Secondary or keg

[Brett3rThanU]

I brewed this RIS a couple weeks back and in the thread it seems like most people racked from primary to secondary after a month. I normally never use a secondary in my beers, but am a little weary of leaving it in the primary for 3 months so was considering racking it to the keg at the 1 month mark, adding the priming sugar, then letting it sit at room temp for a few months.

Would it be better to rack to the secondary? Is there a difference in bulk aging in the keg with priming sugar vs. normal secondary?

 

[noggins]

keg that sucka. secondary is for weenies.

 

[m00ps]

the keg can be the secondary. You can jump to a serving keg if you really want, but I dont hink its necessary

 

[Subdivisions]

Secondary in the keg is much better since you can purge the headspace with CO2. You could also fill the keg with CO2 before racking to get the least amount of oxygen in the beer. Since you're priming in the keg it'll be carbed up when it's ready to go.

 

[pshankstar]

Secondary in the keg is much better since you can purge the headspace with CO2. You could also fill the keg with CO2 before racking to get the least amount of oxygen in the beer. Since you're priming in the keg it'll be carbed up when it's ready to go.

Just to make sure I understand this correctly. The beer could be left in the keg which it did the secondary fermentation and served from it once it's chilled. Is that correct? Therefore there is no need to move it from the current keg to another one. Just making sure, b/c this interests me and I'm still learning!

 

[Warthaug]

High gravity brews, such as the one you just completed, require additional ageing to give the yeast time to clean up the many off-flavours which tend to be produced during stressful (i.e. high-gravity/alcohol) ferments. It is unlikely that this beer will be ready for packaging for several more months. However, at the same time, you also want to separate the beer from the yeast cake/trub once the majority of fermentation is complete, in order to reduce the risk of autolysis off-flavours. Hence, a secondary ferment is almost certainly required.

For the secondary ferment you will want it in a container relatively impermeable to oxygen - a carboy or keg being good choices. Some fermentation may still continue, so an airlock (or other pressure-release mechanism) should be included. You do not want to begin pressurizing/carbonating the beer at this point, as you can actually drive the formation of additional off-flavours (esters, and to a lesser extent, fusel alcohols) with excess CO2 at this point. Likewise, you want to keep this at fermentation temperatures to ensure the yeast continue to work the beer.

If you secondary in a keg, you can simply cool and force-carb the beer after a few months - ageing will be complete, and the yeast that settled during ageing will simply pour off in the first pint or two. If you use a carboy you'll obviously need to package once ageing is complete. If carbing by adding sugar you may need to re-yeast the beer, as the remaining yeast may not be present in enough numbers or healthy enough to carbonate the beer. Champaign yeast is a good choice for this as it has a neutral flavour profile and only ferments basic sugars (i.e. corn sugar), and thus will not further attenuate your beer.

Bryan

 

[RmikeVT]

I brewed this RIS a couple weeks back and in the thread it seems like most people racked from primary to secondary after a month. I normally never use a secondary in my beers, but am a little weary of leaving it in the primary for 3 months so was considering racking it to the keg at the 1 month mark, adding the priming sugar, then letting it sit at room temp for a few months.

Would it be better to rack to the secondary? Is there a difference in bulk aging in the keg with priming sugar vs. normal secondary?

I haven't read much about this on this forum and it doesn't seem that too many people have had problems with it or if folks have had a problems they haven't really mentioned it, but I've had issues with infections in kegs while conditioning beers in them at room temp. Another fellow homebrewer friend of mine has had the problem too.

My theory is that there are just a lot of nooks and crannies in a keg for bugs to hide in and no matter how hard I tried to clean and sanitize with oxiclean and StarSan I wasn't getting everything. I brewed a RIS back in February and knew I wanted to let it age in a keg on oak, so I decided to boil up 1.5g of water and dump in the keg and shake about and flip upside down for a a few minutes to let the steam and heat do its job. Well its September and I have 10g of RIS sitting in two seperate kegs and I will probably tap in another month or so, and last time I tasted no infection off-flavors, just delicious flat beer....Just some advise from a guy doing the same thing.

And to answer your original questions, I think you are fine going from one month in primary to a keg for conditioning. Just make sure you get that thing sanitized real well. In fact, I think it is the best option, just pump in some CO2.

 

[Gavin C]

Rack to keg, carb it up in the usual way (force carbing in your preferred manner)

You now have 1 5-gallon bottle (keg) of ideally carbonated RIS.

Then let it age in the keg. The keg can be put anywhere at a temperature you want. I suppose cellaring temperature would be ideal but I don't have that facility. Room temperature would be the next best.

No light no oxygen can penetrate. This is ideal. You also get to sample it throughout the aging with ease should you wish to do so.

 

[chickypad]

I age in kegs pretty much exclusively for a number of reasons - single transfer, ability to purge and seal, easier storage for me than glass and I'd rather not age in plastic. Whether priming with sugar or not I hit it with a burst of pressure to seal after purging - with a little keg lube on the lid ring mine always stay sealed. The only downside I've ever seen is tying up a keg - solved if you accumulate enough kegs!

 

[cooper]

+1 on kegging, setting your serving pressure at 12psi, your temp at 40F, and letting it sit in your keezer for the next couple of months.