Conditioning. Cold or Warm?

[_jon_]

What's the best temperature for conditioning?

I've just put an IPA into a cornie for conditioning. It's still cold from cold crashing (which worked perfectly, it's already so clear). But I'd like to condition it for a week or two. Shall I just put the keg in the kegerator and leave it there? Or is it best to warm the beer up to room temperature and condition it, before chilling.

It was brewed in fermentasaurus under pressure, so I don't think it really needs carbing. But I don't prime anyway, I force carb my beers if needed.

Thoughts?

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi,
Assuming that you have allowed sufficient time for fermentation to be completed, if you have chilled it down, keep it chilled for as long as you can keep your mitts off it. Why would you warm up a beer that has been cold crashed?
Won't you have lost carbonation when transferring from the fermentasaurus to the keg?

 

[_jon_]

Hi,
Assuming that you have allowed sufficient time for fermentation to be completed, if you have chilled it down, keep it chilled for as long as you can keep your mitts off it. Why would you warm up a beer that has been cold crashed?
Won't you have lost carbonation when transferring from the fermentasaurus to the keg?

I did a closed transfer. It's back in the fridge now.. I've put 12psi in it to keep it gassed.. I'll try to leave it for as long as possible :)

 

[peebee]

Now there's a dodgy question. One thing that immediately springs to mind is carbonation - but that isn't necessary for you, and the beer will have been at fermentation temperatures long enough for the yeast to "do its thing". So there's maturing (which includes letting the CO2 condition work into the beer to later manifest itself as fine bubbles and not whacking great big ones) and, more literally, preparing it for the environment it is destined to be served from. Lagers are "cold" conditioned (lagering) for months to "clean" the flavours, and some breweries subject their beer to a shortened version of lagering to settle out any chill haze components (if they believe there is a risk of their beer ending up in a fridge).

In the distant past it wasn't so much "what is best" but what it's got to endure. So if you were trying to emulate a real IPA (as opposed to some "American" inspired upstart) you'd try to copy the conditions aboard a ship in the tropics (maybe 40C with big fluctuations).

But as this is most likely an "upstart" version, maturing has to be balanced with hanging on to hop aroma (i.e. not too long) and not loose the CO2 condition it already has. So it makes sense to "condition" at serving temperature (10-12C?).

 

[ericmark]

It's IPA designed to be transported from UK to India in days when there was no refrigeration and it would sit in the hull of a sailing ship for months, even today IPA is stored outside for a long time for it to get the traditional taste, so with this beer clearly it should not be cooled during storage.

OK some others EPA etc may have been kept differently, but IPA is designed to be stored in varying temperatures it would get on its way to India, so no refrigeration.

 

[foxy]

I did a closed transfer. It's back in the fridge now.. I've put 12psi in it to keep it gassed.. I'll try to leave it for as long as possible :)

Isn't the idea behind the fermentasaurus to naturally carb your beer under pressure then do the closed transfer eliminating the need of bottle gas?

 

[_jon_]

Isn't the idea behind the fermentasaurus to naturally carb your beer under pressure then do the closed transfer eliminating the need of bottle gas?

Yep, that's the idea! But muppet here didn't think and pulled the valve when changing the collection bottle without thinking Next time... next time lol