negative affects to the end product if you age in a bottle verses bulk aging and then bottling? In my mind it seems like the consistency could be different from bottle to bottle but I don’t know my palate would be good enough to detect any minor differences.
In my experience with belgian golden strongs and tripels, yes a long aging period is needed (but this can happen in the keg if you keg) but you can actually visually see when the conditioning is complete. Once the beer drops bright, it is suitable for consumption. So if you have a carboy tied up, if your beer behaves the same mine does (that’s a big IF!) you can watch it clarify and then package it as soon as it’s ready without tying up a fermenter unnecesarily.
They age fine in bottles too. I did a 10.2% tripel saison last year that has really come alive recently. Bottled in feb 2012.
My rudimentary understanding is that with big beers (like BGSA’s), you are looking for the alcohols to oxidize a bit (you don’t want an OXIDIZED cardboard beer, but over time, the little bit of O2 in the bottles/brite vessel will react with the alcohol).
This allows what is at one point, harsh alcohol ‘heat’ on the palette to become a pleasant mild sweetness. In beers with darker malts, subtle dried fruit comes alive more (prunes, raisins), whereas many beers with light malts, apples/pears and other deliciousness will come alive.
The trip saison was hot this summer, but by election night had become a great beer. Too bad I was impatient and drank all but a 12 pack or so!
I was wondering, are there any real negative affects to the end product if you age in a bottle verses bulk aging and then bottling? In my mind it seems like the consistency could be different from bottle to bottle but I don’t know my palate would be good enough to detect any minor differences.[/quote]
Nope, no real difference.
At the risk of disagreeing with Denny the obvious advantage to bulk aging is it’s really hard to lift a 5 gallon carboy to sample, while the bottles sit on the shelf silently mocking the brewer tempting him/her to sample.
One nice thing about bottle aging ( if you have more willpower than myself) it’s amazing to track the evolution of a batch over time.
[quote=“flytyer”]At the risk of disagreeing with Denny the obvious advantage to bulk aging is it’s really hard to lift a 5 gallon carboy to sample, while the bottles sit on the shelf silently mocking the brewer tempting him/her to sample.
One nice thing about bottle aging ( if you have more willpower than myself) it’s amazing to track the evolution of a batch over time.[/quote]
Yeah, it’s hard to lift a carboy, but it’s easy to sanitize and use a turkey baster to draw a sample.
Hmmmm, I’ll have to ponder this one. After drinking an old ale entirely too soon, I’m much more disciplined and can age things in the bottles for years if needed.
On the other hand, perhaps it’s time I stop being such a cheap skate and get another carboy. I have a 5 month old and need to get as much high gravity beer brewed this winter as I can!
