Aging in the corny...

OK folks, I'm sure this has been hit on before, and I apologize. Searching 10 pages or search results didn't supply me with what I was looking for.

I've got a Dogfish 90min IPA clone that was in primary for 1 week, today hits 1 week in secondary dry hopping. I'd like to allow it to age more (at least a month). In your opinions...Should I transfre to a tertiary carboy to age, or put into keg to age? To me keg aging would be nice to cut down on cleaning, tranfer time, etc etc etc.

Also, if aged in the keg, do I let it sit on CO2, or just put it in the cleaned/sanitized keg and let it age (other then the CO2 to clear out the oxygen in the keg)?

Thanks all.

Kilted Brewer said:

OK folks, I'm sure this has been hit on before, and I apologize. Searching 10 pages or search results didn't supply me with what I was looking for.

I've got a Dogfish 90min IPA clone that was in primary for 1 week, today hits 1 week in secondary dry hopping. I'd like to allow it to age more (at least a month). In your opinions...Should I transfre to a tertiary carboy to age, or put into keg to age? To me keg aging would be nice to cut down on cleaning, tranfer time, etc etc etc.

Also, if aged in the keg, do I let it sit on CO2, or just put it in the cleaned/sanitized keg and let it age (other then the CO2 to clear out the oxygen in the keg)?

Thanks all.

Click to expand...

Depends on your capacity and desire to get to the next brew.

DFH90...I'd say it needs a few months to get smooth.

I'd prefer to let it sit in the secondary and let the yeast continue to "clean" up after itself. How long does the recipe call for the dry hop?

Not knowing the details and just going from my gut???

Leave in the secondary for another week with the dry hop. Remove the dry hop and let sit another 2-3 weeks. Rack to a keg, purge the headspace with CO2 and let continue to condition (room temp) for another month. Then…chill the keg for 48 hours…charge it at 30PSI for 48 hours…set PSI back down to 10 and give it another 2-3 days and enjoy.

If you can't tie up your secondary that long...rack to the keg right after pulling the dry hop and condition in the keg.

Yeah, I find the search function medicore at best.
I's leave it in the secondary another week, and then rack it to a keg, purge the headspace of O2, and let it condition, or put it on gas, and let it go for another 3-6 weeks after racking to the keg.

BierMuncher said:

Depends on your capacity and desire to get to the next brew.

DFH90...I'd say it needs a few months to get smooth.

I'd prefer to let it sit in the secondary and let the yeast continue to "clean" up after itself. How long does the recipe call for the dry hop?

Not knowing the details and just going from my gut???

Leave in the secondary for another week with the dry hop. Remove the dry hop and let sit another 2-3 weeks. Rack to a keg, purge the headspace with CO2 and let continue to condition (room temp) for another month. Then…chill the keg for 48 hours…charge it at 30PSI for 48 hours…set PSI back down to 10 and give it another 2-3 days and enjoy.

If you can't tie up your secondary that long...rack to the keg right after pulling the dry hop and condition in the keg.

Click to expand...

This was kind of the way I was leaning myself. Recipe called for only a week on the dry hop.

What I've got going right now is a stout 1 week in primary (6gal), the IPA in secondary (5gal) and one more empty 5gal carboy available. I'll probably let the stout sit another week in primary before transfering so it would be at least another week till I brew a new batch.

These will be my first batches using kegs, so I'm a little ansy. Guess the next batch will need to be something not requiring a lot of aging time!

Glibbidy said:

Yeah, I find the search function medicore at best.
I's leave it in the secondary another week, and then rack it to a keg, purge the headspace of O2, and let it condition, or put it on gas, and let it go for another 3-6 weeks after racking to the keg.

Click to expand...

I'd do the same. Or, if I was in a hurry to free the fermenter, I might throw it in the keg immediately (since there's still probably a moderate amount of yeast in suspension to keep cleaning things up a bit during conditioning) and dry hop it in there again, using a hop bag zip-tied to the dip tube or whatever - provided you've got the hops and bag and whatnot. For a DFH90 clone, I'd think the more dry hopping, the better.