Keg conditioning without carbing

[dttk0009]

Hey all,

Just a quick question: will conditioning a beer without carbing have an impact on its conditioning?

Let's say I brew a beer that needs 3 weeks warm conditioning. Could I just technically rack it to keg from the fermentation bucket, seal it, let it sit for 3 weeks, then hook it up to my keezer, carb, and serve?

Or would I need to carb it as soon as the conditioning process begins?

 

[doug293cz]

Hey all,

Just a quick question: will conditioning a beer without carbing have an impact on its conditioning?

Let's say I brew a beer that needs 3 weeks warm conditioning. Could I just technically rack it to keg from the fermentation bucket, seal it, let it sit for 3 weeks, then hook it up to my keezer, carb, and serve?

Or would I need to carb it as soon as the conditioning process begins?

You could do it, but why? You would want to purge the headspace of O2, and pressurize the headspace initially to make sure the lid is sealed.

Brew on

 

[dttk0009]

You could do it, but why? You would want to purge the headspace of O2, and pressurize the headspace initially to make sure the lid is sealed.

Brew on

Right, forgot to include that, I would of course purge the o2 and pressurize the keg to seal it. The gist is though that I would then disconnect and store the keg in my storage room at room temperature instead of leaving it attached inside my keezer while slow carbing to the desired vol.

In short: Does the presence of CO2 (at desired volume) have an impact on the conditioning of your beer or is conditioning it flat ok?

 

[brewbama]

I cold condition/crash/fine without carbing every beer. Then I move to my serving fridge, carb, and serve.

 

[johnwpowell]

I condition and dry hop in the keg at room temperature to free up my fermenter

 

[Yooper]

Beer conditions (ages) the same whether hooked up to gas and carbonated or not. Aging is temperature and time related, and not related to c02 in the beer.

 

[dttk0009]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Dr_Jeff]

so add a bit of priming sugar and have it carbed up when it is ready

 

[MagicMatt]

Beer conditions (ages) the same whether hooked up to gas and carbonated or not. Aging is temperature and time related, and not related to c02 in the beer.

While I'm not disagreeing with this statement, I think if you age/condition uncarbed, you should also condition for a couple weeks once carbed as well, for it to stop tasting "green" from the CO2 bite.

Sometimes I do condition (age) kegs without carbing first - usually stouts that I'm soaking nibs/coffee/oak in, as I find it's easier to avoid messes when adding/removing adjuncts from flat beer. However, I also give it a good couple of weeks of lagering ("cold conditioning") time after it's fully carbed. This is regardless of the style or whether it was previously aged/conditioned.

Just my 2 cents!