Secondary fermentation, or age in keg, or chill in keg, or...?

[jhnmdahl]

I have a couple beers sitting in glass carboys right now, one is an imperial stout with a 4-6 month aging time and one a "holiday" red ale with a 4-6 week aging time. Both are still sitting on their original yeast beds, and have been done with primary fermentation for a week or so.

Brewing instructions from Northern Brewer recommend moving to a secondary fermenter for the remainder of the aging time, and then kegging or bottling. Modern wisdom seems to be not to move the beer out of the primary fermenter until you're ready to bottle, as oxygen exposure poses a greater risk than sitting on old yeast if properly pitched.

My question is, why not move the beer to kegs now, carbonate enough to remove any oxygen and then mostly depressurize the kegs, and let the beer sit in kegs for the coming weeks/months at normal fermentation temperature? It seems like I'd get the best of both worlds, except that I may have some additional yeast fall and come out with the first couple beers I pull from the keg. This could likely be solved by discarding the first pint, or racking the beer to another keg before chilling.

Thoughts? Thanks,

John

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Most brewers find using secondary for most brews unnecessary. If you were going to age a high alcohol beer on fruit it is helpful to move it off the trub. So, yes! Move that beer to your kegs.

 

[jhnmdahl]

I'm not going to age either on fruit, although the "holiday ale" had orange peel added at the end of the boil. My instinct says to move to kegs too - I'm just wondering if there are down sides I'm missing since it's not very common advice.

I'll probably pull a half pint once aging is done to see whether moving to a second keg is really necessary. I've also seen those floating pickup tubes that pull keg beer from the top instead of the bottom, but that may not be necessary if I let primary fermentation go for a few weeks.

 

[kevin58]

I never secondary anymore. If I want to let a beer condition after primary fermentation is finished I simply keg it, put it under pressure and leave it. I have a Russian Imperial Stout in the keezer now that I brewed back in July.

 

[day_trippr]

The only beer I use a "secondary" vessel is on my imperial chocolate stout and that's only because I don't want the half pound of cocoa nibs to sink into the trub.
Everything else goes straight from primary to keg avoiding O2 all the way.

Keg 'em and don't look back...

Cheers!