Cold crashing with added co2 or secondary fermentation with sugar?

[ShaunJ]

Hello everyone

This is my first post ever on a home brew forum, and I'm self taught in brewing so it's been a hell of a learning curve. Here's my story and question:

I have fridges and freezers set up with inkbirds and heat mats to control fermentation temperature. Ive always used kits (young's or festival, generally).

I had an issue with a young's AIPA batch- the king keg leaked all of its co2 during secondary fermentation due to the rubber not sealing properly on the lid. The beer tastes fine, but was very murky.

I sorted the seal, cold crashed and added co2 from bulbs untill the release valve started hissing. Two days on, the beer is clearing and holds a head perfectly. Finally, here's my question-

Considering I just opened a sealed keg and saved a completely flat beer with this method, is it possible to ignore secondary fermentation and just gas the keg immediately after transferring from the primary? It would save two weeks if so!

Any wisdom and experience would be much appreciated, many thanks

 

[VikeMan]

Considering I just opened a sealed keg and saved a completely flat beer with this method, is it possible to ignore secondary fermentation and just gas the keg immediately after transferring from the primary? It would save two weeks if so!

I think you are asking if it's okay to force carbonate a keg with CO2 instead of priming it with sugar. If so, the answer is yes. It's what most keggers do.

 

[ShaunJ]

I think you are asking if it's okay to force carbonate a keg with CO2 instead of priming it with sugar. If so, the answer is yes. It's what most keggers do.

Thank you. I assumed I would need better co2 equipment to force carbonate, all the videos online have gauges and big gas tanks! I managed it with tiny gas bulbs and a rubber relief valve. Do you think the secondary fermentation stage adds any flavour to the beer?

 

[VikeMan]

Do you think the secondary fermentation stage adds any flavour to the beer?

Well, sure. It's a fermentation. So the beer will be a little different (and slightly higher in alcohol). Whether it's better or worse is a matter of preference, subject to debate, and might well depend on the beer style and teh particulat batch.

 

[ShaunJ]

Well, sure. It's a fermentation. So the beer will be a little different (and slightly higher in alcohol). Whether it's better or worse is a matter of preference, subject to debate, and might well depend on the beer style and teh particulat batch.

Ok got it. I'm pretty sad and I like to experiment with things so I'm going to brew two batches of the same beer simultaneously using the different methods to see which method is better (in my opinion, of course). I'll post the results on here if anyone is interested