Lager - If Should Keep Cold After Bottling

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adam77

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Not sure if this has been answered before, but I have some lager in the fridge at around 5 degrees in secondary. Once I bottle (not kegging), should I keep the bottles cold or is it ok to have them at room temperature prior to drinking?

Thanks.
 
The yeast in suspension will have to be active in order to carbonate your bottles. Serving temperature is a personal preference.
 
Pretty simple one adam really, the same temp as you originally fermented at is the best. If you used a lager yeast @ typical lager temps (~12 deg) is fine. If using an ale yeast you'll need them a bit warmer (~18 deg), they should still gas up at lager temps but will take a lot longer. Should take around 2 -4 weeks.
Definately keep them out of the fridge if it's sitting @ 5 deg, any yeast in your bottles will simply sleep and you won't see much carb in your bottles.

One last thing if you have your beer in a secondary in the fridge, again depending on which yeast you have used, you might have dropped too much yeast out of suspension and when you bottle there won't be enough yeast around to carb up your bottles. You may look at adding some extra yeast into your bottles (rehydrate some dry yeast and pippet it in or pippet in some liquid yeast). Note I have never had to do this with any of my lagers but I have with some more highly flocculent ale yeasts that have heavily dropped out after a ferment and a bit of cold conditioning.
 
Thanks very much guys for the reply. I won't keep them in the fridge when I bottle them tonight. Your help is appreciated. Still getting the hang of things.
 
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