Aging, Conditioning And Lagering Beers

[Bretto77]

Hi all,
I know this topic gets constantly revisited, but Im keen to hear from people on your opinions on conditioning, aging and lagering beers. I also know we are potentially talking about different processes as well.



This is what I have learnt from my experience as well as from this forum and from podcasts such as Brew Strong from the Brewing Network guys in the US:



All beer seems to benefit significantly from a cold conditioning or a lagering process (I tend to do mine at 1c or basically as close to freezing as possible). The process seems to be aided by use of fining agents; I have experimented with both Gelatin and Polyclar. I tend to cold condition all beer prior to kegging/bottling (I tend to brew in 24L batches 19L to keg and rest to bottles)



Since moving to kegging about a year ago, I have noticed that although I may force carb my beer for drinking straight away, it still needs a bit of time on the cold to improve flavour, otherwise you are drinking green beer.



I am wondering whether darker style beers benefit more from aging at room temp than cold as the melanoidin flavour development (i.e. the flavours from the darker roasted malts), seem to develop differently than lighter style beers?



Basically what is best temperature and process for beer storage to optimize flavour development and character?



Thanks all its very informative being a lurker on these forums but thought it was time to put some ideas out there.



Cheers

Bretto

Boonah, SE Qld

 

[Brewer_010]

Basically what is best temperature and process for beer storage to optimize flavour development and character?

Very briefly, I've noted that:
1. my hoppy-ish (and relatively simple) pale ales benefit from conditioning for 4 weeks (optimal taste between 5-8 weeks)
2. my darker, more complex beers like stouts or porters are best after 6-8 weeks
3. my hefes are best after 2 weeks and before 8 weeks
4. I don't brew pilsners or lagers (all attempts have been more or less dismal failures)

I don't like green beer and as a general rule of thumb will leave my beer in the fermenter for two weeks, force carb then cc in a keg for 4-6 weeks

 

[davo4772]

Hi

New to kegging

Will the beer condition equally whether it is force carbed or not ?

Cheers


Dave

 

[Crusty]

Hi all,
I know this topic gets constantly revisited, but I'm keen to hear from people on your opinions on conditioning, aging and lagering beers. I also know we are potentially talking about different processes as well.



This is what I have learnt from my experience as well as from this forum and from podcasts such as Brew Strong from the Brewing Network guys in the US:



All beer seems to benefit significantly from a cold conditioning or a lagering process (I tend to do mine at 1c or basically as close to freezing as possible). The process seems to be aided by use of fining agents; I have experimented with both Gelatin and Polyclar. I tend to cold condition all beer prior to kegging/bottling (I tend to brew in 24L batches 19L to keg and rest to bottles)



Since moving to kegging about a year ago, I have noticed that although I may force carb my beer for drinking straight away, it still needs a bit of time on the cold to improve flavour, otherwise you are drinking green beer.



I am wondering whether darker style beers benefit more from aging at room temp than cold as the melanoidin flavour development (i.e. the flavours from the darker roasted malts), seem to develop differently than lighter style beers?



Basically what is best temperature and process for beer storage to optimize flavour development and character?



Thanks all it's very informative being a lurker on these forums but thought it was time to put some ideas out there.



Cheers

Bretto

Boonah, SE Qld

I'm in the minority here but I have sold my kegging setup & gone back to bottling for one simple reason. Bottle conditioning at room temperature yielded far superior results for me against my kegged counterparts. I force carbed my beers at serving pressure for 1 week to achieve 2.6 vol CO2. Beer in kegerator was @ 4deg C. I began to drink the kegged beer @ week 2. Bottles were bulk primed, 2.6 vol CO2 & stored for 8 weeks. Hop aroma, maltiness & tinier bubbles added to the bottled beers being heaps better. I single batch all grain, 25 litres & kegged 19 litres & bottled the rest. I now bottle the entire batch.

 

[Dave70]

I'm in the minority here but I have sold my kegging setup & gone back to bottling for one simple reason. Bottle conditioning at room temperature yielded far superior results for me against my kegged counterparts. I force carbed my beers at serving pressure for 1 week to achieve 2.6 vol CO2. Beer in kegerator was @ 4deg C. I began to drink the kegged beer @ week 2. Bottles were bulk primed, 2.6 vol CO2 & stored for 8 weeks. Hop aroma, maltiness & tinier bubbles added to the bottled beers being heaps better. I single batch all grain, 25 litres & kegged 19 litres & bottled the rest. I now bottle the entire batch.

Funny, I cracked a few JSAA clones yesterday and thought the same thing - the bottled batch that I couldn't fit in the keg tasted far better. Undoubtedly aging was a factor. I think I'll do a 50/50 batch next time round.

 

[Aus_Rider_22]

I'm in the minority here but I have sold my kegging setup & gone back to bottling for one simple reason. Bottle conditioning at room temperature yielded far superior results for me against my kegged counterparts. I force carbed my beers at serving pressure for 1 week to achieve 2.6 vol CO2. Beer in kegerator was @ 4deg C. I began to drink the kegged beer @ week 2. Bottles were bulk primed, 2.6 vol CO2 & stored for 8 weeks. Hop aroma, maltiness & tinier bubbles added to the bottled beers being heaps better. I single batch all grain, 25 litres & kegged 19 litres & bottled the rest. I now bottle the entire batch.

I know what you mean, when I first started kegging I noticed the same. I got frustrated but then I took into the fact that I would only age the kegs 2 weeks before chilling and carbing up. I believe the difference in taste comes down to bit more aging with bottles. I would start trying a bottle at no earlier than 3 weeks and really give them a good go after a month.

Just out of interest did you ever keg condition with dextrose/sugar/malt etc for a month? It saves gas and should give the same aging with yeast activity as bottles.

 

[Crusty]

I know what you mean, when I first started kegging I noticed the same. I got frustrated but then I took into the fact that I would only age the kegs 2 weeks before chilling and carbing up. I believe the difference in taste comes down to bit more aging with bottles. I would start trying a bottle at no earlier than 3 weeks and really give them a good go after a month.

Just out of interest did you ever keg condition with dextrose/sugar/malt etc for a month? It saves gas and should give the same aging with yeast activity as bottles.

I never naturally carbed the keg & just force carbed. It probably is a little unfair comparing a conditioning bottle @ room temp against the kegged counterpart @ 4 deg C. At that temp it may well take 3 months + to achieve the same results. I never had a keg last that long. I know quite a few guys on the forum naturally carb to save gas. Although hard to explain, the naturally carbed bottles had the tiniest bubbles that dont cling to your glass making for a great sensation on your tongue. The force carbed beers had larger bubbles which did cling to the sides of the glass & definately lacked the intensity of the bottles. I began kegging as I hated bottling but since buying the bottle trees, vinator & jet bottle washer, bottling is really a breeze & quite quick. This is my next project I'm working on,


Pneumatic Bottle Capper


God damn I love gadgets.

 

[Bretto77]

Hi all,
thanks for all the comments. This has certainly evolved into a dispensing issue which is interesting but was not my original intent. I both keg and bottle but to be honest have been much less impressed with my bottles particuarly how they carb but this could be my bulk priming and temperature of wort perhaps better to let it warm back to room temp before bottling the rest that doesn't fit in the keg. Also may be worth experimenting with naturally carbing kegs since I'm not a fan of drinking green beer anyway.

However can we refocus the discussion back to temperatures for aging rather than choice of dispensing vessel. Listening to the Brew Strong podcast on Lagering and aging Palmer seems to suggest that cold temperatures are best to clear up polyphenals and proteins hazes accelarated with finnings. Warmer temperatures seem to favour chemical/yeast issues and perhaps oxidation of melanoidans by malyard reactions also helps flavour development.

Ultimately I'm open to challenging both my kegging and bottling processes to improve the quality and flavour of the beer I make.

Cheers
Bretto

 

[malt_shovel]

Hi all,
thanks for all the comments. This has certainly evolved into a dispensing issue which is interesting but was not my original intent. I both keg and bottle but to be honest have been much less impressed with my bottles particuarly how they carb but this could be my bulk priming and temperature of wort perhaps better to let it warm back to room temp before bottling the rest that doesn't fit in the keg. Also may be worth experimenting with naturally carbing kegs since I'm not a fan of drinking green beer anyway.

However can we refocus the discussion back to temperatures for aging rather than choice of dispensing vessel. Listening to the Brew Strong podcast on Lagering and aging Palmer seems to suggest that cold temperatures are best to clear up polyphenals and proteins hazes accelarated with finnings. Warmer temperatures seem to favour chemical/yeast issues and perhaps oxidation of melanoidans by malyard reactions also helps flavour development.

Ultimately I'm open to challenging both my kegging and bottling processes to improve the quality and flavour of the beer I make.

Cheers
Bretto

I recall reading on the homebrewtalk.com website regarding a published test of aging beer at various temperatures, measuring the change in various chemical constituents that were important for flavour , aroma head retention etc.

I can't find the link so will keep looking, but if i remember correctly the main conclusions were that flavour degredation was not noticeable (or at least the various checmicals that affect it were below a known detectable threshold) when conditioning / aging from 0 to about 25oC. I also remember it was highlighted that conditioning at 40oC or greater was detrimental. Probably a "no shit" conclusion, but I wonder about the barrels of IPA that spent months sitting in the bottom of a festy boat from the UK to India. They obviously didn't fair too badly.

If I am after an aged beer in a keg, I take it out of the fridge and set it somewhere the temps don't fluctuate too greatly and leave it for a couple of weeks, then chill and carb. Similar results to bottle conditioning.

Cheers

:beer:

edit: Here is a link (not the one on homebrewtalk.com i mentioned previously, but I think it referring to the same paper. http://beersensoryscience.wordpress.com/20...-of-beer-aging/

A bit more science than i normally would like, but a good point was made in that some flavours associated with degredation of beer during aging are actively sort out in some beers, so in the end it is all about what you think tastes good, and what you need to do to get that taste with your own beer. Experiment! Cheers

 

[argon]

If I am after an aged beer in a keg, I take it out of the fridge and set it somewhere the temps don't fluctuate too greatly and leave it for a couple of weeks, then chill and carb. Similar results to bottle conditioning.

been wondering about this myself of late.. often i take a keg out of the kegerator and put in a fermenter to crash chill... was wondering if this is harmful or beneficial to the keg. Haven't noticed any great difference. But then again i tend to only just pu the keg in the fermentator at 18C or so... so it's not copping high temps or anything

 

[Snow]

In my experience (10 years brewing, 6 years kegging), green beer ripens better when left on the yeast cake. Forget about autolysis - it takes months or extreme temps to bring this on. Put simply, yeast clean up their own by-products and the more yeast you have, the quicker they do their job. I leave the beer in primary for at least a week after fermentation is complete, usually 10 to 14 days. Then, if I want to clear the beer, I rack to secondary and leave at room temp (or 20c if I have fridge space) for another week then crash chill for a week or 2. Longer for lagers. Most ales are good to go after crash chilling in primary for a week to 10 days before kegging. The beer should only be kegged when it's ready to drink. The reason for this is that CO2 is toxic to yeast. If you inhibit or kill the yeast, then it can't condition the beer.

Cheers - Snow

 

[stux]

I plan on doing a double keg batch, force carbonate one keg, and naturally carbonate the other.

It also helps that I only have room in the keg fridge for one spare keg being force carbed

Think it'd be a bad idea on a lager?

 

[Crusty]

In my experience (10 years brewing, 6 years kegging), green beer ripens better when left on the yeast cake. Forget about autolysis - it takes months or extreme temps to bring this on. Put simply, yeast clean up their own by-products and the more yeast you have, the quicker they do their job. I leave the beer in primary for at least a week after fermentation is complete, usually 10 to 14 days. Then, if I want to clear the beer, I rack to secondary and leave at room temp (or 20c if I have fridge space) for another week then crash chill for a week or 2. Longer for lagers. Most ales are good to go after crash chilling in primary for a week to 10 days before kegging. The beer should only be kegged when it's ready to drink. The reason for this is that CO2 is toxic to yeast. If you inhibit or kill the yeast, then it can't condition the beer.

Cheers - Snow

+1

I have to totally agree with Snow. Taking the beer away from the yeast cake isn't allowing the yeast to fully complete their job. I was guilty of this when racking to secondary after primary fermentation was complete. In my endevour to have a crystal clear beer before kegging, the sacrifice was the conditioning period. After a week in secondary, I siphoned to the keg, added 100kpa burped the keg & chilled overnight. The next morning I filtered from keg to keg & was drinking after two weeks. Although nice & clear, nicely carbonated, it did suffer from the time needed for conditioning. I often thought about storing the kegged beer @ room temp for 4 weeks then chill & carbonate. Due to no preservative measures like the commercial breweries, I didn't take the risk & chilled it the usual way. This is the primary reason I only bottle these days as I believe the yeast has quite a while to reach their full potential & clean up after themselves for the 8 weeks that they spend in my bottles.

 

[chadjaja]

How is storing a keg temp at room temp any different from storing bottles at room temp?

 

[Snow]

How is storing a keg temp at room temp any different from storing bottles at room temp?

Usually you have primed the bottles with extra sugar, thus growing more yeast and producing more yeast by-products, thus requiring more time at room temp to clean up those products. In a keg, there is no more yeast being produced and, ideally, you should have stored the beer in the fermenter for some time (see above posts) and have already cleaned up the by-products. On this basis, there should be no need to store the keg at room temp for any amount of time.

Cheers - Snow.

 

[Bribie G]

I'm fortunate enough to have a big cold lagering fridge that can hold three Willow Jerries and I've sort of settled into a routine of 10 / 10 - ten days in primary at whatever (19 or so for ales) - then rack into a jerry with finings and leave for 10 days in the cold fridge with Polyclar if necessary - I use brewbrite but find that a tad of late polyclar as well gets the beer almost filter-clear.

So by the time it gets into the keg it's almost crystal and just needs three or four days at serving pressure to carb up. So it's had 2 weeks of cold conditioning by the time it's served.
On the occasions when I have experimented by kegging straight out of a longish primary I've had the 'green beer' experience and often the beer doesn't reach its peak until the keg is well down.
I was interested to find out yesterday that the 10 / 10 is basically what Ross does at Bacchus - plus the filtering of course - and mighty fine beers produced.

 

[Bretto77]

In my experience (10 years brewing, 6 years kegging), green beer ripens better when left on the yeast cake. Forget about autolysis - it takes months or extreme temps to bring this on. Put simply, yeast clean up their own by-products and the more yeast you have, the quicker they do their job. I leave the beer in primary for at least a week after fermentation is complete, usually 10 to 14 days. Then, if I want to clear the beer, I rack to secondary and leave at room temp (or 20c if I have fridge space) for another week then crash chill for a week or 2. Longer for lagers. Most ales are good to go after crash chilling in primary for a week to 10 days before kegging. The beer should only be kegged when it's ready to drink. The reason for this is that CO2 is toxic to yeast. If you inhibit or kill the yeast, then it can't condition the beer.

Cheers - Snow

Thanks Snow, got me thinking. Maybe I'm too eager to rack to early.

Brett

 

[Bretto77]

In my experience (10 years brewing, 6 years kegging), green beer ripens better when left on the yeast cake. Forget about autolysis - it takes months or extreme temps to bring this on. Put simply, yeast clean up their own by-products and the more yeast you have, the quicker they do their job. I leave the beer in primary for at least a week after fermentation is complete, usually 10 to 14 days. Then, if I want to clear the beer, I rack to secondary and leave at room temp (or 20c if I have fridge space) for another week then crash chill for a week or 2. Longer for lagers. Most ales are good to go after crash chilling in primary for a week to 10 days before kegging. The beer should only be kegged when it's ready to drink. The reason for this is that CO2 is toxic to yeast. If you inhibit or kill the yeast, then it can't condition the beer.

Cheers - Snow

Anyone else got thoughts on extended contact time on the yeast cake post fermentation to accelerate ripening of the beer??

 

[craigev]

I'll have a go...

Does ale yeast contribute to conditioning at 1 degree C ? I didnt think it did, but everyone says to cold condition for a while.

If it doesnt then you could (optionally fine the beer) keg it and cold condition in the keg.

I (my current half-baked theory) prefer to warm condition in primary to speed up conditioning. Everything apparently happens faster at warmer temps. So as long as you dont have an infection or oxidation then everything will be fine. Of course you will also have to factor in loss of aroma hops - or just do some more dry hopping. Probably end up with a slightly different beer versus cold conditioning for longer. but what the hell as long as its good.

 

[Mister]

Anyone else got thoughts on extended contact time on the yeast cake post fermentation to accelerate ripening of the beer??

My standard approach now is to leave ales on the cake for at least 2 to 3 weeks after primary (however long that takes) so in total in fermenter for 27 to 29 days (at least the last two ales were). I used to rack after primary to then secondary but got lazy and decided to see what happened if I just left it on the cake. The beer clears up amazingly and tastes much the same as if I had racked for secondary. To stabilise temp, I sit the fermenter inside a larger vessel (some gardening bucket thing from bunnings) and fill that will water (and a little bleach) to the level of the beer in the fermenter. I then add/don't add freezer bricks as required to control temp. Even in Brisbane winter I still need to do that. The combined volume of the liquied (probably about 40L) stays very stable temp-wise.

That last bit might seem off-topic but I think the stable temp is crucial to conditioning and this the best I can do with resources atm.

For lagers I use a spare fridge (non-modified) that I'm lucky enough allows you to alter temp in fridge vs freezer underneath (upsidedown fridge). I set the fridge to max warmth and it seems to hover around 5 to 8 degrees. I brew my lagers in this and it works a treat. Takes absolute *ages* so I leave that on the cake for anything up to 44 days (according to last lager brewed). Clarity is excellent and, due to the low temps keeping the CO2 in solution, tastes almost perfect straight out of the fermenter!

I've done a diacetyl rest instead with the lagers before (mainly because they became stuck due to inadequate yeast amounts) but found the longer lagering process seems to do the job just as well IMO.

Only extra thing I'd recommend (from what I've learnt doing long-ish conditioning) is that you really need a good quality yeast and a decent amount of it. I often start (particularly for the lager) the yeast 2 weeks ahead of the brew and keep upping it until I can pitch at least 1 cup of slurry.

Hope this helps.