Bulk age or bottle age.. that is the question

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RIC0

RIC0

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Gonna make up a RIS 5 gallon batch in the next month and was wondering if it's best to bulk age or do it in bottles??

I've got about 40 bottles aging now but wonder if I should bulk age on the next batch?

Current coconut stout went 5+ weeks before it was bottled and has sat since then. Still needs to age.

So the question is bulk aging better than bottle aging and if so why??
 
For a big fat RIS, I like to bulk age for 4-6 months. Longer if you can stand it. They aren't going to be great until 9-12 months anyway so if you have the carboy space that is where I would do it. You may also get a more consistent batch this way vs bottles.

The only concern with a long bulk age in secondary is oxidation. I like to put a CO2 blanket on top (from my kegging setup) and then seal it up good with an airlock. Just have to remember to top up the airlock every month or two.
 
Definitely. Even though I've kept a high gravity stout in primary for like 2 months, it's still much safer to rack to secondary after a couple of weeks of primary.

I couldn't tell you why bulk aging is better than aging in bottles. Seems to me it would be better to get the beer in bottles and carbed up rather than running the risk of not having enough viable yeast to do the job. The high gravity beers can be deadly to yeast. You might need to add fresh yeast at bottling time if all the yeast in the secondary are dead.
 
not that long, racking to secondary for long term storage is ideal. you will start to get off flavors from the dead yeast if you are going for 6 months.
 
Bulk age, then bottle age. If you so desire you can bulk age in the primary ON the yeast for a long while. I wont tell you how long exactly but Ive bulk aged on the yeast for 7 months with no ill effects (autolysis or other bad flavor boogeymen).
 
I was thinking along the lines of 2-3 months in primary then off to bottles for 4-6 months.

Which is the same thing I plan on doing with my Tripel that is currently in a primary.
 
Biohazard said:
not that long, racking to secondary for long term storage is ideal. you will start to get off flavors from the dead yeast if you are going for 6 months.
Click to expand...

That's highly unlikely, especially given the experience of many members around here. In the years I've been on the forum, I don't think I have read any threads that were actually the result of autolysis.

That being said, I wouldn't intentionally leave a beer in primary for that long.
 
The only reason to not use a secondary for that long is out of concern that racking the beer will somehow infect it. If you worry about that, then perhaps you should be worried about all of the other times you handle the beer.

It's true that some of us on here leave beer in the primary for a few months and don't have issues. But why take an increased chance on autolysis? There is enough residual yeast in the secondary to do any cleaning up, and anyway I don't know that leaving beer on a layer of dead yeast is really doing anything to help it. Likely any improvement in the beer is going to happen in secondary too, and without a chance of introducing unwanted flavors.

Well, that's my opinion FWIW.
 
Primary for a month maybe two then xfer to secondary for aging for several months, then finish off with a bottle aging.

That is how I would do it.
 
Homercidal said:
The only reason to not use a secondary for that long is out of concern that racking the beer will somehow infect it. If you worry about that, then perhaps you should be worried about all of the other times you handle the beer.

It's true that some of us on here leave beer in the primary for a few months and don't have issues. But why take an increased chance on autolysis? There is enough residual yeast in the secondary to do any cleaning up, and anyway I don't know that leaving beer on a layer of dead yeast is really doing anything to help it. Likely any improvement in the beer is going to happen in secondary too, and without a chance of introducing unwanted flavors.

Well, that's my opinion FWIW.
Click to expand...

I do it both ways, depending on my pipeline and if I want to free up a primary.

OP, if you do xfer to secondary make sure you leave as little head space as possible and/or flush the carboy with C02
 
i recently had a delicious RIS (1.070 ish...not my brew) that was in the primary for 5 days and then bottle aged for 8 months. i had the same beer at 4 months and it tasted about the same. i also had it at 4 weeks and it was not good.
 
Yeah for a 1.070, 4 months would be great. I have a 1.105 (12%) that is starting to mellow nicely (8 monthis since brewing). Another 4 months and it should be great. I hope to slowly consume this batch over 4 yrs.
 
I’ve pulled unused mason jars of yeast slurry from the fridge after six or more months. I always top with sterilized water and seal them before going in. Sometimes they’re fine, but other times, after six months to a year they smell pretty rancid. Certainly nothing I’d want in contact with my beer. It’s fair to say that if they were at room or even cellar temperature this would be worse. Because of the large volume of beer being aged, you might not ever detect the off flavor, but just knowing that the funk will be down there is enough to make me rack before aging.

If done properly, transferring beer is not the boogeyman.
 
Unless there's something I'm not thinking of, bulk aging in a plastic/metal/glass container does nothing, and you might as well bottle unless you added something to the fermenter.

Leaving it on the yeast for a little bit allows the diacetyl to go down (if any exists), and leaving it in a fermenter longer allows it to clear (if it's not), but that's all. I'd rather have an open fermenter for a new beer, and limit accidents to a bottle of beer than have a fermenter occupied and if something happens to it, entire batch gone.
 

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