Brewed my first sour ale 5 weeks ago (primary fermented with ECY Bug Farm) and I am considering racking it off of the yeast cake in the better bottle it's currently in and into a keg for long term (1-2 years) room temperature conditioning. Any considerations to be made for this approach? Any negatives (other than not being able to see what's going on) that you can think of? NOTE: I have 3 kegs dedicated for sours so "tying up kegs" or "having to sterilize kegs later" are not issues for me. Also, what should I do about the keg seal? Should I be just closing the lid, or should I be applying some co2 gas to help the seal? If so, what psi should I leave in the head space? Can too high of a psi in the head space discourage any additional fermentation? NOTE: I could just leave the beer in the primary longer but the recent formation of a pellicle makes me worry about acetobacter formation due to o2 presence. I figure a little bit of o2 at this point is good for the brett development, but I also know it's bad for the pedio and contributes to acetobacter formation. I also haven't taken a gravity reading yet, so I'm not 100% sure I'm at terminal gravity.
I'm interested in this as well. I've got a ECY01 sour that's... 3 weeks old, maybe 4 weeks? It appears to be done fermenting, but I haven't bothered to check it at all. I don't have a pellicle in mine yet. I do worry about acetobacter, but at the same time, I want a little of it in my beer. Not quite as much as say.. FV13 from Allagash, but maybe half that!! I'm tempted to in about another month or so, rack it off the cake in the BB, and move it to another better bottle, and purge with co2. I don't have a keg to hold up though, but thought about biting the bullet and getting one. I'd like to get another sour back on the cake, and use it to blend later down the road. I would think the pellicle is a good thing to protect the beer from oxygen though.
A pellicle is designed to do that, but only forms in reaction to the presence of oxygen. So while it helps, it also proves that there is oxygen in the environment. Plus pellicles can eventually collapse due to their own weight. I do have 5 gallon better bottles that I could rack this beer into rather than a keg at this time. I guess I'm just a little hesitant about long term conditioning in plastic.
I would think that long term in the plastic isn't a terrible idea. Getting it full with little to no headspace is what I plan to do. @OldSock seems to like plastic better bottles, so I'm sure he could chime in with some advice on what he's seen. I'm of the idea that having some oxygen gives us some of the flavors we seek in sours..
First things first, those orange caps don't seal worth a F*CK. That is why your developing a pellicle so early on. Either change it or worm clamp the hell out of it(which is what I did). This is currently 7 months in. It had a negligible pellicle up till two weeks ago when I pulled the first sample. It has since developed a few translucent patches after I pulled that sample. And, not to brag, but that sample tasted so good it made me change my plans for this brew. I think racking it to a keg at this point is only going to hurt it even further by introducing more oxygen. I'm also a firm believer that pulling it off of the yeast cake/trub won't give the brett a chance to utilize those compounds from the autolyzing saccharomyces. Oxygen ingress through a BB is really small and a little extra headspace won't hurt so long as you mitigate your poking, proding and exposing of the beer to "outside influences". One more thing against racking it to a keg. You know your going to want to look at it as it ages(there is no way around this human factor) and that means opening that keg up and exposing the beer. So if your intent on racking it, go with the 5 Gal BB.
I agree with a lot of what RashyGrillCook said, but if you want to put it in a keg I see no reason not to. Ive racked flanders reds to kegs for long term aging and they've turned out well, though I dont really care much about looking at them during aging any more, and I do rack to a different keg for serving. When I do age in a keg though I do not seal it, I actually have a lid that has an airlock on it and that's how I let it age. Before I had a lid with an airlock I just got a rubber bung that fit over the poppet threads and put and airlock on one of the poppets.
