Longer primary?

My BW ale is at 2 weeks in primary. I took a reading today and plan on another tomorrow.
If it’s ready should I transfer to secondary, or hold off another week like an ordinary gravity
beer, then secondary for a month? Guess I’m just wondering what others have done differently
from the directions.

If you plan to only secondary for a month I would just leave it in the primary for that time. But if I were doing a BW, I would secondary it for a lot longer than 1 month…at least 6.

Just my 2 cents.

^ This.

Why would you primary a BW for a shorter period than a APA/IPA?

I’d leave it for three weeks minimum, then bottle and age it after its carbonated. Bottles protect from oxidation better than any carboy can.

I’m going to England in April so I had planned to age it until July but will probably leave it go longer.
Can I do a secondary in a keg? Saw something about this but can’t hunt it up. I’m not great on a outer.
If I can keg this and let it sit do I use enough co2 to seal it, use priming sugar, or just put the lid on
and leave it sit?

Flush the headspace with CO2 a couple of times, then hit it with 20 psi to seal. It’s also helpful to put a fresh coat of keglube on the lid o-ring to get a good, long-term seal.

Very useful information. If after aging for a long period in the keg, is it okay to open and do a hop bombardment just before it’s ready to serve?

[quote=“Steppedonapoptop”] If after aging for a long period in the keg, is it okay to open and do a hop bombardment just before it’s ready to serve?[/quote]SOP for me. Remember that dryhopping is best done at ~68F.

Personally, I’m not a fan of long aging in either primary or secondary. Unless there’s a problem with the fermentation, the schedule I use for all of my beers is:

Primary: 1 week
Secondary: 2 weeks
Bottle age: 1 week+

If you want to do an extended bulk aging in a keg, then you can just cask condition it. Rack the beer out of primary, let it settle in secondary for 2 weeks, and then rack it to a keg with bottling sugar/yeast. You can then age the beer in the keg for several months or more before serving.

Btw, the bottling yeast that I use is the Safbrew T-58 dry yeast. It’s super highly flocculant, so there is no haze in the final product. I would rehydrate and pitch 1/4 of a packet for a 5 gallon batch. Just add it to the beer during racking into the keg just like you do the bottling sugar. Also, this kinda goes without saying, but you could also just bottle the beer and let it age in the bottles for as long as you want. Enjoy.

Thanks a bunch guys! I appreciate all the help.