Beer Forum

Hello,

I brewed a barleywine about ten days ago and planned on letting in set in primary for a month. I can't decide if I should transfer it to a second carboy for a few months and then keg, or just rack to a keg and age. Are there any differences? If each are fairly similar I would rather transfer directly to a keg to minimize oxygen pickup. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I don't have the exact timeline in front of me, but that's basically what I did for my last barleywine. Primary -> Keg -> back of a temperature stable closet where it could be forgotten for a while. Worked like a charm. Lost the keg in a couple days, found it a couple months ago. Other than one tiny recipe flaw, it's delicious. Brewed in early 2009, so almost 4 years old.

I'm always an advocate of not secondarying in a carboy. I'm more sensitive than most to oxidation, and a keg can be CO2 purged easily, unlike a carboy. Plus, subsequent racks to a "bright tank" keg are done under full CO2. You dont need a lot of yeast at all to produce a valuable secondary environment. However, if you want the secondary yeast to really do anything, then keep the new keg "cool", not "cold", or else your lil buggers will nod off...

I recently started transferring my beer to a keg from the primary, but this is the first time I've brewed a beer of this gravity. I did take a reading and it has already hit the terminal gravity. That does seem better just to keep the oxygen pickup to a minimum.

I'm currently drunk off from aforementioned barleywine. It's delicious. Just sayin'.

Definitely rack it straight to the keg. Better than a carboy and you can even cold condition it if you have the room in a fridge. I will be tapping an English Barleywine (10.6%) I made last february that has been cold conditioning ever since at 35F in the keg. Haven't even had a taste yet and am really looking forward to it as our first winter storm approaches!

Ozwald wrote:I don't have the exact timeline in front of me, but that's basically what I did for my last barleywine. Primary -> Keg -> back of a temperature stable closet where it could be forgotten for a while. Worked like a charm. Lost the keg in a couple days, found it a couple months ago. Other than one tiny recipe flaw, it's delicious. Brewed in early 2009, so almost 4 years old.

See, I'd remember the keg.

Dirk McLargeHuge wrote:

Ozwald wrote:I don't have the exact timeline in front of me, but that's basically what I did for my last barleywine. Primary -> Keg -> back of a temperature stable closet where it could be forgotten for a while. Worked like a charm. Lost the keg in a couple days, found it a couple months ago. Other than one tiny recipe flaw, it's delicious. Brewed in early 2009, so almost 4 years old.

See, I'd remember the keg.

I have ways to fix that.