Lagering An Ale?

[GSRman]

Hey guys,

I recently aquired a fridge and temp controller (thanks to GMK's apprentice) so im going to brew a lager soon, but at the moment it has a Stout in it (should be REALLY hoppy too ) just keeping it around the 20deg mark, its in the secondary and coming up to a week in that.. ive been thinking i should drop the temp down before i put it into a keg, to try and get the yeast out of suspension etc?

any point doing this? could it hurt? if im going to i will drop a couple of tallies first...

thinking probably a few days before i plan to keg it? down to 3-4 deg or something?

cheers fellas..

 

[Justin]

Absolutely. Drop the temp to clear the yeast, I always try to do this if I can (ie. have the room). The longer you can leave it at a cold temp the better really. As for the bottles, well you don't need to fill the bottles before you crank down the temp as there will still be plenty of yeast in suspension to carbonate the bottles (especially after only 3-4 days in the cold temps), but if you were to bottle earlier then they may carbonate quicker thats all.

As for temp, the colder the better.

 

[GMK]

Goto agree with Justin...

Been doing this for years.... try and leave for a week in the fridge prior to kegging....

Glad it went to a good home GSRman.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

yup I cold condition pretty much all my beers, in a cube so there is no huge airspace above the beer.

I recommend at least 2 weeks, longer for lagers and strong beers. Two weeks is a good time to dryhop with a hop plug or two.

After 2-4 weeks or so in the fridge there is still enough yeast in the beer to condition your bottles, i.e. don't stir up a bit of yeast when racking from the cube to bottling bucket.

Jovial Monk

 

[Tallgum]

Whist were on the subject of cold conditioning I have a bit of a funny one to ask, does cold conditioning improve beer after its been bottled ? .
If you bottle and leave the secondary fermentation to occur, say 4 weeks at room temp, then stick your bottles in the fridge for a month before consumption. does this improve the beer same as cold conditioning in a cube. After a few home brews and a couple of glasses of scchardonnay , Hic , just a stupid question.
:chug: :chug: :chug:

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Hmmmm in a cube, or even in the primary fermenter for that matter, yeast can drop out, some chemicals like the H2S ones can dissipate to the atmosphere etc. With a lager, the importance of the beer spending a day or two on the yeast cake cannot be overstated: the yeast cake cleans up the beer of diacetyl and DMS etc.

In a bottle, nothing leaves, nothing enters: whatever yeast is in the beer stays in the bottle, just itching to get stirred up again spoiling the look of the beer, etc etc.

2 weeks bulk cold conditioning beats several months cold conditioning in the bottle, IMHO

Jovial Monk