Conditioning / Force Carbing Question

I've been brewing beer for a while, but all my batches to date have been ales which were bottled (thus all my batches are at room temperature until time to throw it in the fridge before drinking).

I am building my kegerator and had some questions. I am going to have a 2 tap set-up with a third gas hose coming off my manifold for force carbing while I still have the other 2 kegs at serving pressure.

When I take a beer out of my fermenter (1 week in primary and 2 weeks in secondary), it is still green. I was planning on then putting this beer into a keg and hooking it up to 12 psi for a couple weeks. Will it continue to condition (and become less green) even once it is refrigerated? For some reason I assumed it had to be at fermenting temperature to condition. These couple weeks would be nice if I could force carb and condition.

I'm going to say yes, it will continue to condition.
By condition, I mean, the flavors blend and generally taste much better.
It's the 'the last pint tastes better than the first' phenomenom.
I'm sure you've heard that you can force carbonate at a much higher level than you'd server at, then after a few days lower it, and serve. I started off doing that, but I've stopped because the longer you wait the better it tastes.

dleonard said:

I'm going to say yes, it will continue to condition.
By condition, I mean, the flavors blend and generally taste much better.
It's the 'the last pint tastes better than the first' phenomenom.
I'm sure you've heard that you can force carbonate at a much higher level than you'd server at, then after a few days lower it, and serve. I started off doing that, but I've stopped because the longer you wait the better it tastes.

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Thanks! That sounds like exactly the plan I want.

Just to be clear, what do you think of my standard brewing timeline:
Primary Fermenter - 1 week
Secondary Fermenter - 1-2 weeks
40* and carbing in keg - 1-2 weeks

I'm aware that some beers will take longer, but this is what I'm expecting for any wheat beers or brown ales to be drinkable. My IPA's will take longer I'm sure.

if your using ale yeast i would say no it will stop conditioning. when the yeast get cold they will shut down and go to sleep and stop conditioning the beer. at best they will condition the beer VERY slowly.

TipsyDragon said:

if your using ale yeast i would say no it will stop conditioning. when the yeast get cold they will shut down and go to sleep and stop conditioning the beer. at best they will condition the beer VERY slowly.

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Yeast has nothing to do with it. By this point, they should be pretty much dormant anyway.

I prefer to let my kegs sit out at room temp for at least a week (or more, depending on the beer) to help speed the conditioning along. You can be carbonating during this time if you've got a dual body regulator.