Cask shelf life

[screwybrewy]

Hello folks. I’m just about to fill my shiny new pin from Hereford Casks and am trying to find out the shelf life of a sealed cask. It will be about 4.5% abv and could be stored at any temperature in the brew fridge. Any ideas? SB

[Cazamodo]

At work our age for upto a month with no noticed ill effects. Higher ABV longer.

[screwybrewy]

Great, thanks. Do you think 2 months would be ok? What temp do you condition at?

[bob3000]

A lot of breweries put 6 weeks on their casks. I've been told isinglass is what goes off, but I asked the tech support at murphy's and they couldn't confirm.

[Blackaddler]

If you don't use any finings, it'll last for months.

[screwybrewy]

Excellent, thanks. No finings used, just a bit of cellarbrite. I'm going for the veggie option!

[Cazamodo]

Ah yes I should of added that.

Beers which we dont brew often we dont fine until they are racked. so we dont have to rush to use them all.

[screwybrewy]

Interesting, thanks. So do you leave them in a closed fv / conditioning tank, or rack from a conditioned cask into another with finings?

[Cazamodo]

After fermentation for cask ales, I drop the FV down to 2 degrees for a few days, then rack into casks with finnings, if its a beer we have on constantly. If its a beer that we've brewed but plan to only have on occasionally, I do exactly the same but no finnings. when we get the cask from storage, we then add the finnings, shake it up a bit, and its clear in 12hours.
For our keg beer and our lager, I rack over into a empty conditioning tank after fermentations complete, fine the whole batch in the tank, then rack the bright beer into kegs after a few days when its dropped. Seems to work well as we have no filter system.

[screwybrewy]

Brilliant, thanks. Do you store the casks at cellar temperature (14 or so)? Thanks for answering all my questions, it's a real help.

[Cazamodo]

Brilliant, thanks. Do you store the casks at cellar temperature (14 or so)? Thanks for answering all my questions, it's a real help.

Actually we're lucky enough to have a chilled container. they sit at room temp for a few days then if there for storage go into the container at about 6*C.