Conditioning and Force Carbonating

[cpuwhiz22]

Hello All,

I am pretty new to this, and I have what is possibly a dumb question. My initial plan was to bottle condition and carbonate in the bottles, but since I got a good deal on kegs, and had two kegerators I decided to keg after secondary and force carbonate. I have some that I kept in kegs, and some I bottled after the kegs were carbonated (a day later).

I understand that in addition to carbonating, the conditioning improves the flavor potentially. What I am wondering is whether that still applies when kegging and/or bottling with forced carbonation?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 

[Hoakster]

Greetings Shipmate, Usually folks on this site reach out right away to new brewers. Helps us all in keeping the hobby popular and propagating the craft. Anyway, saw you had numerous views and no responses so I'll take a stab... hope it helps.

I almost exclusively keg now (same with a ton of folks on this site). Bottling is a blast in the early years, as you get to easily cart your craft to gatherings and parties at will. However, kegging is much more convenient for personal consumption (if you have something to cool it in), or sharing when others come to visit... so stick to it. As you perfect your skill, look into the bottling options straight out of a force carb'd keg...i.e.: counter pressure filler, or beer gun... I've used both with great success.

On to your question. There is much argument about length of time for conditioning (Keg or Bottle)... you can find great debate using a simple search in this forum... but I submit from my experience and from reading many posts on HBT that the darker the beer, the longer the conditioning (keg or bottle). Even still, I've found that, in general, homebrew gets better with age, even though there are some stipulations about hoppyness dropping over time in pale ales or IPA's, etc.

But more to the point... conditioning is a factor of personal palate. I can't stand a "green" beer, be it in the bottle or the keg; so I tend to error on the side of a lengthy conditioning period. Some folks here have such a perfect rotation of beers in varying states of conditioning and serving, that time doesn't seem a factor to them. Every beer they rotate into their kegerator has been conditioning or aging sufficiently... waiting to be tapped as soon as the last keg runs dry.

To be clear, one of my favorite brews is a recipe from Norther Brewer... Caribou Slobber. But I have found this recipe to get better and better with age. In 2015, I brewed a batch in March and cracked the keg in October. To my extreme disappointment, I hated it. Upon the advice from my brew Sensei (the guy that taught me to brew), I let it sit for another two months... cracked it again in January.... and it was fantastic!!!

Bottom line, Keg conditioning is required just like bottle... but not necessarily for carb (you are force carb'ing), but more for flavor.

So lessons from my personal experience:

1. Don't rush your Beer (dark or light)
2. If it tastes like crap... let it sit for another month.
3. If, after some considerable time, it still tastes like crap... try to figure out what you did wrong.
4. Don't give up... brewing is a blast, not to mention drinking the fruit of your labors.
5. If it tastes like crap, refer to lesson number 4 and keep brewing.

Best,
Ron

 

[cpuwhiz22]

Thanks for the reply! I should have mentioned that I did pick up a beer gun which is how I have bottled what I have done so far. I imagine at cold temperatures the conditioning won't happen, right? For example, I took a batch that had hit its FG, racked to a keg and chilled it overnight in the kegerator, then I force carbonated it, and let it sit overnight again, then bottled it with the beer gun. Since then I have had the bottles sitting in the fridge, so I am wondering if i cut the conditioning short. With that said, should I take them out and just put them on the shelf in the basement?