Lager Brewing

[Mclovin]

Hi all,

Recently I decided to brew up my first real lager with a tin and some extracts, hops etc, etc. I have good temperature controll with my new brewing fridge set at 12'C ready to go. After 1 week my air lock has slowed down considerably and after checking my gravity reading several times over the last couple of days I have a steady reading of 1.020.

After reading some posts on AHB I have found some brewers use 2 packets of yeast in order to maintain 1.010 final gravity. I am using Saflager S-23 and only pitched 1 packet with my wort at 22'C. After waiting 12 hrs my airlock was starting to discharge Co2 so I placed the fermentor into the fridge and chilled it down to 12'C after 24 hrs.

I understand lagers can take a longer period of time to ferment due to lower temperature conditions. With S-23 at 12'C how long should a normal fermentation period last? I started of with a gravity of 1.040 and after 8 days im at 1.020. Is brewing at lower temperatures with lager yeast a slow process in comparison to ale brewing with Safale US-05 at 20'C with around the same gravity of 1.040. Most ales i have done with US-05 maintain airlock movement untill 1.010 or 2 weeks in primary.

 

[kelbygreen]

it will take about 2 weeks, best to pitch 2 packs of yeast but heard people that have done it with 1. The time is alot long as you need to ferment the beer 2+ weeks then rack beer to secondary and lager the beer at 4c for 4-6 weeks, then bottle the beer and can take a month to fully carbonate as after lagering most of the yeast has dropped out. Mine was crystal clear going into the bottles (only bottled on the 1st so havnt even bothered opening one yet.

 

[Mclovin]

I dont plan on racking to a secondry fermentor, my plan is to use my keg as a secondry and after i reach 1.010 or so i will raise my temp up to 18-20'C for a diactyel rest over a couple of days then keg and store at 2.5'C for as long as i can. I am hoping this will work out!

 

[kelbygreen]

yeah should do. I still bottle so not sure how it works for kegs but heard ales are right to drink after 3 days in keg, where bottles its almost a month. sounds like your on the right track maybe someone can comment on lagers in kegs more though I would be interested to hear it as plan to go that way.

 

[NickB]

Yep, will be fine.

I don't use a secondary at all these days. Just ferment out in primary, crash chill overnight or longer, then filter to keg, and CC/Lager at serving pressure. Have also used the 'Ross Method' of force carbonating in the past, but found it a little hit and miss.

No matter how you do it, the longer the beer is Lagering for, the clearer and cleaner the flavours tend to be. If I had the space, I'd lager all my beers for 3 months before drinking.

Cheers

 

[MHB]

Lager is a "Technical Beer" that is to say it's really an industrial process. Its also the most poorly understood of brewing methods by most home brewers. If you want to make really good lager it pays to follow the guidelines and take as few shortcuts as possible.

This is lifted from Kunze* (pretty much Holy Writ when it comes to making lager) among the dozen or so common processes it most closely approximates what most home brewers can achieve

View attachment 38029
The left scale is temperature in C⁰.
Right is Diacetyl in mg/L
Solid black line is Temperature, Solid orange is Diacetyl and the Dotted line is Gravity (P^o).
Tage is Days and the ↑ is where Trub is removed.
If you take the time to look closely at that the illustration you will get some ideas that might (heretical as it sounds) be slightly at odds with AHB conventional wisdom, but could help to improve your lager. Interesting to note that 12^oC is called Warm Fermentation and about -1^oC is Cold Maturation.
MHB

* p 440, Technology Brewing and Malting, Wolfgang Kunze VLB Berlin 3^rd International Edition 2004

 

[goatherder]

Interesting graph, thanks for posting Mark. I reckon that a conical would come into it's own in order to repeatedly remove the trub like that.

What does Kunz say about yeast pitching rates to get that sort of attenuation profile?

 

[MHB]

With a lot of provisos, relating to nutrient and O₂, pitching rates of 20-30 Million cells/hL, so 2-3 Million/L are recommended.



That was the really big change between the 2^nd and 3^rd editions of Kunze, in the second edition CCV were newish and other options were given a lot of pages, in the 3^rd edition CCVs are talked about as the way beer is made so yep they are ideal for Lager brewing.

Looked in the front window of the shop lately?

MHB

 

[MHB]

Opps blond moment, make that 0.2-0.3 Million Cells/Litre, dropped a decimal.

Mark

 

[jakub76]

Why would you lager before bottling? Am I missing something? I know some people still offer that advice but I figured it was keggers that didn't bottle condition anymore. Having the yeast all drop out just means it's got to multiply again or you need to add more yeast to carbonate. Why make life so hard for yourself?
I bottle all my brews and here's my conditioning regiment...
Ferment in primary with D rest (Total= Ale: approx 7-9 days. Lager: approx 15-17days)
Bulk prime & bottle...room temp (18-20C) for 14 days.
-1C crash chill for 3 days. No it doesn't freeze, this drops the yeast and flocculates the protiens/haze (chill proofing).
14 days at 4C and we're done!
Last lager I started drinking after 7 days at 4C and it was really good, after 14 it's crystal...and still yummy.
Of course not all brews will be the same but I will crash chill after I'm happy that the yeast has done all of the work I am expecting of it - carbonation and clean-up.

 

[manticle]

Why would you lager before bottling? Am I missing something?

Because larger volumes supposedly mature faster and better than smaller volumes? As mentioned in another thread I'm not a lager expert but I do cold condition all my ales for a minimum of a week (and ciders too) and find they are drinkable sooner than if bottled directly.

The amount of reproduction required for carbonation seems negligible in my experience.

 

[MHB]

Because it isn't the yeast we want to drop out, it's the proteins that form chill haze and later permanent haze. One of the old names for lagering was Chill Proofing.

If you lager in the bottle, and the bottle warms up, all the stuff that you have removed goes back into solution undoing the benefits of lagering. The same processes that lead to permanent haze also play a role in other staling processes so by lagering - racking- then bottling the beer stays in the best possible condition for the longest time

If you give a beer the full lager treatment I would reseed the beer before bottling with a fresh yeast, just a packet of 514 in the bulk prime is the easiest way.

MHB

 

[jakub76]

Because it isn't the yeast we want to drop out, it's the proteins that form chill haze and later permanent haze. One of the old names for lagering was Chill Proofing.

If you lager in the bottle, and the bottle warms up, all the stuff that you have removed goes back into solution – undoing the benefits of lagering. The same processes that lead to permanent haze also play a role in other staling processes so by lagering - racking- then bottling the beer stays in the best possible condition for the longest time

If you give a beer the full lager treatment I would reseed the beer before bottling with a fresh yeast, just a packet of 514 in the bulk prime is the easiest way.

MHB

Ok so extra effort, expense and time for aesthetics and that's only if you're going to store the bottles warm - I reckon I'll stick to my regiment but thanks for the info. As for staling, I wish my baches lasted long enough for that to be an issue.
I always fill 1 or 2 corona bottles each batch so I can see what's going on during lagering. I'll pull one out of the fridge and see if I can get those protiens back into solution and create another chill haze.

 

[MHB]

Something you and mantickle might both want to think about

jakub76
Having the yeast all drop out just means it's got to multiply again or you need to add more yeast to carbonate. Why make life so hard for yourself?

manticle
The amount of reproduction required for carbonation seems negligible in my experience.

Yeast requires Oxygen (among other things) to reproduce, the amount of reproduction going on at the end of fermentation is minuscule if any. Enough O₂ in the beer to trigger reproduction will ruin the beer through oxidisation. Conditioning is just a continuation of the fermentation process, existing yeast eating sugars excreting CO₂.
MHB