Beer Forum

Hofferbeerbrewing:Hi my name is Aaron president of the Central Oregon Homebrewers Organization in Bend Oregon I have a large wood aged bourbon beer o.g.1.090 f.g1.018 I ended up with 9 gallons post fermentation so I broke it down to 3, 3gal batches aged on various wood aged in bourbons, My question is I'm affraid it won't carbonate well with sugars? Should I keg it then bottle it? If I was to keg it should I be worried about oxidizing the beer by carbonating 3 gallons in a 5 gallon tank? Thanks for your time Brew Strong hofferbeerbrewing@yahoo.com

I would think that keg carbonating would be the safe bet, since you won't know if the yeast is still active enough to do the job until it is too late. To alleviate your worries on oxidation, I would fill the keg with star san, hook the keg to co2 and purge the air space, then push all the star san out through the picnic tap. In the end, turn up the gas and really blow out the last bit of sanitizer ... all of the gas in the keg will be co2 and no worries about oxidation.

By kegging them, you would also have the ability to play around with blending between the three versions.