Bottle conditioning vs kegging

[evoo4u]

My name is evoo4u and I'm a bottler.

I understand that one of the quoted benefits of kegging is that your beer is ready to drink in a couple of days, once the CO2's been absorbed. With bottling of course, you have to wait for the priming 'sugar' to be consumed by the yeast to carbonate the brew.

But what part does 'bottle conditioning' play, apart from the obvious carbonation? If it's to let the flavours, hops, etc meld and mellow over a recommended minimum three week period, do keggers also allow their beer this settling period?

 

[ctagz]

I think you'll find conditioning occurs at a faster rate, the larger the storage vessel. So kegs (brite beer tanks) condition beer faster then in bottles. Hopefully someone with more understanding will give a response too.

 

[Rocker1986]

From my albeit limited experience of kegging (since August), I have definitely noticed that the kegs get better, quicker.

Most of the time my batches are large enough to be worth bottling the excess after kegging the ~19 litres, and so I have been doing this partly to not waste good beer but also as an experiment to see the differences between the bottled and kegged portions of the same batch at the same timeframe.

The kegs always win the race to tasting better, of course. :lol: I don't rely on natural carbonation in kegs, which is one point of difference. I keg/bottle cold, and currently the kegs go straight into the kegerator, so they are kept cold the whole time as well, not sure if this makes a difference or not. There is less yeast per litre of beer in a keg compared to bottles I find, which probably affects the flavour too. I might end up with 4 or 5 bottles worth of yeast sediment in a keg, as opposed to 45 worth. I find that "yeasty" aroma/flavour takes longer to go away in bottles than it does in kegs. And also yes because it's a bigger vessel it conditions quicker.

 

[Matplat]

Considering no priming sugar is added to a keg, that means there is no second fermentation to create off flavours that then have to be conditioned out. I think that's why kegging tastes better sooner. But I bottle too so have absolutely no experience to back that up. Do you keggers notice a difference in conditioning period between natural and forced carbonation?

 

[Dave70]

Funny you should ask.
Though the convenience and lack of scrubbing sees me kegging the bulk of my brews, lately I've been doing 25L batches so I had a few to bottle so I could at least do a subjective comparison. Nothing fancy about the test subjects, just plain old APA's with a three grain bill and a couple of hops.
Have to admit, the smoothest were the bottled specimens that had been given a fortnight to carb up then stored cold in alongside the kegs. Not by much, but you can tell.
After about five weeks, pretty much nothing in it, though bottles stored at ambient temps had certainly lost more of the hoppines, no surprise really.
So next time you drink a beer from uncle Dans that tastes like a Bock shandy you know why.

 

[Grott]

I like to bottle my stouts as I leave them for some time before consuming (condition/mature/develop), 12 months plus.
​However with day to day drinking beers I find kegging provides a "crisper"/fresher tasting drink compared to bottles.
Cheers

 

[Coodgee]

I have always kegged by sometimes bottle some excess. I carbonate the bottles with white table sugar, and in my opinion the fermentation of the cane sugar is the main difference in the beers that I can taste. They have a noticeably 'cidery' flavour to them that is really noticeable when one has been kegging all grain brews for a long time.

 

[evoo4u]

I also use sugar (raw sugar) for priming, but if I elected to use DME instead, would 6 or 7 grams still be appropriate, and would it result in a better beer? Anyone already doing this?

 

[Bribie G]

It also depends on the yeast. Some "clean" yeasts such as Nottingham and US-05 do very well as a bottle conditioning yeast whilst others, particularly most of the UK liquid yeasts, can be a PITA. They are designed to keep on slowly fermenting in the serving cask at cellar temperatures to keep the beer lively. After a short rest in the cellar, these real ales are supposed to be drunk over the course of just a few days. If used as a bottle conditioner you'll end up with gushers nine times out of ten.

Back in the days when UK ales were bottle conditioned, they seem to have used a Bass style yeast, so you could try something like Burton Union for bottling.
Another interesting yeast is Wyeast Irish Ale 1084. Back when I had brown hair on the head and none on the chest, Guinness in the UK was bottle conditioned by a number of soft drinks companies around the UK who did it as a sideline for Guinness, who didn't have a bottling plant in the UK, and it's a fair bet that 1084 is basically the same as the Guinness yeast that produced absolutely reliable bottling results.

As far as flavour goes, I notice a real difference between keg and "excess" beer I have bottled. I was recently reminded of this when I came across a pub selling Coopers Sparkling (red) on tap. It was quite different to the bottled version, smooth and delicious, less estery, more malty.

 

[Rocker1986]

Considering no priming sugar is added to a keg, that means there is no second fermentation to create off flavours that then have to be conditioned out. I think that's why kegging tastes better sooner. But I bottle too so have absolutely no experience to back that up. Do you keggers notice a difference in conditioning period between natural and forced carbonation?

No idea with kegs as I don't bother with natural carbonation with them. Certainly it takes the bottles longer though, aside from the obvious 2-3 week wait for the carbonation to actually occur. Overall I prefer the kegged portions over the bottled. In saying that though if I leave the bottles in the fridge for a week or more they do improve quicker than left at ambient for some reason.

 

[Matplat]

After a short rest in the cellar, these real ales are supposed to be drunk over the course of just a few days. If used as a bottle conditioner you'll end up with gushers nine times out of ten.

Interesting, the northern english brown that I did last year with S-04 was fantastic when I was drinking it up to 8 weeks old, I decided to leave the last 6 to condition for a few months to see the difference, and they all ended up as gushers.

 

[evoo4u]

Interesting, the northern english brown that I did last year with S-04 was fantastic when I was drinking it up to 8 weeks old, I decided to leave the last 6 to condition for a few months to see the difference, and they all ended up as gushers.

This might just explain why an ale I bottled last September has been pouring nicely until the last week or so, and now I'm getting gushers. Only 2 bottles left now, but the brew used Nottingham yeast. I'm now using mostly US-05 for ales, and no issues to date, although we are getting some hot weather ATM which might have an impact even with the US-05 brews.

 

[Bribie G]

Surprised that it's happening with Nottingham, it usually attenuates really quickly although I've had a couple of longer fermentations in the past, which were from dodgy packs from LHBSs I reckon.

 

[Judanero]

I predominantly keg, it is quicker-I only have one vessel to sanitise and I have minimal spare time to follow the bottling regime.

That being said I prefer bottle conditioned beers... that is to say when I've brewed the exact same beer I prefer the bottled to kegged version.

Beers seem slightly smoother and have a subtle complexity when bottle conditioned (YMMV).

 

[Blind Dog]

My 2c

In general, I prefer kegged beer to bottled, both in taste and PITA factor. there have been a few exceptions, but German wheats are the only style i've brewed that I've found consistently better from a bottle.

Beers for aging I'll usually carbonate in a keg naturally, with just a squirt of C02 to pressurize the seal. I rarely add sugars as there's enough fermentables left to carbonate.

The big advantage in using kegs is consistency of results, the one downside I've found is that I've yet to find a workable solution that lets me serve beers from 1 keezer at different temps (say 5C for lager / APAs etc. and 12C for bitters/milds/stouts etc.), To me the answer is clear, but SWMBO is yet to be persuaded that I need another chestie and associated hand pumps. working on it though

aging beers in a keg is consistency in results when its successful, the big downside is consistency in results when its not

 

[The Judge]

I'd say there are a couple of factors to the difference in taste... more oxidation in the bottling process bottling, additional yeast growth phase (albeit tiny), conditioning at higher temperature than kegging, to name a few.

The keg conditions over time at cold temps, while the bottle goes through a warmer carbonation conditioning phase prior to chilling and drinking. I find my bottled beers are more mellow and often the crispness of hop flavours are rounded off and mellowed out (which I dont prefer). Suspect it's some effect of oxidation.

Also, my kegged beer head is superior to my bottle conditioned head.

 

[BDD]

Considering no priming sugar is added to a keg, that means there is no second fermentation to create off flavours that then have to be conditioned out. I think that's why kegging tastes better sooner. But I bottle too so have absolutely no experience to back that up. Do you keggers notice a difference in conditioning period between natural and forced carbonation?

I've been kegging for quite some time now but have mainly gone the route of natural carbonation to save on cost of gas (as stingy as that sounds). I have never considered the second fermentation contributing to off flavours before but it has me interested.