The taste of forced carbonation VS keg priming

I have my three cornys and my CO2 tank. I'm still collecting my reg's, valves, nossles and "such".

2 Questions:

If I take my beer from my secondary (10 days) and into my keg, will the taste of the beer be different if I force carbonate (agitate) than if I prime with DME and let sit for three weeks?

If I move my beer from my Primary to my keg after 1 week, do I need to forego the priming process (because there is still active fermentaton going on) and plan on force carbonating? Or do people open the keg after the secondary process is complete and prime and seal?

I don't want to ruin a batch of beer because I didn't think through the details...

At six weeks from start of ferment, they will be so close in flavor as to not matter.

Generally, I hold off on kegging for 7-14 days after the end of the ferment to allow the brew to clear. I add primer if I made a kit & they included it. Otherwise, I force carbonate before serving.

I haven't noticed a trend in either direction. I did a Rogue Shakespeare Stout clone and prime/conditioned it - the result, after a month and a half, was very similar to the same batch which I did months ago and forced. I think the main difference (from kegging and bottling) comes in the magic of batch aging. I find batch (ie keg) aged beers, forced or conditioned, to be noticeably better than bottle-conditioned beers. Just my humble opinion!!!

I haven't noticed a difference doing something similar as opposed to bottling. I let wort sit in primary for two weeks, then rack to keg. I pressurize it up with CO2 and then bleed it off a couple of times to get the O2 out. Once I'm certain the O2 has been removed, I'll pressurize it up to about 8 psi, enough to seat everything. Then, the hard part...wait. In the past I've not done this and have drank some pretty green brews. After pressurizing to 8 psi, I'll let the kegs sit out, room temperture, for two more weeks. On the fifth week, or when I have some more room in the kegerator, I'll put one in and put it on gas around 12 psi and let it sit another week at least, for cabonization. The trick to this method is that you need to brew way ahead of time so that they can sit for at least 5 weeks. Anything less will result in some harsh pirate style ale. I have found that letting the brew set out for up to 4 weeks in room temperature versus two weeks in the kegerator made a huge difference. Conditioning at room temperature is way better.

My typical strategy is to brew 10 gallons and split between two kegs. I purge both and give each a shot of gas at about 35psi. One I leave out at room temp for a few weeks and the other, after shaking furiously, goes on tap so I can sample as it progresses. This way I get to taste the aged beer in addition to being able to get into it early. :cross: