Thoughts on aging method

[hlmbrwng]

I've starting making sour beers about a year ago and I have quickly realized that my method is going to be evolving over time as I learn more and more about this type of beer. I have a bunch of carboys (6 or 7) and a lot of kegs (15 or so). I was given the kegs by someone who used them for sour beers, and I figured since I already have kegs used for clean beers, I could use these new (used) kegs for aging sours.

For the first couple of batches I like the beer age in the carboys for about 4-5 months. Then I transferred to kegs, trying to minimize the amount of oxygen exposure by preflushing with CO2 and purging the headspace after transfer. I was excited about this because I wanted to be able to sample the beer over time within exposing the beer to more oxygen. I just pump in a little CO2 and use a picnic tap to sample. There are a couple of cons though:

Pros
-----
- Free up carboy
- Sample easily without exposure to atmosphere
- Can force carbonate when ready to bottle

Cons
-----
- The first beers are pretty clear after a relatively short period of time (just over 6 months). I believe sampling this was clears out the yeast at the bottom of the keg. This could be good or bad. I'm afraid that losing the yeast at the bottom of the keg will result in less microbes to keep working (cleaning up off flavors and making beer more complex). This is just a theory...not idea what the result it.
- ** Adding fruit. I would like to add fruit to these beers, but not sure if it is a good idea in the keg. I guess it wouldn't hurt, but I likely will have to transfer out of keg when beer is finish, so the fruit would likely clog the keg. I suppose I could use a shorten keg dip tube specifically for this reason, but I don't want to have to destroy a bunch of them so I have various sizes of tube.

Can anyone who has used this method or a similar method comment of how they deal with adding fruit? Are there other things I should be considering?

 

[hlmbrwng]

As far as dealing with bottling from keg containing fruit, maybe I can use a shortened metal dip tube and then attach flexible tubing of variable size to it.

 

[Smellyglove]

You can cut your diptube. Meaning a slightly smaller batch though.

 

[SanPancho]

get all of your fruit blended/pureed/sanitized/etc, get it ready to dump. attach the gas in onto your keg, and as soon as your crack the lid then start to run like 2-3 psi co2 into the keg.

should keep most of the air out. and since the fruit is going to get fermented anyways, its not like getting a little bit of oxygen in there is bad anyways- it'll get used up during the fermentation.

as for racking off the fruit- there are tiny little screens that fit over the end of your dip tube. you'd have to install it before you fill the keg. adventures in hombrew sells one with pretty small holes, and you can even put a fine mesh hop bag around it for more filtration if you want. but it all has to be installed before you fill the keg. at least, if your goal is to keep oxygen to minimum.

 

[crane]

I use a similar method as you describe. First 3-6 months in a carboy before racking to a keg. I usually brew another batch and pitch that directly on the yeast cake in the carboy.

As far as fruit additions go, I usually use a large paint strainer or grain bag to hold the fruit. I'll tie butchers twine around the top of the bag and sneak the end of it through the keg lid. This way I can pull the bag, flush with CO2, and then cold crash, carbonate and serve from the same keg.

You will need a spunding valve or some other method to prevent pressure building up from the fruit refermentation.

 

[hlmbrwng]

I use a similar method as you describe. First 3-6 months in a carboy before racking to a keg. I usually brew another batch and pitch that directly on the yeast cake in the carboy.

As far as fruit additions go, I usually use a large paint strainer or grain bag to hold the fruit. I'll tie butchers twine around the top of the bag and sneak the end of it through the keg lid. This way I can pull the bag, flush with CO2, and then cold crash, carbonate and serve from the same keg.

You will need a spunding valve or some other method to prevent pressure building up from the fruit refermentation.

I added 48 oz of fruit puree to each of 3 kegs holding sour beers. The fruit is Vintner's Harvest. I was going use a paint strainer, but ultimately decided not to since there are no pieces of fruit, just puree. Hopefully that doesn't cause an issue. I'm hoping that the fermentation of the fruit is a faster process with puree compared to chunks of fruit.

I've been manually releasing the pressure in the kegs every couple of days. I may stop doing that soon and allow the beer to carbonate a bit from the secondary fermentation. I'm really excited to try these sours, but I'm being as patient as I can. That's the issue with beer aging in kegs...it's too easy to sample. =)