fermenter to keg and back?

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teamhzrdpball

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Like the title says. Has anyone racked from their fermenter to a keg before realizing they want to then go back to the fermenter to let the beer ferment down a bit more?

I brewed a maple brown porter with an OG around 1.065. It had a fast and active fermentation with s04 yeast and after 3 days airlock activity stopped. A few days later I racked to a keg and took another gravity reading and it was 1.03. I know I should have done this beforehand, but got a tad impatient. Either way, its been in the keg for a few days and I think I want to send it back to the carboy and repitch a yeast to finish it up. Has anyone done this, and if so do you have any tips? Do you reaerate the beer? Because that sounds like a bad idea, but would the yeast not do their thing without that initial oxygen?

(The beer does taste good as is, though I think it would benefit from fermenting down to about 1.017-1.02ish)
 
If it were me I would leave it in the keg at room temperature then check the gravity after a week or two and see if it's any better. If yes you can then rack it to a new keg to get the beer off the yeast. I've done this successfully in the past.

Definitely don't re-aerate at this point. You'll only oxidize the beer.
 
If it were me I would leave it in the keg at room temperature then check the gravity after a week or two and see if it's any better. If yes you can then rack it to a new keg to get the beer off the yeast. I've done this successfully in the past.

Definitely don't re-aerate at this point. You'll only oxidize the beer.

That's what I was thinking. There is nothing magical about a carboy- beer can ferment as easily in a keg as in a carboy.
 
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