Aging and maturing my beer

Is it ok to age/mature my beer in the refridgerator. I was doing this to allow the excess yeast settle out, or is it better to let it age at a warmer temp?

Bottle conditioned?  Usually three weeks at 68F to prime, then the cooler the better.    Warm temps and temperature swings don't do beer any favors.

No, it is still in a keg and am going to be force carbonating. Wasn't sure if it affects flavor or the aging process.

Kegging is generally easier, I think.  Once you have the flavor profile you want, you can crash chill without regard for the yeast, and carbonate with gas.  The beer will generally store better at colder temps.

MaltLicker said:

Bottle conditioned?  Usually three weeks at 68F to prime, then the cooler the better.    Warm temps and temperature swings don't do beer any favors.

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I just learned this not too long ago so I thought I would pass this on.  Slight variations over time in temp (1-5 degrees F) usually has a positive affect on a beers complexity as it ages.  Keeping the beer at an absolute steady temp works fine as well but it keeps the beer pretty much as is and doesn't add to the complexity.  The changing temps causes the yeast in the bottle to react differently over time which is what gives the beer more complexity.  My advice would be to keep it in a garage or basement where the temp doesn't go above 60F for any significant length of time.

Is that 1-5F in that "cellar" type range?  I ask b/c I had a couple batches priming in the dining room, but spring passed to summer here quickly and the house warmed to 77F.  They were done carbonating but I think the beers changed for the worse.  The hefe lost its clove, the dubbel became over-carbed, etc.

I learned the hard way to allow just three weeks to prime and then off to the beer shed at ~58F.

MaltLicker said:

Is that 1-5F in that "cellar" type range?  I ask b/c I had a couple batches priming in the dining room, but spring passed to summer here quickly and the house warmed to 77F.  They were done carbonating but I think the beers changed for the worse.  The hefe lost its clove, the dubbel became over-carbed, etc.

I learned the hard way to allow just three weeks to prime and then off to the beer shed at ~58F.

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Hmm, how long were they at 70+?  When I am carbonating bottles I always try to keep the beer as warm as I can.  I sometimes can keep them at 75F where they will carbonate within a week.  But normally my apartment is at 70F and it will take my beer about 10 days to carbonate properly. 
But this is too short of a time period for any conditioning effects to take place.  Take my garage as an example.  It's avg temp normally hovers between 55-58F, but some days it can get up to the low 60's during the day and down into the high 40's at night.  These changes in ambient temp will slowly change the temp of the beer which the yeast will adapt to thus slightly changing the compounds that they release.  The brewer I talked to broke it down to me in much greater detail, but this is the gist of bottle conditioning. 

The real trick to conditioning is to get healthy enough yeast into the bottle at the right amount.  Yeast left over from fermentation is usually too stressed to provide anything more than carbonation.  You will get changes in flavor over time but not the amount you would get with fresh and healthy yeast.  Most pro brewers who bottle condition will remove the old yeast and dose their batch with fresh yeast and sugar right before bottling.  The thing I struggle with as a home brewer is getting the proper amount yeast in for bottling.  Every time I have tried this I usually get over carbonation.  Since I have no way to remove all of the old yeast, I usually end up having too much yeast in the beer at bottling time.

I hope that rambling response helps out.

James

Many opinions on this bottle conditioning phase - In general I try to keep them at 65-72deg for 3 - 5 weeks. I think some gradual (slow) variations say from 63 - 75deg is probably ok, but you want to spend more time in the 65-70deg range. And just because the room temp got to 77deg doesn't mean the bottles with their liquid thermal mass did.

To try and dampen big or quick temperature swings I condition all my stuff in 2 huge plastic tupperware tubs, with the bottles covered in old towels and the lids snapped on. IMHO this now becomes one large covered mass of liquid. I don't have any temp data but I will try to get some. The big issue with the plastic tubs is the bottoms are not flat (bottles get tippy) - the sides slope - and they look cheap.

This Summer I will most likely make a couple of 3.5' x 2.5' wood boxes (line the bottom in thick plastic in case a bottle breaks) and put 1" foam insulation on the sides and top. That should make a more stable ageing box. In real warm weather I could see a few of those frozen blue plastic things dangling from the lid.

I'm hitting 66-68f to hit prime within 3-4 weeks, back when I was using and stuffing all of the beer in 6 pack cases or even wine doggy bags i'd place them in a shady box near my house, the temp regulation was unbelievable...65-70 MAX, so so ideal. Good luck!  ;D

http://boozebin.com/

I also tried to keep the temparature in the 60 to 70F range to prime and took care that it won't be over 70F. I am quite a newbie but it sounds interesting that temparature chanages could add to the complexity of the beer. This seems to leave some room for experiments. I'll see how things go for me and hope that I am going to get good home brewed beer.

beerfreddy said:

I also tried to keep the temparature in the 60 to 70F range to prime and took care that it won't be over 70F. I am quite a newbie but it sounds interesting that temparature chanages could add to the complexity of the beer. This seems to leave some room for experiments. I'll see how things go for me and hope that I am going to get good home brewed beer.

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I want to point out that complexity isn't gained over the priming phase (unless you consider carbonation into complexity).  The complexity comes over long periods of time where the yeast in the bottle slowly uses up left over sugars, oxygen, and other molecular structures and the left over sediment clears into the bottom of the bottle.  For most of us these slight changes in temp will happen naturally over the course of months and years.  But if you were able to maintain your beer at 55F for a year, the flavor would be pretty close to what it was when you first carbonated it.