Bulk aging or bottle aging for big beers

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Frost

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
71
Reaction score
0
I've got a belgian abby that is going to come in around 10% ABV. I plan on aging it for around 8-9 months before trying it. Should I bottle it around 2 months and age it in the bottle or should I age it in the secondary for 6-7 months before bottling? Or does it matter? Thanks in advance.
 
bottle it. Just my 2 cents. The risk with bulk aging it is that the yeast will go dormant and you will have to re-pitch in order to bottle carbonate.
 
You can bulk age in secondary for a couple of months without the need/worry about re-pitching.

I would bulk for a couple months in secondary so the flavors sort of marry each other together in a larger volume, then bottle it and condition for several more months.
 
I would definitely bulk age it for a few months (3-4 if it were me) and then bottle and age for another few months.

I bulk aged my Wee Heavy (1.089 OG) for 6 months and had no trouble getting it to carb up in the bottle.
 
That's kinda what I was thinking too. I didn't want to have to re-pitch the yeast. Thanks for the advice!
 
Back
Top