I brewed my first batch and has to sit in the bottles for two weeks. After this is it ok to just leave it out or should it be refrigerated? I have 47 bottles and would need to find accommodations for them if need to be refrigerated.
You are fine to leave them out just protect from direct sun light.
Your beer may be fully carbonated after two weeks, but most of the time two weeks is to short. At the end of two weeks refrigerate one beer for a couple of days to check the carbonation level, longer for high gravity beers. If the carbonation level is right you can refrigerate a drinking supply. The rest of the bottles can then be kept at room temperature or cooler basement temperature.
No need to refrigerate, you may actually have to find a dark area in a warmer spot of the house actually if you want the bottles carbonated in 2-3 weeks. I’ve found that a lot of times it takes 3-4 weeks to bottle carb. Refrigerating before the bottles carb will likely put the yeast into a sort of hibernation instead of carbing.
I’ve actually collected some clear glass bottles and every batch of beer I bottle, I do one clear bottle. If you protect the bottles from light, it will stay good long enough for the clear bottle to serve it’s purpose… when I want to see if a batch is carbed yet, I pull that bottle out, flip it over and back upright. With practice, you can tell by how bubbly it is as to if the bottle is carbed yet. If that bottle is carbed, the rest of the batch usually is ready to go.
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Or you can bottle a 20oz soda bottle, squeeze the air out, and know that it’s carbed when it expands and the bottle is hard. This is indicative of what is happening in the bottles.
