ferretlegs
Member
- Joined
- 2/11/10
- Messages
- 20
- Reaction score
- 7
Hi Everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.
I've had the HB bug for just over a year now and as I am somebody who likes to put a few away, I have made quite alot of batches over that period :icon_cheers: . I've done tonnes of reading over the last year and have hopefully moved past most of the beginner mistakes. Did about 20 K&K batches and have now moved to extract brewing and using beersmith for the last 40 or 50 batches.
Up until now, I have been able to identify most issues with my resulting beer through reading but there has been one strange thing that I have yet to explain. So I now turn to the collective wisdom of AHB to see if anyone has come across this.
The issue is maturation/conditioning in kegs - I very quickly moved to kegging and kegerator setup after first couple of batches. I usually do 60litre extract batches which basically fills about 3 kegs after leaving them for about 3 weeks in the primary. I usually leave these to room condition for about a week or two, then I chill for a week in one fridge and then gas in the kegerator for a week.
Now ever since I have been kegging, I have noticed that the beer always tastes quite green at the start (of course I pour a few pots into a saucepan to clear sediment first) but the strange thing is that the beer improves markedly every day from that point after tapping. By close to the end of the keg (say 3 days later), its pretty darn good stuff - then it runs out Now its surely impossible that the beer has matured suddenly in just those three days. I tested this by leaving kegs for a week or two longer and even shorter (both in warm and cold conditioning), but they never seem to be ready to go first day regardless of how long I leave them. It seems only as the keg is consumed that it improves, very noticably, each day.
So my question is, how can this be? I cant always be drinking the keg right at the perfect time that it is maturing because I have varied the conditioning time by up to 4 weeks. What is it about the keg being consumed that forces the beer to mature faster? My best guess is that there is something about increased headspace, or the fact that most sediment has been drawn off, or some other reason that forces the beer to start conditioning faster. I know that I generally drink my kegs pretty quick (I guess alot of people have this problem) but as I said, I have done the experiment by leaving them the extra weeks to see if that was all it was.
I have taken to the practice of tapping my kegs a bit early with a cheap tap and piece of line, just to get this process going. It seems to help. But I would like to get to the bottom of what is going on here - this process doesnt seem to happen with bottles. So what is happening guys?
Thanks in advance!
I've had the HB bug for just over a year now and as I am somebody who likes to put a few away, I have made quite alot of batches over that period :icon_cheers: . I've done tonnes of reading over the last year and have hopefully moved past most of the beginner mistakes. Did about 20 K&K batches and have now moved to extract brewing and using beersmith for the last 40 or 50 batches.
Up until now, I have been able to identify most issues with my resulting beer through reading but there has been one strange thing that I have yet to explain. So I now turn to the collective wisdom of AHB to see if anyone has come across this.
The issue is maturation/conditioning in kegs - I very quickly moved to kegging and kegerator setup after first couple of batches. I usually do 60litre extract batches which basically fills about 3 kegs after leaving them for about 3 weeks in the primary. I usually leave these to room condition for about a week or two, then I chill for a week in one fridge and then gas in the kegerator for a week.
Now ever since I have been kegging, I have noticed that the beer always tastes quite green at the start (of course I pour a few pots into a saucepan to clear sediment first) but the strange thing is that the beer improves markedly every day from that point after tapping. By close to the end of the keg (say 3 days later), its pretty darn good stuff - then it runs out Now its surely impossible that the beer has matured suddenly in just those three days. I tested this by leaving kegs for a week or two longer and even shorter (both in warm and cold conditioning), but they never seem to be ready to go first day regardless of how long I leave them. It seems only as the keg is consumed that it improves, very noticably, each day.
So my question is, how can this be? I cant always be drinking the keg right at the perfect time that it is maturing because I have varied the conditioning time by up to 4 weeks. What is it about the keg being consumed that forces the beer to mature faster? My best guess is that there is something about increased headspace, or the fact that most sediment has been drawn off, or some other reason that forces the beer to start conditioning faster. I know that I generally drink my kegs pretty quick (I guess alot of people have this problem) but as I said, I have done the experiment by leaving them the extra weeks to see if that was all it was.
I have taken to the practice of tapping my kegs a bit early with a cheap tap and piece of line, just to get this process going. It seems to help. But I would like to get to the bottom of what is going on here - this process doesnt seem to happen with bottles. So what is happening guys?
Thanks in advance!