Keg Conditioning Belgians

[theQ]

I am thinking to skip bottling my belgians to save time.

Usually do bottle them in 22 oz bottles with cork and net targetting 3.5 CO2 volume. So I am seriously thinking to keg prime and condition them on the cold side 50-55F for few months.

Besides the obvious advantages of saving time what are the down sides, asking for people that went thru this exercise.

Thank you all!

 

[Vale71]

You won't be able to achieve the extreme carbonation that can be achieved when bottling. Even with a flow control tap there are practical limits as to the carbonation level unless you want to serve a glassful of foam every time. If aging for extended periods of time you'll also experience less oxidation, you decide whether this is good or bad for a particular style.

 

[theQ]

You won't be able to achieve the extreme carbonation that can be achieved when bottling. Even with a flow control tap there are practical limits as to the carbonation level unless you want to serve a glassful of foam every time. If aging for extended periods of time you'll also experience less oxidation, you decide whether this is good or bad for a particular style.

It's one of my concerns! Why would I get oxidaytion? CO2 being connected ? I won't force carbonate these. I will prime them and let the yeas consume the oxygen.

 

[Justintoxicated]

It's one of my concerns! Why would I get oxidaytion? CO2 being connected ? I won't force carbonate these. I will prime them and let the yeas consume the oxygen.

I think you will still need to CO2 to push the beer and keep carbonated once the initial charge runs out. But if your only concerned with storage until tapped It sounds like a good way to go. You would get less oxygen because the yeast will consume anything remaining from when you kegged the beer.

 

[Vale71]

You would get less oxygen because the yeast will consume anything remaining from when you kegged the beer.

No they won't and by far. Anyway, what I wrote is that one would get reduced oxidation when kegging because bottle caps do let oxygen in with time and this is a concern particularly for beers that undergo very long conditioning periods. Some people are of the opinion that a certain degree of oxidation is essential to the maturation of some beer styles but that is of course a matter of opinion. Personally, I keg the occasional Dubbel in kegs and that's after spunding in a unitank followed by closed transfer, meaning zero oxidation. The beer ages just fine, IMHO.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

IME, darker coloured beers can pick-up rich toffee/caramel flavours from a bit of micro-oxygenation that they don't get in kegs (with closed transfers). Do you want those flavours? They do come at the expense of some 'fresh' flavours (and there are also other ways to get toffee and caramel flavours). I prefer to bottle my dark Belgians. I like what a bit of oxygen does to them. Pale Belgians I definitely prefer kegged, or drunk fresh if bottled. FWIW, I brew a lot of English bitter and will often bottle half a keg (not bottle conditioned) to get two different but equally enjoyable beers - one with fresh hops and biscuity malt (keg), one with toffee and dark fruit notes that come a few days after bottling due to oxygenation. Oxygen does change things.

 

[Justintoxicated]

No they won't and by far. Anyway, what I wrote is that one would get reduced oxidation when kegging because bottle caps do let oxygen in with time and this is a concern particularly for beers that undergo very long conditioning periods. Some people are of the opinion that a certain degree of oxidation is essential to the maturation of some beer styles but that is of course a matter of opinion. Personally, I keg the occasional Dubbel in kegs and that's after spunding in a unitank followed by closed transfer, meaning zero oxidation. The beer ages just fine, IMHO.

There is almost always some oxygen transfer even doing a closed transfer approach, conditioning would allow the yeast scavenge it. You don't agree?

 

[Vale71]

There is almost always some oxygen transfer even doing a closed transfer approach, conditioning would allow the yeast scavenge it. You don't agree?

I don't agree and neither does the whole scientific community, but of course everyone is free to believe whatever they want, even that oxygen will float on a sea of CO2.
Besides that, oxygen ingress through bottle caps will continue long before bottle refermentation is finished and the beer will oxidize more and more and in the long run (the very long run, like several years) also lose carbonation, just to give an idea of how leaky bottle caps are.

 

[Justintoxicated]

I don't agree and neither does the whole scientific community, but of course everyone is free to believe whatever they want, even that oxygen will float on a sea of CO2.
Besides that, oxygen ingress through bottle caps will continue long before bottle refermentation is finished and the beer will oxidize more and more and in the long run (the very long run, like several years) also lose carbonation, just to give an idea of how leaky bottle caps are.

So your saying the scientific community states that yeast do not metabolize oxygen during fermentation. Got it.

I think you mean, long after bottle refermentation is finished? We are talking about kegging though. Believe it or not I have had bottled beers that are not oxidized after many years (typically sours though).

 

[Vale71]

So your saying the scientific community states that yeast do not metabolize oxygen during fermentation. Got it.

No, you're just twisting my words to make them sound stupid. What I'm saying is that active fermentation will not protect you from the deleterious effects of oxidation. If you get oxygen into beer there will be undesirable consequences not matter what phase of its lifecycle the beer is in.
Quite frankly I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself. Once again, everyone can believe anything they want including that oxygen will magically float on a blanket of CO2 (just to name a silly and somewhat related myth).

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Believe it or not I have had bottled beers that are not oxidized after many years (typically sours though).

The problem is that 'oxidised' is seen as such a dirty word in brewing; everyone expects (based on reading) to taste cardboard if their beer is oxidised, so no cardboard means a claim of not oxidised. That's true for a really poorly handled beer with lots of post-ferment oxygen, but micro-oxygenation, like under bottle caps, leads to slow flavour changes (not necessarily bad ones). Think about barrel aged beers - they're all oxidised, or more indicatively we should say 'oxygen has played a part in their flavour development'. More so than bottle aged beers. They also happen to be some of my favourite beers. Most hoppy beers and lagers though don't benefit from any oxygen - oxygen will fade the fresh flavours that were in the beer and not really work to develop any positive flavours. The best thing we can do as brewers is try different methods to see what the method brings to the table in terms of flavour, then choose methods to suit the beer being brewed. Also, recognise that process can make as much difference to a beer as the recipe does. In the OP's case, brew a batch with some in keg and some in bottles, and try them side-by-side in a few months.

 

[Justintoxicated]

The problem is that 'oxidised' is seen as such a dirty word in brewing; everyone expects (based on reading) to taste cardboard if their beer is oxidised, so no cardboard means a claim of not oxidised. That's true for a really poorly handled beer with lots of post-ferment oxygen, but micro-oxygenation, like under bottle caps, leads to slow flavour changes (not necessarily bad ones). Think about barrel aged beers - they're all oxidised, or more indicatively we should say 'oxygen has played a part in their flavour development'. More so than bottle aged beers. They also happen to be some of my favourite beers. Most hoppy beers and lagers though don't benefit from any oxygen - oxygen will fade the fresh flavours that were in the beer and not really work to develop any positive flavours. The best thing we can do as brewers is try different methods to see what the method brings to the table in terms of flavour, then choose methods to suit the beer being brewed. Also, recognise that process can make as much difference to a beer as the recipe does. In the OP's case, brew a batch with some in keg and some in bottles, and try them side-by-side in a few months.

To me micro oxidation and oxidized are too different things. Oxidized is always a negative term in brewing. Barrel aging is great (micro oxidation), for certain styles. I have 3-4 barrels I have been playing with myself. I am under the impression that keg conditioning can / will help prevent beers from getting oxidized, just like in bottles, even CO2 from the tank can have some oxygen in it. I usually bottle off the keg with a beer gun for competitions. Purge with CO2, cap on foam. I bottle one bottle at a time so I can cap them immediately, but still after time goes on some people pickup the beers being slightly oxidized. Bottle conditioned bottles tend to hold up better for me if I'm keeping them around for a long time.

I have been switching to corked and cage bottles for Belgians myself recently. When I bottle them I do oxygen free (as much as possible anyways) transfer from fermenter to keg, then I mix the priming sugar into the keg, then use a beer gun to bottle into the Belgian bottles, I don't worry as much about oxygen (you can't cap on foam when bottling this way, but I still purge the bottles).

I still don't understand the science behind, "keg conditioning will do nothing in terms of reducing oxygen". It should. I don't know how much as I don't typically bother, but have been tempted to try it to some Belgian beers.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I still don't understand the science behind, "keg conditioning will do nothing in terms of reducing oxygen". It should. I don't know how much as I don't typically bother, but have been tempted to try it to some Belgian beers.

I don't think anyone has said it won't do anything to reduce oxygen (I apologise if they have, I may have missed it), just that yeast won't immediately clean up all of it, meaning there will be some oxidative effect. Yeast will scavenge some oxygen with keg or bottle conditioning, more so if it's already active (eg. transfer with some gravity points remaining), but not as much as many homebrewers seem to think. It won't clean up all of the oxygen in the headspace of a bottle (or keg) before that oxygen affects the beer. Good practices like doing a closed transfer of actively fermenting beer to a properly purged keg, then spunding in the keg, can get O2 close to zero. Even little things like purging the headspace of bottles with CO2 before capping will help - it doesn't remove all of the O2 but does reduce it and, combined with the effect of fermenting yeast consuming some O2, can help with reducing oxidation. Reducing the headspace in bottles/keg will also help.

 

[theQ]

Anyone wants to chime in about amount of priming sugars to use to keg condition ?
Some people say use 1/2 some 2/3 of the amount used for bottling idea being that the keg has less head space. I did IPA at 130gr of sugar for a 2.5 and I do have to release some CO2 till gets to the point that is not foaming.

BeerSmith says1/2 of the sugar. There must be a valid answer out there. What's yours

 

[Gnomebrewer]

It depends a bit on how much pressure you put into the headspace with bottled CO2 and how much headspace there is. 1/2 the sugar used in bottling with 40psi pumped into the headspace gets close - you might need to bump it up a bit with bottled CO2 when you're ready to serve. I'd rather increase carbonation with bottled CO2 than decrease by venting, so would aim slightly low (then adjust for future batches). Alternatively (and, IMO better) is to use a spunding valve with fermentables remaining rather than adding sugar. That typically means transferring to keg after about 4 to 5 days fermenting (more for big beers; roughly 4 to 8 points of gravity remaining).