What is the highest temp to age a Russian imperial stout?

I'm planning on brewing a RIS maybe the next month and I was thinking of leave it in the secondary for a couple of weeks and then pass it to a keg and leave it at room temp for a few months. The thing is that my average room temp is around mid/high 80s F (say 84-88).

Is this an acceptable temp for aging a RIS?

Some parts of the aging will happen faster at a higher temp. From my understanding, oxidation will happen faster but the parts that are usually associated with the beer getting better do not necessarily happen faster so there isn't an advantage to aging in the higher temps.

That being said, low 80s isn't out of control hot. I'd prefer low 70s but if thats not an option I don't think the low 80s is going to cause a huge problem unless you already have an oxidation or infection problem.

While temp is not as critical for aging as it is for the active fermentation phase, I would still recommend keeping it cooler--about 70-75F. Is there a cooler part of your home, like a basement or crawlspace? If not, could you store it at a friend's place that would be cooler?

The other alternative is to set up a swamp cooler. Set the fermenter in a large, open container of water and drape an old towel or t-shirt over the fermenter. Run a small fan on it and evaporation will cool the fermenter several degrees. You will have to replenish the water often.

Thanks WhamFish, I'm thinking of kegging the beer and replace the air with CO2 (about 5 PSI) to reduce the chance of oxydation and leave it in my closet maybe until winter.

JorgeGautier said:

Thanks WhamFish, I'm thinking of kegging the beer and replace the air with CO2 (about 5 PSI) to reduce the chance of oxydation and leave it in my closet maybe until winter.

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yea I think thats your main concern, if you can use CO2 I'd try to make sure there was as little oxygen as possible at every part of the process post primary.

MaxStout said:

While temp is not as critical for aging as it is for the active fermentation phase, I would still recommend keeping it cooler--about 70-75F. Is there a cooler part of your home, like a basement or crawlspace? If not, could you store it at a friend's place that would be cooler?

The other alternative is to set up a swamp cooler. Set the fermenter in a large, open container of water and drape an old towel or t-shirt over the fermenter. Run a small fan on it and evaporation will cool the fermenter several degrees. You will have to replenish the water often.

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I'm from Puerto Rico so with luck the coolest part of my house is about 84-88. I do have a mini fridge where I ferment my beers but I don't want
to keep it occupied for so long.

Do you think aging at this temp will produce off-flavors or worst?

There is a nice podcast from basic brewing where they stuck the same beer in like a 95 degree attic for a long time while keeping others in chilled temp. I cant remember all of the details they discussed about the differences between the two but you could download and listen to it. Might give you some general insights into what to expect.

Where can I download it?

JorgeGautier said:

Thanks WhamFish, I'm thinking of kegging the beer and replace the air with CO2 (about 5 PSI) to reduce the chance of oxydation and leave it in my closet maybe until winter.

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I went higher than 5psi for my RIS that is aging in a corny right now. Two reasons:
1. 5psi is a small amount of co2 that will get absorbed into the beer and the pressure won't last
2. Might as well carbonate while aging, so use a carbonation chart to find the right psi to set it to. Remember that you'll need to add co2 as it gets absorbed by the beer.

JorgeGautier said:

Where can I download it?

Click to expand...

Here http://ec.libsyn.com/p/9/8/5/9859f6...1ce3dae902ea1d06c88630d2c15f6676&c_id=2836982

Thanks

Bass used to age their pale ales by leaving the casks unprotected outdoors for a year, so go figure! Most likely what some consider badly kept others think is the whole point of aging.

Dr. Charlie Bamforth from UC Davis published a while back about the correlation of temperature to beer staling:

"Temperature apart from oxygen levels, the single most important factor impacting the shelf life of beer is heat. The accelerated aging regimes described earlier speak to the relevance of Arrhenius. Observation that the rate of a chemical reaction increases 2 to 3 fold for each 10C increase in temperature. Thus a beer that develops clear stale character after around 100 days at 20C, will have aged in around a month at 30C or a day at 60C. Equally, the shelf life will be enormously increased in refrigerated beer. It is important to stress that the nature as well as the extent of flavor change differs depending on temperature, presumably because of different rates at which the various reactions occur. Thus Walters et al (1997b) found that raising the temperature from 0C through 25C to 40C had a disproportionate effect on the loss of iso-alpha-acids from beer and on the levels of furfural developed."

Breweries spend a huge amount of money to ship beer refrigerated for a reason.

I guess aging a Pale Ale at that temp will be more risky than doing it to a RIS, besides I see no point in aging a Pale Ale...

The reason I made this thread is because I saw that a lot of recipes for big Imperial Stouts required a few months of aging, so I guess that instead of aging 5-6 months at 70 F I could do 2 months at ~85 F... I know it may not be the best practice but is it doable?

What you guys think?

(sorry for the resurrection) I brewed an RIS back in March. Racked into a keg, sat in my house through the summer till October, now on tap in my cooler. It's oxidized, with plenty of sherry taste. I'm absolutely livid. I was very careful about any oxygen pickup and made sure to rack to keg with Co2. The house did get pretty warm through the summer --its possible the beer could have been hovering around 80-85 degrees for extended periods of time. This is my 4th attempt and failure at extended aging. Don't really know what to do.

grimstuff said:

(sorry for the resurrection) I brewed an RIS back in March. Racked into a keg, sat in my house through the summer till October, now on tap in my cooler. It's oxidized, with plenty of sherry taste. I'm absolutely livid. I was very careful about any oxygen pickup and made sure to rack to keg with Co2. The house did get pretty warm through the summer --its possible the beer could have been hovering around 80-85 degrees for extended periods of time. This is my 4th attempt and failure at extended aging. Don't really know what to do.

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Age cold? I think the reaction kinetics increase 4x for every 10 degrees F you increase.

I either temp controlled freezer age (whatever i want but usually lagerish range) or basement (60F) condition my kegs. No oxidation problems..... just yesterday I cracked a Belgian Dark Strong that had been down there 14 months.... no oxidation.

Of course your kegs could be leaky or you could not be purging them properly but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.