Aging Beer

I have been brewing for about a year now and have moved from extract to AG, bottling to kegging. I want to start building up a pipeline and letting my beer age more so my question is what is the best way to age beer? Keep in secondary in a carboy? Keg/carb and let sit? Sit in celler temp or in my keezer?

Need to determine if I have to get more carboys or kegs.

Get more kegs. When you have a spot in the keezer put it in chill it down and enjoy. Oh just age at room temp.

+1. With kegs being around the same price as glass carboys might as well age in them. Don't need airlocks but might want to release some pressure if they weren't completely fermented out

beerman0001 said:

Get more kegs. When you have a spot in the keezer put it in chill it down and enjoy. Oh just age at room temp.

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Nothing like a room temp beer cellar. I'm working on mine now Buy more kegs!!

Ok, so kegs are the way to go for aging. Should I carb or just let it sit uncarbed (or whatever carb was left from any unfinished secondary frem)?

What are you aging in them? Many beer styles won't change much with aging but if you're just trying to save them, then kegs are the way to go.

Just carb up the keg and let it stand upright at around 50-55 degrees. The pressure with keep it fresh and sanitary for well over a year.

I have a question regarding this as well. I see the general concensus is to use kegs and I really like that idea, but I have questions on how to actaully age in kegs?
1) Do you purge the O2 with CO2 and leave with a little pressure to make sure the keg stays sealed? (some of my kegs don't seem to seal up without some pressure on it.)
2) I assume the beer will continue to build pressure, so how do you know how much pressure to add in the purge or when to release pressure?
3) the question has already been asked about carbing or leaving it sit, I would like to know that as well
4) How long can it stay in keg? assuming they stay sealed.
Thanks in advance for your help.

1) Seal the keg and purge the O.
2) It will not continue to build pressure unless it is infected or you are naturally carbing it.
3) Up to you I would go ahead and naturally carb it so when it is time to hook it up it is ready to go.
4)Years.

In this case I want to age an imperial brown ale which had an OG of 1.075, figured it could use some conditioning time.

On a side note, this beer (extract, partial mash) had a target FG of 1.016-1.019. I had vigorous fermentation for about 3 days and after a week it was 1.023 when I transfered to secondary. A week later it is sitting at 1.022 so I figure that it is not going to drop much more. Is there anything that I can do or is this close enough?

With an original gravity that high I would have let it sit on the yeast cake for atleast 3 weeks before I even took a reading, let alone transfer it. When you rack it you are taking it off all the yeast that have the potential to keep working and clarifying your beer, as well as clean up all the by products made during fermentation.

New2Brewing3 said:

I have a question regarding this as well. I see the general concensus is to use kegs and I really like that idea, but I have questions on how to actaully age in kegs?
1) Do you purge the O2 with CO2 and leave with a little pressure to make sure the keg stays sealed? (some of my kegs don't seem to seal up without some pressure on it.)
2) I assume the beer will continue to build pressure, so how do you know how much pressure to add in the purge or when to release pressure?
3) the question has already been asked about carbing or leaving it sit, I would like to know that as well
4) How long can it stay in keg? assuming they stay sealed.
Thanks in advance for your help.

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1) Yes. Purge the O2 with CO2.
2) It will not build pressure unless you add priming sugar and don't force carb. Apply gas until it fills the head space (you don't hear the gas flow). Purge, then gas it again.
3) If you are force carbing, make this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/how-make-cheap-psi-guage-226115/ or buy one from williams brewing. Now, hit it with 30 psi at room temp. The CO2, will be absorbed into the beer since it's flat. After 24 hours or so, the pressure will drop to almost nothing since the CO2 is in the beer. Hit it again @ 30 psi. Do this daily and test with your handy dandy guage until it stabilizes @ 30 psi. You're done! Put it in a fridge, cellar, basement, where ever.
4) They won't go bad after years but depending on the style, some improve with age. APA's, IPA's, Wheats, should be drank fresh since they lose their style characteristics over time. Bitters, Stouts, Strong Ales, Dubbels, Trippels, Barleywines, Lambics improve with age and can peak at a year or more.

breez7 said:

With an original gravity that high I would have let it sit on the yeast cake for atleast 3 weeks before I even took a reading, let alone transfer it. When you rack it you are taking it off all the yeast that have the potential to keep working and clarifying your beer, as well as clean up all the by products made during fermentation.

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That serves me right for following the instructions!

Anyways, what (if anything) can I do now?

Jsbeckton said:

That serves me right for following the instructions!

Anyways, what (if anything) can I do now?

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There are tricks you can do at the beginning of the process that will help to get higher attenuation (more yeast, pure oxygen or add something like Fermaid-K) but I don't think there's much you can do at this point. Pitching the proper amount of healthy active yeast is what I do to ensure I get close to the FG when brewing high gravity beers.

I had a great starter so I don't think it was that. Maybe just the extract. I have a english bitter in the primary, think I will rack the brown ale onto that yeast cake when i transfer it to secondary.