Home of the BrewNosers

Me again...

Looking fwd to Saturday as it's bottling day for my first batch.

As I've mentioned before, I did purchase a kit for my first go-round and I have a question about what temperature I should leave the bottles in for carbonation. The directions say 'room temp', my intention was to set the bottles up in a darkened room in the basement...which can feel cool at around 18 degrees C. Is 18 an ok temperature to condition or should I bring it up some in the room?

Sorry for the multitude of questions...hopefully won't have as many after this first batch.

Yep. It may take a few extra days but it will happen.

Sandy

You need it to be at a temperature that the yeast are happy in so that they will eat the extra food (bottling sugar) you just gave them. Room temperature is generally considered to be 68°F or 20°C which would be a touch high for a lot of yeasts for primary fermentation, but no problem at all for conditioning (you're not generally as worried about ester production at this point). If your basement is 18°C (64ish °F) it might take a day or two longer than it would at 20°C but it'll be fine. Regardless of temperature I find most bottle conditioned beers I've done haven't been ready until 2.5 - 3 weeks after bottling. Also, especially if you start sampling at 2 weeks, you'll want to give any bottles you open a good 4-6 hours (better overnight) in the fridge to give the yeast a chance to drop out and CO2 to dissolve as much as possible into solution.

Thanks!