I want to make a Doppelbock and age it for the next 6-8 months but I’m not sure the best way to do this. Options I’m considering are:
1: bottle conditioning after primary ferm and then aging/lagering in the bottle
2: bulk aging and then doing option 1
3: keg conditioning and then bulk aging in the keg
Issues are that I don’t have the space to cold store/lager a whole keg for that entire time. I don’t have space to do an entire batch worth of bottles at lagering temps either but I could at least cold store several of the bottles. Would keg conditioning or bottle conditioning followed with storage in the 60s for most of the aging time defeat the purpose of the aging? Does it really need to be lagering temps the whole time to see the benefit?
1: bottle conditioning after primary ferm and then aging/lagering in the bottle
2: bulk aging and then doing option 1
3: keg conditioning and then bulk aging in the keg
Issues are that I don’t have the space to cold store/lager a whole keg for that entire time. I don’t have space to do an entire batch worth of bottles at lagering temps either but I could at least cold store several of the bottles. Would keg conditioning or bottle conditioning followed with storage in the 60s for most of the aging time defeat the purpose of the aging? Does it really need to be lagering temps the whole time to see the benefit?