Question about my keg conditioning process

[BrewBarrymore]

I'd like some advice from more experience brewers on how I should be conditioning my beer. Here is my current process.

Brew -> Ferment -> Cold crash-> Keg beer -> Force carb at kegerator temps -> Keep it in the kegerator at about 3-4c for a few weeks to age/condition.

I feel that with this process, even after a few weeks of conditioning, the flavor barely improves. Over 6-8 weeks the flavor is almost same though slightly better. My conclusion is that perhaps the temperature at which I am aging is too cold. I wanted to change the process to the following and wanted advice from some more experienced brewers.

Brew -> Ferment -> Cold crash-> Keg -> Force carb-> Let it age at warmer temperatures, about 20-25c for a few more weeks

Does that sound better? I guess my question is if it is ill advised to cold crash before aging. The reason I want to cold crash first is so I can get it in the keg to make room for another batch of beer to ferment.

Thanks!

 

[aprichman]

IMO beer should taste good going into the keg, if it doesn't there's issues with your fermentation.

 

[GPP33]

IMO beer should taste good going into the keg, if it doesn't there's issues with your fermentation.

Pretty much this ^.

What type of beer are we talking about? The only styles I’ve noticed much of a change in are the dark roasty ones, pretty much everything else is best fresh. I think mine peak at about a week, by then I’ve pulled enough pints to get the last of anything that fell out of suspension when I chilled the keg. Beyond that they should stay stable for quite a while.

If you don’t have a way to protect the beer from oxygen during cold crash I’d stop doing it and just use the keg as a secondary container in which you cold crash, the junk that falls out will mostly flush out in the first pint and be completely gone after a half dozen. Oxygen will slowly kill your beer which undermines your aging process.

 

[RM-MN]

If you like your beer to "mature", you can either leave it longer in the fermenter (which also drops a lot of yeast so you don't need to cold crash) or keg it and let it set warm for a week or more (much more for an RIS).