aging in kegs

[mdf191]

Do beers age and develop in a chilled c02 ed keg? Essentially I would skip a sit in the secondary and use the keg as the secondary.

I have two beers I am hoping to serve for xmas time. They could really benefit from hanging around and getting to know themselves probably a few weeks past xmas since they are bigger beers.

I was hoping that the beer that wasn't drank and stayed in the keg past xmas would get itself to that perfect aging....while still enjoying a few slightly green ones a little early.

But if chilling and force carbing means I am making my entire 5 gallon batch be slightly under aged permanently then I would probably just wait and not serve the beer until the correct date.

 

[as1084]

Yea, you can secondary in a keg. People do it all the time. Now when it comes to aging, chilled and carbed beer will age, but it just takes a longer. Bottles beers age in the bottle after it gets carbed, so the same works for kegs. I would age it in a keg at room temp. till the 22nd or 23rd and then force carb in 3 days.

 

[Bensiff]

Make sure to give the beer enough time on the yeast to clean out off flavors then keg it. You can age it warm like as1084 suggested to speed things along. I would recommend you figure out the correct pressure for desired volumes at temp and let the beer age with that pressure on it (I only rapid force carb if I have to, it is has too uneven of results for my liking). As well, I would also cold crash 5-7 days before Christmas at 30 degrees for a day to clear it out, pour off the yeast, and then raise the temp to serving temp and get the CO2 balanced a few days ahead of time.

Chilling and/or force carbing will not make your beer permanently under age. However, chilling will slow down the aging process.