I have an imperial pumpkin stout that I brewed a month ago with the expectation of drinking it in October/November after 6ish months of aging.  Right now, it's sitting in the secondary fermenter at 67 degrees and 8.5% ABV or so.  In another 2 weeks I'm adding some vodka soaked vanilla beans to the mix.


I use a converted chest freezer as my fermentation chamber (my garage was probably 90+ degrees today but the freezer stayed at a nice 67).  The problem is, it can only hold 2 carboys, 1 of those being the pumpkin stout.  At this point, I can only brew and ferment 1 beer at a time because of limited room in the freezer.  I currently have a backup of 4 beers to brew (3 of which are already crushed...sigh).




Since virtually all fermentation is done in the imerial stout, do you think it would be OK to move it from the 67 degree freezer to a 74-76 degree closet?  If I was to rack it to a keg and put it in the fridge at 40 for a few month, would it still age as effectively?




Thanks.  I guess too much beer to brew is a pretty good problem to have.


 

Yeah, move it to the closet it was done a while ago--in fact I move my beers to 70 plus if I notice they are almost but not quite done to try get that last bit of dryness out of them.  The main yeast flavors are imparted much earlier than that--taste should not be affected.

I will say to do the closet and not the garage (you did say closet so you were on the right track)--2 reasons, one is that beer likes consistent or rising temps (so you aren't sucking air in and out-this likely matters less in a sealed keg), second reason is that if you racked to secondary and/or somehow got a little oxygen into the beer, it will stale much quicker at 90 degrees than at 74 degrees (its a heat related process).

Yes, yes.