First batch problems.

[moosehead]

Just tasted my first bottle of evil one from brewdemon and something is wrong.
I fermented for 3 weeks. And put one bottle in the fridge after a week from botteling.
At they time none of the bottles seemed firm. There was a little give when I squeezed them. The bottle in the fridge seemed to get s little softer after 3 days in the fridge. I tasted it and it was not good. Almost no carbonation at all and it didn't taste right at all.
I checked the other bottles and now they are rock hard.
Not sure what to do now? I thought that I read somewhere that if the bottles get to hard you should crack the top to let out a little of the pressure. Should I do that? I'm using the adtoc bottles that came with the brewdemon kit.
Looking for any help I can get started this point.

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[bpgreen]

Welcome.

A week isn't really long enough. Two weeks is probably about the minimum and three to four is even better. I haven't bottled in years, but when I did, I built up a pipeline so that I could leave the beer in the bottle at room temperature for a couple of months before refrigerating for a week or two.

Some people say that there's no benefit to cold conditioning, but usually only people who've never tried it. I used to think that, until I had to suddenly go out of town on business and left a couple of beers in the fridge for a week.

There's no need to release any carbon dioxide from the PET bottles unless they start to bulge.

[Kealia]

Agreed with bpgreen. Personally, I think it's good that you tried one 1 week after priming because it makes it easier to be patient going forward.

It's not unheard of for bottles to carb in one week, but generally two would be considered minimum. Even now, I would space out when you try them so you can keep comparing how they are over time.

I'm guessing the one you tried was pretty sweet?

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[Dawg LB Steve]

Agree'd 1 week is absolutely not long enough, need to be kept at 70-75 degrees to condition for generally 3-4 weeks. I'd bet the off taste you are getting is acetaldehyde which is kind of green apple and cidery, it is an example of a young beer seems prominent in HME's more than other methods, this too can be caused by not conditioning long enough, not giving the residual yeast enough time to clean up the priming sugars. My two pennies!

[moosehead]

Agree'd 1 week is absolutely not long enough, need to be kept at 70-75 degrees to condition for generally 3-4 weeks. I'd bet the off taste you are getting is acetaldehyde which is kind of green apple and cidery, it is an example of a young beer seems prominent in HME's more than other methods, this too can be caused by not conditioning long enough, not giving the residual yeast enough time to clean up the priming sugars. My two pennies!

70-75 degrees? Maybe that's my problem. The room I'm keeping them in is 60-65 degrees.


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[John Sand]

When I first brewed, it was winter, the house was cool and the yeast worked slowly or not at all. I searched for a warm place to carb the beers. I found several: next to the baseboard in a cardboard box, which I turned every day; on top of the hutch (warm air rises) and next to the oil heater, off the floor. At that time I tested temperature variations using a cheap wall thermometer, just leave it there for a while. Now I use an infrared, which reads instantly.

[BlackDuck]

When I used to bottle, I would wait three weeks before putting them in the fridge. I kept all mine in the basement, which usually averaged about 65 degrees. It would get close to 70 in the heat of the summer. I never had any issues. You'll be fine at your temps. It might take a few days longer though, compared to if you could keep them at 70 to 75. Just give them some more time. After the three weeks, I would used put a couple in the fridge at a time. Eventually, the beer got to where I thought they were really good, at that time, usually about 5 to 6 weeks after bottling, I put all of them in the fridge. Since I liked where they were at, the cold temps would slow any further conditioning and keep the flavor profile where I liked it.

To give you a little perspective on time: I no longer bottle, I keg all my beers. With kegging, I'm force carbing the beer, or pushing CO2 into it to create carbonation. In your process, the yeast left over in your beer go through a "mini" fermentation in a closed environment when additional sugar is added, which produces the CO2 that carbonates the beer.

Even now, with kegging, I let the beer sit on the gas a week before pouring, and sometimes it still needs another day or three to be right where I like it. A natural process is going to take longer than force carbing. Just have to give those yeasties a little more time to create the CO2 when naturally carbing.

I totally agree with Kealia in that it's good you tried one now. Now you know what an undercarbed and underconditioned beer tastes like. This is all part of the learning process, you are doing everything right!!

[RickBeer]

Your beer carbonates at room temp. When you put it in the fridge after a week, it wasn't done carbonating (or conditioning), and you experienced the result. In my opinion, tasting a beer at one week is simply a waste of a beer.

Ideally, you want to go 4 weeks at 70 or higher. If it's 65, I'd go 6 weeks. If it's 60, I'd go 8 weeks. I'm just rough guessing here, the bottles should be ROCK HARD. Then refrigerate for at least 3 days to let the CO2 to be reabsorbed into the beer. Then taste.

[Kealia]

Uh-oh, here we go again

https://youtu.be/JV-m9bJTrh8?t=140

[BlackDuck]

Now that's funny!!!

[John Sand]