Aging in Keg?

[toadfuller]

So up until recently I have been bottling all my brews. With my last one, I have just started kegging. Currently I have a nice stout I am about to rack onto some sour cherries. Normally after bottling, I would leave that in the bottles for a good 3-4 months for the flavors to develop.

Do I not need to do this for kegged beer? How do the flavors develop if you don't age them? And if I do age it, do I just put it in the keg, and forget about it for a few months and then force carbonate it?

All these questions...

 

[day_trippr]

A keg is just a big bottle, and can be treated as such. You could age in your fermenter before kegging and carbing, you could keg now, age in the keg and carb later, you could keg and carb now and age after. Your call.

fwiw, in similar situations I prefer to tie up a carboy for months rather than a keg. I might refill a keg a few times while aging a stout for a couple/few months...

Cheers!

 

[highgravitybacon]

A keg is just a big bottle, and can be treated as such. You could age in your fermenter before kegging and carbing, you could keg now, age in the keg and carb later, you could keg and carb now and age after. Your call.

fwiw, in similar situations I prefer to tie up a carboy for months rather than a keg. I might refill a keg a few times while aging a stout for a couple/few months...

Cheers!

Or you can transfer the beer before it's fully fermented and let it finish fermenting in the keg, thus trapping the CO2 and carbonating the beer with it's own juices. It's like basting a turkey.

You don't have to get too precise, but if you want to get fancy, do a forced ferment test to see the limit of attenuation. You get 1 volume of CO2 for ever 2 gravity points (.002) so if you wait until you're 0.004 above the limit of attenuation you'll get almost all the CO2 you need. If it's too much, just purge the keg and set the pressure.

 

[BigFloyd]

If you have an extra keg that you don't mind tying up for 3-4 months or more, it will work just fine. I tend to bottles those sorts of beers since I do not have an overabundance of kegs.