Conditioning under gas

[Belly]

Just brewed an all grain pumpkin ale and it fermented out within about a week, so I racked to a cornie and pressurised imediately. Two and a half weeks from grain it's carbed and on tap.

It then crossed my mind that I hadn't conditioned this beer at all, indeed most of my brews are "ready" for kegging within a fortnight of brewing. My question is does it matter? Does the beer under gas continue to condition, or does the carbonation somehow arrest it? Am I missing a crucial stage of beer maturation or does it happen anyway?

My beers are generally pretty clear (inc. the pumpkin) so I have no worries about needing to condition longer for clarity.

[orlando]

Just brewed an all grain pumpkin ale and it fermented out within about a week, so I racked to a cornie and pressurised imediately. Two and a half weeks from grain it's carbed and on tap.

It then crossed my mind that I hadn't conditioned this beer at all, indeed most of my brews are "ready" for kegging within a fortnight of brewing. My question is does it matter? Does the beer under gas continue to condition, or does the carbonation somehow arrest it? Am I missing a crucial stage of beer maturation or does it happen anyway?

My beers are generally pretty clear (inc. the pumpkin) so I have no worries about needing to condition longer for clarity.

Beers in bottle do so yes it does. You will find that beer in bulk matures a little quicker than in bottle.

[Matt12398]

My forced carbed beers change in flavour over time so there must be some conditioning going on.

[bigrichlock]

It all depends on beer style and fermentation, if your fermentation profile leads to a clean beer and you are force carbing conditioning is not needed, and in some beer styles warm maturation is detrimental to the beer flavor.

The classic example is an American IPA, if you condition it for a month you have missed the best of the fresh hop aroma.

Cheers

Rich

[orlando]

It all depends on beer style and fermentation, if your fermentation profile leads to a clean beer and you are force carbing conditioning is not needed, and in some beer styles warm maturation is detrimental to the beer flavor.

The classic example is an American IPA, if you condition it for a month you have missed the best of the fresh hop aroma.

Cheers

Rich

Ditto.

I suspect, I haven't done one yet, that a high gravity beer matures better in keg than your standard beer. I particularly notice a rapid decline in aroma with US style pales. Bottles are better for keeping.

[Belly]

Thanks for the replies.

Still not convinced I'm not missing something. I agree that forced carbed beers change in flavour over time. So why do people bulk condition in fermenting vessels for extended periods rather than just kegging them up and sticking it under gas? Once it's under gas the chances of infection or oxidation is increasingly limited, so why do it?

[orlando]

So why do people bulk condition in fermenting vessels for extended periods rather than just kegging them up and sticking it under gas?

One answer to that is if they are wanting to drink bottled beer at its peak but quicker than conditioning in bottle.

[CRoark]

I usually xfer mine over to the keg once it is clear to limit the amount of sediment in the keg...also if you are just force carbing you don't really have to wait for the beer to naturally carb so that takes some time away from the conditioning period as well. If you are bottling I would think that longer conditioning in a secondary FV would reduce the amount of sediment left in the bottle and ensure that the entire batch is consistently conditioned so every bottle is the same

[bash brannigan]

I don't understand the conditioning regimes in homebrewing. Having worked in the brewing industry for a few years, I have made beer using the big shiny stuff, but I'm only just now starting to build a homebrew setup. The fermentation cycle in commercial brewing is generally something like 3-4 days primary fermentation, hold at 10 degrees celcius for 2 days to clean up the butter flavours, then either rack to cask (in which case you generally add finings) seal and put in cool room - temps vary but 5 degrees is fine by all accounts, or in the breweries that don't cask; transfer to maturation vessel / crop the yeast off the bottom of the cylindroconical's cone, drop the temperature to around freezing for 2+ weeks and bottle. Is there any reason I can't replicate this on my home setup? I don't understand why you'd release all the naturally occurring gas, then force carb. I also don't understand the need to prime the conditioning keg.

Sorry that's such a long one, very confused here!

[orlando]

I don't understand the conditioning regimes in homebrewing. Having worked in the brewing industry for a few years, I have made beer using the big shiny stuff, but I'm only just now starting to build a homebrew setup. The fermentation cycle in commercial brewing is generally something like 3-4 days primary fermentation, hold at 10 degrees celcius for 2 days to clean up the butter flavours, then either rack to cask (in which case you generally add finings) seal and put in cool room - temps vary but 5 degrees is fine by all accounts, or in the breweries that don't cask; transfer to maturation vessel / crop the yeast off the bottom of the cylindroconical's cone, drop the temperature to around freezing for 2+ weeks and bottle. Is there any reason I can't replicate this on my home setup? I don't understand why you'd release all the naturally occurring gas, then force carb. I also don't understand the need to prime the conditioning keg.

Sorry that's such a long one, very confused here!

Not confusing, interesting, particularly your insight on commercial brewing. I am a little obsessed (unnecessarily arguably) with clarity and am still experimenting with it. Currently I do not fine dark beers and they are appear to be very "clear" so am trying to apply the same technique with Pales. I have a Pal Ale that I have fermented right out and left on the yeast till it noticeably cleared. I then transferred to a bottling bucket to get it off the yeast and then crash cooled to 5 c for 2 days in an effort to clear down as much of the yeast as possible. I then racked to the keg but noticed it was not as clear as I would have liked. So my question is, do I leave the keg to clear before force carbing or do I carb anyway, does carbing it delay clearing or not?

By the way I heard Charlie Bamforth say that the best way to reduce diacetyl (buttery flavours) was by raising the temp by 2 degrees during fermentation

[bash brannigan]

Diacetyl wise, I'd always been told that 10 was the rest temp so maybe raise the fermentation temperature of lager for those 2 days?

When using no finings and trying to get great clarity that's called 'dropping brite/bright' and it's well worth doing as cloudy beer is certainly not as stable or predictable. When I've done this I've just left it conditioning for longer, so the primary fermentation and rests as normal, then 4 weeks or so in the cold conditioning tank at freezing ish. Lots of this probably depends of the carry over between primary and conditioning. With so many brewers now using dual purpose vessels, they just take the yeast cake out using the bottom outlet and then chill it. The biggest difference in terms of design between a basic professional setup and a decent homebrew one is the temperature control in fermentation and conditioning. I'm planning on using cask saddles on cornies chilled with an old beer chiller for conditioning and a similar setup, but that allows for temperature control, on my primary. Commercial breweries have 3 zones per tank (if they have a decent tank) and no capacity to heat the fermenting beer as fermentation is exothermic. I need to find time to actually build mine and test these things now!

[orlando]

He said it this video. 6 minutes in is a good place to start 7 minutes is where he talks about what they used to do at Bass.

You didn't comment on the question of gas or no gas when waiting for the beer to clear, is it something ever discussed at the brewery, I suppose not as the process was to get it clear before packaging, whereas in a home brew situation there is a choice to keg and clear then gas or keg, gas and then wait to clear. Maybe it's as broad as it's long?