A lot of Head Space in Secondary - purge or keg?

[MagicMatt]

Hello!

I have a situation I keep muddling over, and I would like to get some outside opinions from some of y'all.

I have a Nut Brown Ale (Northern English style) currently in secondary (6g carboy). It is in a temp controlled chest freezer at 65*F. It was in primary for 5 days, and has been in secondary for exactly 2 weeks. I want to have the beer conditioned and ready for consumption on 9/28. My initial goal was to leave it in secondary to age until 9/14, then cold crash, transfer to a keg and force carb / cold condition until 9/28.

The problem is there is only about 5.25 gallons of beer in the 6g carboy, leaving a pretty decent amount of headspace (I'd say around 5-6" from the beer to where the carboy starts to curve in). Thus, my initial concern is about oxidation. I know more CO2 is released during secondary, and that it's heavier than air so it should form a blanket over the beer, but I can't help but from worrying about the level of oxygen that has been in there, and what it could be doing to the beer.

So I keep going back and forth between 3 ways to handle this: should I stick to the original schedule and disregard any O2 that may be hanging in there; purge the secondary with CO2 from my tank and maintain schedule; or just cold crash and keg now?

I know kegging now makes more sense, but being a darker ale I want to age it as much as possible, and I know this happens faster at higher temps (thus my wanting to keep it at 65*F longer).


I know I'm definitely over-thinking it, but help me out here. What would you do?

P.S. As an aside since no one here knows me, and in case it makes any difference in your suggestions: I'm extremely anal about things like precision and sanitation, etc. I'm only on my 4th AG batch, but I've narrowed in on the processes very well. Aside from the headspace issue, this beer has been meticulously brewed and cared for. I want to do what's going to be best for the beer, not easiest for me. Thanks again!


THANKS!!

 

[LLBeanJ]

Keg it. Purge the O2 and let it age at room temp in the keg until the 14th as you planned. There's no better solution for bulk aging than a keg, IMO.

 

[Yooper]

Keg it. Purge the O2 and let it age at room temp in the keg until the 14th as you planned. There's no better solution for bulk aging than a keg, IMO.

If it's a nut brown, it's probably not in need of more aging- but I agree with the "keg it" suggestion. I'd keg it, and probably go head and stick it in the kegerator to start carbing up. I mean, the beer is already nearly 3 weeks old, and probably not in need of any aging to mature further.

 

[MagicMatt]

Keg it. Purge the O2 and let it age at room temp in the keg until the 14th as you planned.

This is what I originally was going to do, but I want to cold crash the fermenter before transferring, so as little sediment gets into the keg as possible. I know it really doesn't matter, but it's a personal preference. I'd rather cold crash the carboy so my beer goes into the keg at serving temp and I can start carbing it.
So the solution would be to crash, transfer to the keg, purge, then let it come back up to 65*F for another week, then crashing again. This just seems a bit much to me.



But I do think I will take y'alls advice and keg now, and just go ahead an crash before kegging. I realize now that the few days I'm missing on aging won't be that substantial.

Thanks a lot for the quick replies!!! I'll be kegging shortly.

 

[MagicMatt]

So the solution would be to crash, transfer to the keg, purge, then let it come back up to 65*F for another week, then crashing again.

Now you've got me thinking...... How does what I quoted sound to y'all? Are there any pros or cons to cold crashing twice? Would there be any negative effect on the beer quality or taste?

I know letting it come back up to aging temp for just a week is pretty pointless, but what about longer term (if I wanted to cold crash and get it out of secondary, but age much longer)?

 

[LLBeanJ]

No harm in cold crashing before kegging, then letting it warm up to age for a while before finally putting it on tap.

 

[MagicMatt]

Sweet, thanks!