Keg conditioning temperature

I finally have some brews on tap with some ready to keg. I dont have to rush my next batch, so for the ones almost ready I want to condition them for a better taste. Can I just keg them and put them in my kegerator and let them age or do they age better at room temp?

Reason for doing this is Id like to sample the product every once in a while to see if quality improves.

I put it in the keg after its done fermenting, hook it to the gas and put it in the keg fridge at about 36 degrees. I let it age there for however long I want. Others may do it different but this works for me.

Treat kegged beer just like you'd treat bottled beer and you can't go wrong. Beer is beer--- it doesn't really care what kind of container it is in.

But what im asking it does it age better at room temp or can I chill it and it will still age?

You will get varying opinions on that question.

I age mine @45 degrees. What you will discover is that every different beer has a different length of aging that it needs. I notice that cold aging stretches this out a bit. Maybe 3 weeks instead of 2......or 6 weeks instead of 4. If you want it to age faster age it a higher temps.

You should not age beer abouve 68 degrees.

kornkob said:

Treat kegged beer just like you'd treat bottled beer and you can't go wrong. Beer is beer--- it doesn't really care what kind of container it is in.

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If this is true, then do you "prime" beer your kegging like you do with bottled beer?

JnJ said:

If this is true, then do you "prime" beer your kegging like you do with bottled beer?

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I can't speak for Kornkob, but you can do either. You can add priming sugar and let it carb naturally or you can just hook it up to the tank and let it force carb. Most people who keg probably force carb but some may naturally carb too.

Kegging lets you choose--- you can carbonate the same as bottling. However, many folks who keg choose to use CO2 pressure to carbonate. Some 'force' it by overpressuring the beer, thus getting the beer up to 'fully' carbonated in a couple days.

However, I carbonate using pressure but I don't overpressure the beer. Beer absorbs CO2 at whatever pressure you apply to it. Overpressuring isn't required and I don't reccomend it because the beer still needs time to age after fermentation anyway. I put the keg under service pressure for the 3-4 weeks that it needs to mature anyway--- when that time is done the beer has started to come into it's mature flavor and is properly carbed.

kornkob said:

However, I carbonate using pressure but I don't overpressure the beer. Beer absorbs CO2 at whatever pressure you apply to it. Overpressuring isn't required and I don't reccomend it because the beer still needs time to age after fermentation anyway. I put the keg under service pressure for the 3-4 weeks that it needs to mature anyway--- when that time is done the beer has started to come into it's mature flavor and is properly carbed.

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Yes, but some of us age in the Carboy. When it's ready, it's ready.

Age in carboy, then rack to keg, then force carb and then drink, for me.

The some of you are not aging your beer correctly.

Carbon Dioxide mixes with the beer and forms several compounds. Carbonic Acid being one of them. Your beer needs these compounds to be able to age properly. These compounds help with the mellowing by acually destroying unwanted flavors and mellowing other flavors. The compounds are acids after all. Carbonation also changes the PH of the beer which also affects aging.

Do you think you can age wine uncarbonated and then shoot some co2 to it and drink it right away? Is cheap wine in a box good?

kornkob said:

Treat kegged beer just like you'd treat bottled beer and you can't go wrong. Beer is beer--- it doesn't really care what kind of container it is in.

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This is what Ive been doing. I keg the beer, hit it with 20 psi or so and throw it in the same closet I used to put my bottles in to let it age.

I recall a post a while back saying that beer needs CO2 to start the aging process.

I prime all my kegs.

I don't hook up the CO2 until I have to. I like "cask conditioned ale"!

Also, you save a bunch on CO2, and I think I get a creamier head from priming.

But as with most things in life "Youe mileage may vary"

dougjones31 said:

The some of you are not aging your beer correctly.

Carbon Dioxide mixes with the beer and forms several compounds. Carbonic Acid being one of them. Your beer needs these compounds to be able to age properly. These compounds help with the mellowing by acually destroying unwanted flavors and mellowing other flavors. The compounds are acids after all. Carbonation also changes the PH of the beer which also affects aging.

Do you think you can age wine uncarbonated and then shoot some co2 to it and drink it right away? Is cheap wine in a box good?

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I completely disagree and so do some award winning brewers that think aging in the bottle is not as good as aging in a carboy. Aging in the carboy allows certain compunds to disapate out the air lock.

I brew the way I like and you brew the way you like. But don't tell me I have not been aging my beer properly.

And since when does anyone drink wine carbonated other than sparkling wine?? Wine gets DE-Carbonated then aged.

Real brewers ALWAYS age their beer properly.

And they don't use bleach

Ales will age well 40-75F. Cooler means slower. I keep my kegs around 50F, becauses it's an easy temperature for me to maintain in my keg locker. Before I built the locker, they stayed in the house at 65-75F. Since I keg from the primary, my ales tend to carbonate somewhat during the aging process. I'll burp them before puting them in the kegger on pressure.

Real ale is never carbonated & some guys will fight to the death about it. Strange how women never seem to get wound-up about this stuff.

Ask wine growers the same question and the answer is always whatever the local caves maintain is the perfect and only temperature!

What's confusing here, is... people say, treat kegged beer the same as you would bottled beer...

But if I recall, after you prime and bottle beer, you have to let it carbonate at room temp. Whereas people who are kegging will track from the secondary, into the keg, and then put it into the fridge to force carb.

So in bottling, you are conditioning for 2+ weeks (after secondary fermentation) at room temp.

In kegging, you are conditioning for however long, after secondary, at fridge temp.

There is a difference there... and I think that is what the original poster was sorta getting at... what is the practical difference of these two methods in terms of taste, etc?

Carbon Dioxide is needed for proper aging.

Bottle Conditioning makes CO2. Mostly done at room temp to make the secondary fermentation , which is required to carbonate), happen faster. You can bottle condition at fridge temps but it will take a lot longer.

Keg Conditioning requires CO2. Mostly done at fridge temps. We typically force carb in the fridge since secondary fermentation is not used.


Aging takes a specific amount of time for any specific beer. Each beer is different.

Whatever the perfect aging time is for a bottled beer......the aging time is increased for a kegged beer that is cold aged. It just takes longer for the chemical reactions to happen....therefore it takes longer to age in the cold.


So.....If you want beer to age quickly.....(Kegs-force carb it) and age it at room temp.

If you want the beer to age slower so that you can store it longer before it starts going downhill.....then age it in the fridge.


I have split batches and aged them differently to see what the different aging process does. It messes with time.....but the taste of the beer is the same once it has peaked.

dougjones31 said:

So.....If you want beer to age quickly.....(Kegs-force carb it) and age it at room temp.

If you want the beer to age slower so that you can store it longer before it starts going downhill.....then age it in the fridge.

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Good point. That raises another question, though: if you keg, then put in the fridge to force carbonate, then remove from the fridge to condition more rapidly at room temp, do you hurt the flavor by going from warm>cold>warm>(ultimately)cold? If not, I don't see why everyone wouldn't just do this instead of leaving it in the fridge to condition. Well, other than the fact that you can drink it while it's still conditioning hehehe

You do not have to cool the keg to force carbonate it. It just takes more pressure to carb a warm keg. Force carb it warm if you are going to age it warm. Force carb it cold if you are going to age it cold.

Temperature fluctuations will degrade the beer. So you are right.....you do not want to go cold-warm-cold-warm etc.


I just hook my kegs up for a few seconds every night with the regulator set at the correct pressure according to the temp of the keg. After a few nights I usually notice that the regulator does not release any co2 when I hook it up. That means it is carbed correctly.


Get a good carbonation chart so that you know what you are doing........................http://www.ebrew.com/primarynews/ct_carbonation_chart.htm

Good call. thanks

Interesting thread... i am pretty new to all of this still with 7 batches under my belt. My basic approach with a keg system has been to primary in a bucket and then secondary in a carboy and let it condition there as well. So usually 1-2 weeks primary in bucket and 2-4 weeks secondary in carboy including any dry hopping. After that point i move to a keg, bleed the o2 out and put it to about 15 psi. Then i disconnect from gas and store at room temperature until i am ready to drink. I understood it could age in a keg at room temp for a month, two or more before i carbonate. Once i figure i am a week away from drinking the keg i get it into the fridge and set the PSI for my target and let it force carb.

I drank batches 1-3 and they were decent. 4 is on tap, 5 aging in a keg and 6 and 7 sitting in secondary right now... So far so good but i am looking for any advice to improve my process.

Thanks!!

Let me throw a little curve ball in here….
After primary I like to keg it up, put about 20lbs on it and if it’s the right time of year, I do what I call VTC (variable temperature conditioning). I put the keg outside and out of direct sunlight, when daytime temps do not exceed 70° and lows are above freezing. My thinking is that the conditioning of beer is similar to the aging of bourbon (both grain based). Variable temperatures (like the aging of fine bourbon but on a much shorter time frame) facilitates the melding and mellowing of flavors. Beer is so alive! I have found that by allowing the temp to very slowly rise and fall during conditioning the I get the best expression and balance of my home brew.

mAle Man said:

Let me throw a little curve ball in here….
My thinking is that the conditioning of beer is similar to the aging of bourbon (both grain based).

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bourbon absorbs into wood staves and also evaporates...

Just to get in on the necromancy…and to provide information for people who come across this thread while searching whether or not beer needs to be carbonated before aging:

Carbonating beer will lower its pH, though I suspect not by all that much. It’s at least theoretically possible that this will influence the chemical reactions involved in aging.

On the other hand, there will be absolutely no chemical reactivity of the dissolved carbon dioxide or the carbonate ions: they are pretty much totally inert.

Purging the keg of oxygen is doubtless more important than either of the above.

gonzoflick said:

But what im asking it does it age better at room temp or can I chill it and it will still age?

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I keg condition fairly often I seal the keg with CO2 then leave it at room temp for 10-15 days.