How to age your brew for a year

I'm looking to do an old ale and age it for a year and possible put some sour cherries in part of it after the year. How do I age it? Can i just do it in a carboy secondary? Can this be at room temp for the year? Does it have to be in a keg where I can purge the oxygen?

Thanks for your help.

Limiting the exposure to oxygen is in your beer's best interest. Some oxygen will permeate the carboy/bung/etc, but beers of these types (old/aged) tend to have some oxidation notes as part of their flavor profile. Limit as much as you can though.

You should fill a carboy as full as possible, block the light, and forget about it. Room temp, or between 50-65F will be fine.

Keg would be better - no light...

Lastly, DON'T drink it until the year is up.

I've got my year old doppelbock fully aged now.

Secondary with little headspace is optimal, keep it out of the light, you're all good. I would add the cherries now, then let it smooth out over the year.

Here is a link to some info on stoppers and oxygen permeability that I had remembered someone else posting a while back.

http://www.mocon.com/pdf/optech/Closures%20-%20Oxygen%20Passage%20Study.pdf

As far as temperature goes, generally you want to age at cellar temperatures (50-55F), if possible.


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Uh, wait a year. Next question!


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Very interesting article on oxygen permeability. Makes me wonder if aging in the carboy is a bad idea.

Plastic keg works OK, I've done it before and don't have a means to purge with CO2 so I primed a little and burped it a few times. If your cap has a safety valve you might want to replace it with one that doesn't and it's worth covering the tap - a bit of cling film or something just to stop spiders trying to live in it.

Step 1: don't drink the beer.
Step 2: repeat step 1 every day for a period of 365 days.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit! Or get drunk. Same thing.

Sorry, bumping an old thread. Is aging in a fermentation bucket ok? Or should it be a key or glass carboy?

Thanks

TorMag said:

Sorry, bumping an old thread. Is aging in a fermentation bucket ok? Or should it be a key or glass carboy?

Thanks

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Options include

• Use correctly filled secondary vessel (a bucket is not suitable owing to its permeability to air and massive headspace/beer surface area)
  
• Use a keg, carbonate the beer in your preferred manner and store. It will remain sealed and fully carbonated indefinitely. If you just fill and don't carbonate the beer the keg will lose its seal and potentially spoil your beer.
  
• Age the beer in bottles.

Correctly filled secondary vessels.

Incorrectly under-filled one.

Buckets are great if you like acetic acid. Otherwise, carboys or kegs are your best bet. I prefer to age my sours in carboys filled to the neck with a bag over them.

Gavin C said:

Options include

• Use correctly filled secondary vessel (a bucket is not suitable owing to its permeability to air and massive headspace/beer surface area)
  
• Use a keg, carbonate the beer in your preferred manner and store. It will remain sealed and fully carbonated indefinitely. If you just fill and don't carbonate the beer the keg will lose its seal and potentially spoil your beer.
  
• Age the beer in bottles.

Correctly filled secondary vessels.

Incorrectly under-filled one.

Click to expand...

Much better than my post.

Thanks for the quick response. So if doing five gallons, would want a 5 gallon glass carboy.

TorMag said:

Thanks for the quick response. So if doing five gallons, would want a 5 gallon glass carboy.

Click to expand...

If you choose to employ a secondary vessel for the aging, yes. It should be sized to match your batch size.

Aging for a prolong period in bulk will likely require fresh yeast at bottling. Not a big deal but something to factor into your decision making.

Here is a good choice for that.



Unless you plan on adding fruit/wood to the beer for the secondary phase my preference would be to age the beer in the bottles/keg. But to each their own.

I will be kegging. Just don't have a keg to dedicate to a long age. I guess I could always get another.

TorMag said:

I will be kegging. Just don't have a keg to dedicate to a long age. I guess I could always get another.

Click to expand...

Always can use more kegs.

Best solution for your needs I think.

Particularly if it means having to buy product anyway that you can offset against a decent used keg. AIH has good deals on kegs and there is always the HBT for sale section.

• 5 gallon carboy
• Bottling yeast
• Extra time and effort needed.

You can never have too many kegs.

I am too new to this obsession. Wait a year? REALLY?

I could be wrong but I think it was Hemingway who said, "The only thing I cannot resist is temptation."

jr72023 said:

I am too new to this obsession. Wait a year? REALLY?

I could be wrong but I think it was Hemingway who said, "The only thing I cannot resist is temptation."

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Usually for big beers, think stouts, barleywines, etc.

Gavin C said:

Always can use more kegs.

Best solution for your needs I think.

Particularly if it means having to buy product anyway that you can offset against a decent used keg. AIH has good deals on kegs and there is always the HBT for sale section.

• 5 gallon carboy
• Bottling yeast
• Extra time and effort needed.

You can never have too many kegs.

Click to expand...

Thanks gavin for the knowledge, i am now starting to realize this as i make more beer, now need to make shelf in fridge better

jr72023 said:

I am too new to this obsession. Wait a year? REALLY?

I could be wrong but I think it was Hemingway who said, "The only thing I cannot resist is temptation."

Click to expand...

A year is nothing. I've got beers in the fermenters that are coming up on 2 years (most are getting bottled around the 2 year mark one will remain for a full 3 years until fall of 2017 before blending). I've got beers in bottles from as far back as 2010 and 2011. Granted all the really old ones are sours/Brett beers. But I've got a clean beer (Quad) from 2013 in bottles, with plenty left over.

Gavin C said:

Options include

• Use correctly filled secondary vessel (a bucket is not suitable owing to its permeability to air and massive headspace/beer surface area)
  
• Use a keg, carbonate the beer in your preferred manner and store. It will remain sealed and fully carbonated indefinitely. If you just fill and don't carbonate the beer the keg will lose its seal and potentially spoil your beer.
  
• Age the beer in bottles.

Correctly filled secondary vessels.

Incorrectly under-filled one.

Click to expand...

So i am rereading this and thinking, storing the beer warm wouldnt matter right? So basically if i had enough kegs going i could finish one grab an "aged" one and bingo, am i right, because the timing thing with one keg seems to be holding me back and most beers seem better after a little time in keg no?

No warm is generally not good. Some reactions will go a lot faster at warm temperatures and some that wouldn't go at say 65F wouldn't accelerate at 75 or 80F. Also I just note that unlike bottles, kegs leak. Be careful

55x11 said:

No warm is generally not good. Some reactions will go a lot faster at warm temperatures and some that wouldn't go at say 65F wouldn't accelerate at 75 or 80F. Also I just note that unlike bottles, kegs leak. Be careful

Click to expand...

Last night as I posted this I started thinking about staling of beer at warm Temps. That's why people use keezer's right?