Cold Crash after Lagering

[hobospy]

Hi,

Currently lagering my second attempt at a lager (from a can). Using Mangrove Jack's M84 which has been in the fermenter for what seems to be an eternity, anyway, I've been lagering for a couple of weeks now at 5C and will continue to do that for another couple of weeks but I was wondering if once this lagering period has finished is it still necessary to cold crash by lager or will enough of the yeast have dropped out during the lagering period to produce a clean tasting lager? Only reason I ask is that I have been having issues in carbing up my bottles and I want to ensure there is enough yeast left in the lager to allow for carbonation.

Thanks,

Christopher

 

[nosco]

Ive never done it before but i would be bottling straight after fermentation, carbonate at ferment temp and then lager in the bottle. If you are lagering for a long time before bottling then you might need to add more yeast to carbonate.

The fast lager ferment method works ok too.

 

[hobospy]

Already two weeks into the lagering period, really want to follow this all the way through in the fermenter then bulk prime, was wondering if I should add a small amount of yeast at the time of bottling but was hoping if I didn't cold crash I wouldn't have to :-/

 

[nosco]

I wouldnt cold crash until after its carbonated but like i said ive never bottled lager before

 

[gap]

You should not need to add extra yeast.
Your lagering temperature is not that cold.(5C)
Most people would lager at colder temperatures than that.
If you lager in the bottle you still leave everything in the bottle.
You are better off lagering before you bottle.

 

[warra48]

5ºC is not really very cold for lagering.

Get it down to 2ºC or less, if you can.

You will not have to cold crash when you lager properly, after all, how low can you go before you freeze your brew?

 

[hobospy]

I am lagering in the fermenter and have set it at 5C as from what I have read during the lagering period you want the yeast to continue to work and clean up, I have done a previous lager where I lagered as close to zero as I could and then cold crashed from there, it turned out OK but I wanted to experiment and see if I can taste any sort of difference when lagering longer at a slightly higher temperature (different type of beer but I might be able to pick out something). With all that said at 5C I wouldn't expect a huge amount of yeast to still be in suspension come bottling time but this is what I want to understand.

 

[hathro]

I cold crash to 2°C on all my brews. They carbonate in the bottle fine.

 

[hobospy]

It's not just about the temperature but more a combination of the temperature and length of time I am lagering for followed by cold crashing that I'm questioning, I guess I can do it and see what happens, if they don't carb up I've learnt something, if they do it's all good

 

[TheWiggman]

I think you're getting things a but mixed up.
The colder you lager, the longer you need to lager it for. The warmer you have it (and as far as lagering is concerned 5°C is warm) the sooner it's ready for bottling, and if you've already had it at that temp for 5 weeks then you're not going to gain anything keeping it there longer. If bottling, I believe lagering should be carried out in the bottle as additional fermentation will occur.
Likewise, the cooler it is lagered the cleaner it will be.
Don't worry about yeast not performing, it'll be there and given time it will carbonate.

 

[labels]

Lagering (conditioning) generally falls into two phases. First is when the yeast continues to clean up fermentation by-products and this generally occurs well above 5C and second stage is when the beer is at or slightly below 0C when polysaccharides and proteins generally drop out but the yeast is not working.

At this point, you may not have enough viable yeast for bottle conditioning. Your beer is already made, very little will change it. Re-pitching new yeast makes a lot of sense. However, as I said the beer is finished. In summertime I would re-pitch with a fast, high flocculating ale yeast and in winter with a high flocculating lager yeast, dry yeasts of some sort. No hard rules in this game that is for sure, and thinking outside the square will get you over the line.

 

[anthonyUK]

I have read in various places that you can lager at lower temps for shorter periods too e.g. -1°c for a week.
At 5°c you'd be looking at a few months at least.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fermenting_Lagers#lagering.2Fcold_conditioning

https://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_lagerbrewing.cfm

 

[slcmorro]

In my understanding and experience, you will not need to add extra yeast to the lagered brew once you prime and bottle it. I once lagered a Pils for 4 months with 34/70 at 1c and then bottled. Carbed up fine within 2 weeks at ambient during spring.

I also understand that it's usually just time combined with a lower temp that does the trick. I don't think that 3 weeks at 2c would be better than 4 weeks at 3c etc, it's just about maintaining a constant cool temp for as long as you're able/prepared to leave it.

 

[hobospy]

Hmmmm, seems I may have ballsed this one up. So my process so far has been:

Pitch at 10C
Ferment at 10C until about 3/4 through
Raise temp by 2C a day until reaching 18C and DRest
Wait for FG to be achieved
Drop temp by 2C until it reaches 10C
Drop temp by 1C until it reaches 5C
Leave to lager for approximately a month (halfway through that at the moment)

From what I am hearing this lagering phase should have been at a lower temperature? Or should I have done this first stage at 7C and then dropped to 0C for a couple of weeks at the end of the month? And also I should be getting myself a packet of a high floculating yeast and mixing that in when I bulk prime (obviously after adding it to boiled and chilled water).

 

[warra48]

If you continue to lager at 5ºC for another 2 weeks, you should not need to add any additional yeast. It should carb up fine.

However, if you drop it to 0ºC or lower, you may well drop out enough viable yeast, as labels posted, so need some extra yeast.

I'd keep going as you are with this batch.

As an aside, I brewed a Dunkel some time back, fermented at 9ºC for 3 weeks, then dropped it as low as my fridge would take it, and left it for 6 weeks in the original fermenter while mrs warra and I were overseas. I bottled it on our return, and it carbed up just fine.

 

[Bribie G]

Traditional breweries such as in Czechoslovakia lager for about a month at 2-5 degrees C.* The yeast continues to work slowly and cleans up the beer then mostly drops out.
In an old video series, Michael Jackson (the real one, not the pederast one) visited Pilsner Urquell and drew a mug off from the lagering tank. It had an impressive tight head and he floated a local coin on the foam.

The beer will be bright to the human eye, the polyphenols etc will have dropped out and it and will still contain enough yeast to bottle condition. In the Yeast book they say that a beer that is perfectly clear to the eye can still contain up to n cells per ml, where n is a huge number (can't find the reference at the moment). I can't see any benefit in crashing to -1 with a lager.

However a lot of ale breweries crash to -1 for a week to drop and clear the beer as quickly as possible to get it into the keg or cask. Fullers, Murrays (I understand) and others do this. Edit: and Black Duck at Port Macquarie, the guy told me and pointed at the tank. This is different to lagering as they aren't interested in the yeast cleaning up, so much as the quick turnover in expensive brewing plant and of course the brightness and freshness of the finished ale.

For the OP if adding yeast I would add the same yeast as used in the primary fermentation. If for example you added something more attenuating like Nottingham you could end up with the fermentation of the wort itself kicking off again in the bottle. Combined with the priming sugar you could end up with gushers.

* remember that Lagering was invented back in the 1500s to keep beer stored over the usually warm Continental Summer, in caves or tunnels, using ice carted down from the Alps or cut during the Winter from rivers and lakes and kept under straw. The "lagering effect" on the beer was important but not the main deal. They wouldn't have been able to easily achieve -1 C by this method, prior to modern refrigeration, but 2-5 was do-able.

 

[hobospy]

OK, sounds like I can carry on with my current approach and not worry so much about the cold crashing or adding extra yeast come bottling time I guess if this one turns out terribly I can always use it as a live and learn exercise for when I get round to make AG lager.

 

[jasonmac72]

Hope it turns out as others have to drink your "live and learn" beer at the next beer fest
:chug:

 

[hobospy]

Hahaha, I'm sure we have all been "polite" enough to drink all our beer experiments!! ;-)

 

[skb]

Advice sought

ok old thread but I like to search before I ask a question ... I normally crash chil and all is fine ... today I went to the garage and looked at the temp gauge on my fridge and it was -6.9c !!! oh ****.. I have never had this problem as I set on minimum and the fridge goes down to 0-0.5 normally.

I felt the fermenter ... rick solid 40lt beer ice block !!

Is the beer ruined - if I let it defrost will be be fine ? does anybody know ?