Age a quadrupel bottled from keg?

[Mikey_Dawg]

I have a Belgian Quad in the secodary right now reaching the end of week 2 (2 weeks primary, hit FG on the dot, 2 weeks in secondary).

I am about to have a free spot on my kegerator and was debating kegging the beer, carbonating, and once the beer is ideally carbonated bottling some 220z bottles off the keg for longer term aging. Most of the beer will probably be consumed within 1 year of bottling but I would like to save at least 2-4 of them for multiple years.

I plan to use Oxygen barrier bottle caps which are recommended for 1+ year storage.

I just started kegging this year and have bottled a few off the keg that I have been told came out well after 1-2 months of storage (they were gifts) but am not sure if the beer will hold carbonation for 6+ months to a couple years.

Anyone have any experience with this? Would I be better off just bottling them from the secondary and adding priming sugar for long term storage?

I've debated just bottling the entire 5 gallon batch as well... anyone got any experience on this?

 

[cvstrat]

Why risk it? Just bottle the entire batch. Frees up a keg and guarantees you won't run into any issues down the road from keg bottling.

 

[itsme6582]

Go buy another keg and bulk age the current batch for a year. You can carb it up and take it off the gas. Hook it back up to check the pressure once a month or so and you'll be golden. If you've got the room in you kegerator for an extra keg you could even pour a drink from it once in a while to "check" it.

You could also try a beer gun. It will come in very handy in the future too.

 

[rycov]

the carbonation that you loose initially is the only amount that you would loose, provided the bottle is sealed all the way, but it should be sealed all the way everytime you bottle. what ever level of carb it fades down to after a day or however long it takes should be the same level you have no matter how long you store it.

 

[jmo88]

the carbonation that you loose initially is the only amount that you would loose, provided the bottle is sealed all the way, but it should be sealed all the way everytime you bottle. what ever level of carb it fades down to after a day or however long it takes should be the same level you have no matter how long you store it.

^^^^This. If you already have a successful method to bottle from the keg, you're fine. You won't lose carbonation. Now whether or not bottle conditioning and storing at cellar temps help age the beer differently than force carbing and cold storage is another thing. There's no real risk, it just might age differently, not necessarily better or worse. Once it's in the bottle just store it cold.

 

[Mikey_Dawg]

This is the setup I am using to bottle from my kegerator...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f41/bottling-wand-perlick-525-75-aka-bowie-bottler-228344/

I basically fill to top and let it foam over and cap it immediately. So far I feel that the method if pretty solid but I wasn't sure if the carbonation level would decrease from 1 month to 1 year and so on.

 

[scoundrel]

Go buy another keg and bulk age the current batch for a year. You can carb it up and take it off the gas. Hook it back up to check the pressure once a month or so and you'll be golden. If you've got the room in you kegerator for an extra keg you could even pour a drink from it once in a while to "check" it.

You could also try a beer gun. It will come in very handy in the future too.

I totally agree. It's not like school days where you pump oxygen in a keg and it goes stale in a day. The CO2 will protect it for a long time. Jamil Zainasheff said he had a 5 year old scotch ale that took gold and was aged in a keg for five years.

I have several kegs with aged beer that will last for years. I carb it to 30psi warm and put it in my cool basement. So I don't have to constantly hook it up once a month, I made a gauge from a 100psi gauge from the hardware store, tubing and a gas ball lock. If it dips below 30psi, I gas it, if not, I leave it for another month.

 

[beaksnbeer]

Or bottle what you want and keg the remaining No worries

 

[Mikey_Dawg]

Or bottle what you want and keg the remaining No worries

Well this is what I planning to do... just trying to decide if it would be better to keg the entire batch, let it carbonate, and then bottle, say, 1/2 the batch off the keg or if it would be better to bottle 1/2 the batch up front.

I've never bottled a fraction of a batch but I guess if I did exactly half I could just cut priming sugar in 1/2 and roll with it. Thanks for the advice guys, just need to make a decison I suppose.

Part of me wonders if the kegged part will be too green to drink anytime soon and if I should just bottle them all... decisions, decisons.

 

[scoundrel]

I wouldn't mess with priming sugar at all. If you are going to bottle, do from the keg. You can control the carbonation and no sediment.

 

[finley]

I bottle from my kegs all the time. If I do it correctly no carbonation loss that is noticable. I have several that were bottled from kegs that are 6-8 months old now and are great.

My biggest piece of advice is to freeze the bottles, and make certain to thoroughly chill your bottling setup before you start bottling, it really keeps the foam down, and that keeps the carbonation in the bottle.