Beer conditioning in kegs?

So I realize the most important part of bottle conditioning is to let the beer carbonate. But I was under the impression that it also ages and the flavors become better to a certain point over time as well. I am looking into what is involved in the keg setups and I see one big advantage is that you don't have to wait as long for your beer since it is being force carbonated. The big question I have though is how is the taste of the beer affected if it has not had time to age and allow flavors to mellow out and blend? I appreciate the info.

 

I set my co2 and wait two weeks which is about the same as bottling. So I think I am getting the same maturation as a couple weeks in bottles.

 

For beers that need aging, say a big stout or something, I purge and seal them with a blast of CO2 then let them sit at room temp.

 

You could also naturally carb in keg and leave it be.

 

The refermentation that occurs during bottle carbonation cleans up some fermentation byproducts (acetyladehyde, diacetlyl) if primary was cut short. When kegging it is more important to give the yeast time to clean up in primary.

Stable SG readings and the beer visibly clearing is how my beer tells me when it's ready to keg.

 

Does bottle carbonation really clean up byproducts or does it produce more? From everything I've read the clean up phase is maybe a day or two after primary fermentation is done. If there's off flavors then that's probably a result of high temperatures or other factors.

It takes a few weeks no matter if you bottle or keg. You can carbonate quicker in the keg with high pressure but the end result is that you still need a week or two before the flavors balance.

 

Acetyladehyde and diacetlyl can be cleaned up while fermentation is still active, by raising the fermenter temp at the end of the process. They should clean up in bottle conditioning.

• When bottle conditioning the yeast is available as long as you need it for cleanup.
  
• When kegging you are going to remove most of the yeast very quickly (cold crash and tap it off). If beer has these two defects before kegging - it will take a long time to age out in the keg.