cold conditioning in a keg

[scottlindner]

How long does everyone cold condition their brew before you feel it's just right? This is mostly intended to be a survey although I fully expect a little bit of Q&A and problem solving.

I have found for myself that I like to condition my beer at serving temp for 3-6 months depending on the beer. I tend to make reasonably big beer so I like the longer conditioning but for smaller beers about 2 months seems about right.

Based on some quick searches online I've found people saying 1-3 weeks. Either I'm doing something wrong, or we all have different standards for the balance of improved beer taste through conditioning vs wanting to drink it as soon as possible. John Palmer's site has some good technical information regarding the process, but it provides no real time tables, temperature profiles, or rates. http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-3.html The last paragraph is what we're mostly interested in.

I don't mind letting my beer sit that long. I just keep a good backlog going and it generally isn't a problem. After talking to a fellow homebrewer I got a sense that maybe something else is causing my need for long conditioning. We have some theories mostly centered around rushing to keg and condition too soon rather than using a longer secondary to finish out the beer.

Scott

 

[suprchunk]

If I brew a big beer, I let it condition at cellar temps to bring out other flavors. Much like wines. I drank the last of an RIS last year that was over five years old and it was the best beer I have ever tasted. I wish I would of made a quad batch. For regular strength ales and lagers, I condition as long as I can hold off from drinking it all up. That is also why I have a large freezer converted so I can keep at least 8 kegs in reserve. I have had an ale that I forgot about for almost a year, and the cold conditioning it endured made it one of the brightest beers I have made. It tasted quite good to boot.

This is why I bottle my big beers exclusively. To let them develop more. And to make room for my quicker drinking, lower gravity beers.

 

[scottlindner]

If I brew a big beer, I let it condition at cellar temps to bring out other flavors. Much like wines. I drank the last of an RIS last year that was over five years old and it was the best beer I have ever tasted. I wish I would of made a quad batch. For regular strength ales and lagers, I condition as long as I can hold off from drinking it all up. That is also why I have a large freezer converted so I can keep at least 8 kegs in reserve. I have had an ale that I forgot about for almost a year, and the cold conditioning it endured made it one of the brightest beers I have made. It tasted quite good to boot.

This is why I bottle my big beers exclusively. To let them develop more. And to make room for my quicker drinking, lower gravity beers.

Thanks. I think you confirmed that 6 months isn't crazy.

I'm not sure I fully understood your rationale for bottling big beers. Is it simply to free up space in the kegerator, or is there another reason I missed?

Scott

 

[suprchunk]

To let them develop. Big beers can age quite a bit from storing in cellar temps. The colder you store them, though, the better chance you have of halting any of the aging. The yeast continue to play a part in the aging process long after you may have think they quit. I only lay down a few beers, Old Ales, RIS, and Barleywines (Wheatwines will get there as soon as I make one). The flavors that develop in these beers over time, from what I have experienced, are awesome. I'm getting ready to make a wheatwine that will age for about 20 years, so I can enjoy them with my sons when they are old enough, and appreciate good beer. Cooling the beers to fridge temps will not help the yeast add to the flavor as they will go dormant. I keep them around 55-60F as best I can, and continue to sample them as they age.

If you have the patience and the room do the following:

Make a big beer.
Bottle it.
Take about six of those (more if you want to age longer) and put them in the fridge and keep them there.
Cellar the rest at as close to the 50-60F degree range as you can (I've had some as high as 70F).
In six months to a year take one of the fridge beers and one of the cellar beers and compare.
Now do this each year.

The RIS I had that was 6+ years old was so smooth and velvety I almost wept knowing it was the last one I had of the batch. Now I straight up age them all from the get-go.

 

[scottlindner]

To let them develop. Big beers can age quite a bit from storing in cellar temps. The colder you store them, though, the better chance you have of halting any of the aging. The yeast continue to play a part in the aging process long after you may have think they quit. I only lay down a few beers, Old Ales, RIS, and Barleywines (Wheatwines will get there as soon as I make one). The flavors that develop in these beers over time, from what I have experienced, are awesome. I'm getting ready to make a wheatwine that will age for about 20 years, so I can enjoy them with my sons when they are old enough, and appreciate good beer. Cooling the beers to fridge temps will not help the yeast add to the flavor as they will go dormant. I keep them around 55-60F as best I can, and continue to sample them as they age.

If you have the patience and the room do the following:

Make a big beer.
Bottle it.
Take about six of those (more if you want to age longer) and put them in the fridge and keep them there.
Cellar the rest at as close to the 50-60F degree range as you can (I've had some as high as 70F).
In six months to a year take one of the fridge beers and one of the cellar beers and compare.
Now do this each year.

The RIS I had that was 6+ years old was so smooth and velvety I almost wept knowing it was the last one I had of the batch. Now I straight up age them all from the get-go.

Ah hah! You're hitting on one of the things my bud and I were discussing. I have a lot of cornies so I don't mind using them for bulk aging/conditioning. We were suspecting that maybe I need to let them sit in the cornie in my basement for a longer time, rather than straight to the kegerator. That is something I'm going to start doing as a part of my standard process to test it out, but you're confirming it for me.

Do you happen to know what temp is the boundary where yeasties will do nothing regardless of time? Is it <55F, <50F, <45F?

Scott

 

[suprchunk]

Not sure on a cutoff number as I have never gone below probably 55F. But I would assume you would get a different contribution from the yeast at different ranges. I would play it safe and keep it above 50F and below 60F if you can at all help it. Though, like I said, mine have gone higher and I have not had bad bottles from it. I'm sure someone with some scientific background can give specifics. I am just a layman, and most of the science is above my head. I just know I prefer my big beers to have some age on them.

 

[mojotele]

From what I've read you can age beer at cellar temps just fine in a keg. You just need to introduce carbonic acid to the mix somehow. So either pressurize the keg to 30 PSI or so, or prime it with corn sugar. Apparently, you use approximately half the corn sugar you would normally use for bottling. If you're aging in the keg for more than a couple weeks, it is probably worth it to just prime with corn sugar so it'll be all carbed up when you're ready to drink.

As far as how long to age, I think it really depends on the beer. I went to Troegs brewery last week, and John Trogner mentioned that they taste any new recipes they do every week or so. They take notes, decide when they think it is best and when they think it has gone downhill. They then use that information to determine the maturity date of the beer and the expiration date of the beer.