Asahi Clone - Kit To Keg

[mikec]

Hiya folks.

After about a year of kits and bottling, we've upgraded to a kegerator.
First brew down is ESB's Asahi clone. Hoping you guys can give me some pointers on the process I was thinking of following.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

• 1 x Morgans Bluemountain Lager
• 1 x ESB 1kg Extra Light Malt
• 1 x 1kg Rice Malt
• 1 x 12g Hallertau finishing hop
• 1 x 12g Saaz finishing hops
• 1 x Light Grain Enhancer 200g
• 1 x Saflager S-23 yeast

Beer Profile

• Estimated Original Gravity : 1.053 SG
• Estimated Final Gravity: 1.010 FG
• Estimaled Alcohol by Volume: 4.5-5%
• Bitterness: 22-26 IBU
• Estimated Colour: 51-59 EBC

Method
Bring 2L of water to the boil, add the grain infusion and steep with the heat off for 20 minutes. Strain into your fermenter. Add beer pack, all sugars and dry malts to above and stir vigorously to dissolve. Top up to 22 Litres with cold water, the wort should be cool enough to pitch yeast and add finishing hops. Brew at 18 to 24 degrees and age for approx 6 weeks.

I picked up a cheap little freezer on ebay and am using a temp controller to keep it in the 18-19 degree range.
The fermenter has been happily bubbling away for a few days.
After fermentation is complete I was thinking:
1. Crash chill for a couple of days (my other fermenter won't fit in the fridge, so it will have to be in the same fermenter)
2. Filter into keg (1 micron gravity fed filter)

Once in the keg, should I "lager" it for a period (if so how long) before carbonating, or carbonate first? How long should I wait before drinking? (I'm still wrapping my head around the whole kegs are faster to mature concept).

I don't want crap beer but I also subscribe to the KISS method.


Cheers blokes

Mike.

 

[mikec]

Bump.
Bueller. Bueller.

 

[mfeighan]

you should have probably set the temp of your fridge to like ~10-12deg else s23 tastes pretty bad. if it cant keep them temps use us05 at 18 deg it will come out cleaner than s23 @18 deg

leaving it alone in the keg for a while all the yeasties will drop out without filtering

lagering can be done in the keg with or without carbonation

 

[mikec]

you should have probably set the temp of your fridge to like ~10-12deg else s23 tastes pretty bad. if it cant keep them temps use us05 at 18 deg it will come out cleaner than s23 @18 deg

Duly noted. Next time eh! It's a freezer with temp controller, so I can do pretty much any temp.
So you reckon don't bother filtering? I was thinking the less gunk in there, the better. Takes no real effort to filter.

 

[DU99]

any form of fining's used

 

[mikec]

any form of fining's used

Nup. I figured as it's going to the keg, filtering would be easy, so can skip the finings.

 

[twizt1d]

id still use finings if i was going to filter, the less **** the filter has to deal with the better

 

[mikec]

id still use finings if i was going to filter, the less **** the filter has to deal with the better

Makes sense. I've got some so may as well throw them in.