When aging barley wines/stouts/porters is it best to do it in the primary…or in the bottle? Got a few of these going and just curious if there are benefits either way?
I usually age mine in secondary for a while to get it bright, then it goes into a keg for longer aging (usually a year or so, especially for barleywines & stronger porters).
Bottle aging works fine…just make absolutely sure your brew is really totally finished fermenting before you bottle. Especially important if you plan on long aging (as you should, with such beers)
When it’s done fermenting, I bottle it. Then I drink one every once in a while (every couple months) until it seems to hit a sweet spot. Then I drink it up more quickly.
It works either way - as long as you wait till it is totally done fermenting before you bottle it. Longer aging before bottling will reduce the amount of sediment in the bottles, but you will also have to add more yeast at bottling time if you wait too long. The other obvious benefit to doing the bulk of the aging in the bottles is that it frees up your buckets to use for other batches.
