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So I've had my breakfast stout in the primary for 16 days and I'm going to transfer it to my secondary tomorrow. The gravity is stable and its ready to move. I'm cold pressing some kona coffee tonight and I have some cocoa nibs that I'm adding as well. It tastes fantastic already.

I'm just wondering what is the best way to age it. I know this recipe takes some time to age with the amount of chocolate and coffee used in it. But, I'm not sure which is the better way to go. Do I leave it in the secondary for 2 weeks and then age it in the bottle or do I leave it in the secondary for a at least a month to age and then bottle? I'm just worried that if I leave it in the secondary to long there may not be enough yeast in suspension to bottle condition later on.

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Any room temperature aging done in the carboy for less than 6 months or so will not affect your bottling viability by very much. There will still be plenty of yeast left in suspension for bottling purposes. Plenty of people bottle lagers after 2-3 months of lagering (32F) and don't have to wait more than 2-3 weeks for the bottles to carbonate. What's the ABV of the brew? I'd only worry about bottling after a long secondary if my ABV was 8% or greater.

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  • My ABV is 6.2%. I'm thinking of transferring it and letting it sit for 2 weeks and judge the flavor from there and if it tastes like it should sit on the kona and nibs longer then I'll do that otherwise I'll bottle it and let it age in the bottles.
    – HopHead73
    Commented Feb 20, 2012 at 20:56

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