I am, or have, brewed what i hope to be a session style IPA/PA, in a couple of days i will be racking to the keg from the secondary; I want to age it for a week or two at lease before i try to drink it. This is my first time force carbing, so my question is do you normally carb then age, or age then carb, or does it not make a difference. In the past I would bottle then age the bottles but some of the period was for the yeast to carb the beer.
Force carbing and aging
- Thread starter exc503
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When you say force carbing, are you talking about bumping up pressure to something like 30 PSI to get it to carbonate in a couple of days, or do you intend to use the "set and forget" method, which is hook it up to gas at serving pressure and let it carbonate over time.
If you hook it up at serving pressure then it will take a week or two to carbonate. It will also age, albeit slower while it is cold. If you want to age at room temp, which would age it a bit quicker, then I would rack to the keg, get it under pressure, and then let it sit for a week. Then carbonate whichever way you want. For an IPA, a session at that, I would rack, set it up to carbonate at serving pressure, stick it in your fridge or whatever you have, and come back in a week and see how it is doing.
If you hook it up at serving pressure then it will take a week or two to carbonate. It will also age, albeit slower while it is cold. If you want to age at room temp, which would age it a bit quicker, then I would rack to the keg, get it under pressure, and then let it sit for a week. Then carbonate whichever way you want. For an IPA, a session at that, I would rack, set it up to carbonate at serving pressure, stick it in your fridge or whatever you have, and come back in a week and see how it is doing.
TheCADJockey
ALL YOUR BASE
Sub'd to this to steal all the juicy info.
By force carb i mean set and forget. I tend to use Beersmith as a guide, it tends to have a pretty good guide for how long to age styles, it is saying 30 days. I was leaning towards rack it to the keg, put it on gas, set and forget for 2 weeks, it has been in the secondary for a week already, so counting that as starting he aging, that would put it somewhere around 2.5 weeks at the end of that (based on what i saw in the transfer, there was still some active yeast in suspension).
wildactbrewer
Well-Known Member
Whichever method you go with, just make sure you purge the keg with CO2 before the aging period. If you are setting and forgetting you'd be doing this anyway. But, if you plan to age it and then force carb, be sure to get the O2 out of there to minimize oxidation.
Remember that YOU set up the beersmith aging profile; it doesn't give you a guide on aging beers. Aging a session IPA is a terrible idea to me- you'd lose all of the hoppy goodness pretty quickly. My session IPAs are usually GONE in 30 days or so- you may want to rethink extended aging for a lower gravity hoppy beer.
By the time you keg it, and carb it (about 10 days or more), it should be at peak or thereabouts. I would not age this at room temperature unless it has some issues and needs to smooth out.
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