Impact of CO2 on Conditioning

Does the keg pressure or presence of CO2 dissolved in the beer help, harm, or have no effect on the conditioning of the beer?

Perhaps my question is best illustrated by example. Would the beer condition better, worse, or the same in the following scenarios:

1) 3 week primary, rack to keg, and force carbonate at room temp over 2 weeks.

2) 3 week primary, rack to keg and don't carbonate for 2 weeks (keg acting as secondary), then do a quick force carbonate with chilling and rocking (assume I can hit the carb level exactly).

Yes, I know I could just do a 5 week primary instead of #2, but that doesn't correlate as well with #1 for the sake of comparison.

No impact whatsoever.

Ok, cool. That's what I suspected but I just wanted to check with the collective wisdom.

Wow, I'm with the OP in that it seems like the carbonic acid created by carbing would have an effect based on how long it was in the beer (2 weeks vs. "0" weeks).

So what about young beer (10 days-2 weeks in primary) sitting in the keg at 45 degrees? Would you expect it to still condition?

jkpq45 said:

Wow, I'm with the OP in that it seems like the carbonic acid created by carbing would have an effect based on how long it was in the beer (2 weeks vs. "0" weeks).

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I was going to make a post about this because it seems like all of my beers, regardless of how long they've been conditioning, taste better and better every week it's on the gas.

I recently brewed a nut brown that sat in primary for 4 weeks, I crash-cooled/kegged, and let it force carb for a week. I was pretty disappointed with it at first, but now after it's been carbed for almost a month now, it's actually turning into a pretty damn good brew. Now it was probably still green and would have gotten better regardless, but I can't help but think the co2 had at least something to do with it.

Am I way off here?

The carbonic acid will cease to build when the beer is saturated to a given volume. So if you have it at 12 psi and the pressures are balanced then no more carbonation(carbonic acid) can be added.

corncob said:

So what about young beer (10 days-2 weeks in primary) sitting in the keg at 45 degrees? Would you expect it to still condition?

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Green beer is green beer, carbonated or not. Since cold temperatures slow down conditioning, the beer will still condition but not as quickly as at room temperature. If you want to age the beer a bit for conditioning, then it should be done at room temperature before chilling. Of course, cold conditioning a bit has its own benefits- smoothing out some harshness, and clearing hazy beer.

In lower OG beers, conditioning can be fairly quick and I will put a simple beer like a mild in the kegerator at 2-3 weeks old. For a higher OG, more complex beer, I'll leave it at room temperature up to 3 months and then chill. It really depends on the beer I'm making. Overall, though, most beers are 5-6 weeks old when I start to drink them. They get a bit better until they are gone!

Just keep in mind that temperature will have the biggest impact on conditioning time. It will happen more slowly under cooler temps.
-Me

I would rather condition on co2 that way its ready to go when its ready to go.

Green beer is green beer, carbonated or not. Since cold temperatures slow down conditioning, the beer will still condition but not as quickly as at room temperature. If you want to age the beer a bit for conditioning, then it should be done at room temperature before chilling. Of course, cold conditioning a bit has its own benefits- smoothing out some harshness, and clearing hazy beer.

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Not to de-rail this thread, but is there any harm in crash-cooling after 2-3 weeks in the primary, kegging, and letting that come back up to room temperature for a couple weeks to condition?

Shameless bump.

I crash cool then condition at room temp (in keg) and it turns out great.

conpewter said:

I crash cool then condition at room temp (in keg) and it turns out great.

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Cool that's what I thought...just have to ask as many noob questions as possible.