Tips needed: cask conditioning in a corny

[Dougal]

Hey all,

Been trawling through the forum and elsewhere but can't find a great deal of specific info. I'm conditioning my first "cask" bitter in a corny now- I added 1/3cup of dextrose when I racked to the keg, and it's been sitting at 22c for the last four days.

Particularly, I'd like to know how long I should condition for and at what temperatures (the yeast is 1968). Generally, I'd like any broad tips on "cask" conditioning and your opinions on what works best...    

[Ralph]

Yeh there is not much info on it.. I "cask" conditioned a pale ale for a mates party in a keg a year or so back. From memory I think I left mine about a week or two at summer ambient temp, and then chilled to about 12 degrees and started serving. I have no idea if this is the correct way to do it, but it tasted good!

I would think that once the secondary ferment is done that aging at about 12 degrees would probably give good flavour, and it should be only a couple of weeks needed to get the right flavours going? 

[Dougal]

I'm wondering how long that secondary ferment will take? During primary the beer was down to terminal gravity in 4 days. I'm almost certain it'll be finished carbonating by now, but not sure whether I should have used a high temp like 22C for getting it there? It'll be conditioned and served at garage ambient (8-10C) anyway.

[Ralph]

I dont know that there is any problem with using the 20 + deg ferment to carb it up. Are you thinking you should have done this slowly at celler temp?

I think it is most important to have a bit of time to smooth the flavours out once the secondary is done. If you did it warm then it might need a little longer smoothing. If you ferment it cool then it will take longer to ferment but might not take as long to smooth? Probably works out to the same sort of result either way I would think? I have not worked out if the flavours smooth better at celler temp or at 20ish deg. I assume you had it in primary for a couple of weeks before carbing in the keg? If so I would think either a couple of weeks at either temp should be enough to smooth out the little secondary ferment, plus finish off smoothing the original ferment. If it is only around the 4%, is resonably light in colour and has some hop flavour then it should be good for drinking pretty quickly?

[Dougal]

Yeah, it should be okay, but I was curious about whether cask priming is similar to bottle priming in that the conditioning temperature has very little effect on flavour compared to the primary fermentation temp?

I wouldn't think that the 1968 would do that well at garage temps anyway as it seems to drop like a ton of bricks anywhere under 18C, so I have to carbonate it warm-ish. Really, I'm just hoping that as it's a 1.043 beer it won't need much conditioning time at all so I can hook up the handpull and start enjoying it :-)