Keg The Prime vs Keg The Gas - experiment

[Journeyman]

OK, so Keg the Prime is in the cupboard with 76g raw sugar in 19L. Temp set to 19.5 - seen a few posts elsewhere where the poster swears it was 18 and no carb happening so figure give it a boost.

Keg the Gas is in the fridge on serving, burped and carb lid in place. Set the timers: 1 week, bottle a beer from the Keg the Gas. 2 weeks, bottle a beer each from Keg the Gas and Keg the Prime, 4 weeks, bottle a beer each from Keg the Gas and Keg the Prime. All bottles stay in fridge one done - to try and 'freeze' the ferment.

[Journeyman]

Saturday evening I used my carb cap for the 1st time - the 1st attempt leaked CO2 a bit while filling so I did a 2nd one to keep for the experiment.

Last night I tried the 'leaker' and it was rather good - carbonation was a bit light, but it had good head (although I had to work it a bit - by 'good' I mean it was fine bubbles  and it didn't just vanish in a couple of minutes) and flavours were pretty good. I'm a little surprised how good it tasted given the brew is Real Ale with LDME - nothing fancy in a partial etc.

Should be interesting to do the blind tasting given this is quite drinkable after only a week in the keg. 

[Journeyman]

Tried a glass from the tap last night. I can taste that there was no bittering done for the beers. It's not 'sweet' per se but definitely no bitter undertones. I tasted it in the bottle as well but wasn't sure if it had anything to do with being transferred. I did wonder if maybe it hadn't been at FG and some of the malt wasn't converted but after the glass, I'm pretty sure it's just a lower bitter content.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Journeyman

[Journeyman]

I have 2 identical brews in kegs, just basic Real Ale with LDME and 15 min mosaic hops and cascade as a tea. 20 litres each. After CC and finings, one FV went into a keg with some dissolved raw sugar and into a cupboard with an electric blanket at 20° - the other in the fridge at 3° on 12 psi.

After a week I did try a beer from the gas keg - wasn't that impressed but I thought, "well, it is just real ale and LDME"

At 2 weeks the cupboard one went into the fridge on gas. Once the new keg cooled I tried a glass from each - the conditioned keg was clearly a better beer than the 1 week gas beer and still a better drink than the 2 weeks gas beer.

A week later, there was noticeable difference in flavour but other characteristics were similar - head, retention, lacing etc. I probably should have used normal sugar because the main flavour difference seemed to be from the sugar. The conditioned beer was better than at 2 weeks but the gas beer had improved markedly

4 weeks later it is hard to pick the difference - the sugar flavour has almost vanished and the beers are very tasty, good body and head with bubbles almost fine enough to look nitro. 

IMO I proved to myself what I thought from casual observation - kegged and carbonated beer needs time to become a good beer. Yes you can force carb and drink in 24 hours or so but it's an average beer - that same beer after 2 weeks on gas is a MUCH better drink.

But given time to mature, it doesn't really matter if you keg or bottle - the beer will improve with age. I have wondered if that's why keggers like hoppy beers in kegs - they can get drinking it while there's still a lot of hops flavour and aroma and those flavours and aromas cover the lesser quality of the underlying beer. By the time the hops effect fades the beer underneath has matured.

But I don't know because I haven't done any high-hops beers.

[Pale Man]

Excellent thread. Is that the experiment over or more to come? 

[Journeyman]

I am not sure where I might go after this.

I have a stick sous vide coming and I have a hops spider that it can go inside. This will let me do larger partial mashes than my current sous vide - it's only 5L pot sized so anything more than about 1.3 kg grains isn't achievable. But with the new one I can clip it on the side of my BigW pot and do decent sized mashes, then just remove the sous vide and grain and turn the stove on under it.

So I've been looking at some recipes, wondering what I might try to compare a partial mash with Coopers can with a full mash. See if I can work out why so many people are so exuberant about AG.  

Another idea was to try (say) a Lager can against my pref Real Ale can to see just what difference the can choice makes.

Another thought was about finings - I remember some of my early beers (b4 partials) were very clear without me actually doing much other than gelatin. Post partials, the beers aren't so clear even if I use finings so I'd like to play around the edges of that issue. I do have polyclar now that I can use in the partials so there are likely several options to trail.