I decided to brew a Marzen as one of the beers I'm going to give to guests at our wedding as a present, the wedding is in 7 and a half weeks and I want to make sure the beer is as optimal as I can make it.
I made a bit of a late start, without thinking about the extra lagering / conditioning time. Ideally I'd lager for 8 weeks and bottle condition for 5 weeks before drinking.
I fermented at 10C, and I've just raised the temperature to 15.6 for the Diacetyl rest and it's now at my expected FG, I expect by this time tomorrow it'll be ready to rack into a keg for lagering. (OG = 1.052, FG = 1.012)
My question is, how to best optimise the time I have available - 7.5 weeks until the wedding.
I think my best option is to lager for the whole time, force carbonate and bottle it out of the keg.
I could also shorten the lagering time and lager at say 5-6 C and then bottle condition, or I could lager as normal for 6-7 weeks, and put a "drink in 5 weeks" label on the bottle, though I don't really want to do that in case the guests don't read it and drink an under-carbonated beverage.
I made a bit of a late start, without thinking about the extra lagering / conditioning time. Ideally I'd lager for 8 weeks and bottle condition for 5 weeks before drinking.
I fermented at 10C, and I've just raised the temperature to 15.6 for the Diacetyl rest and it's now at my expected FG, I expect by this time tomorrow it'll be ready to rack into a keg for lagering. (OG = 1.052, FG = 1.012)
My question is, how to best optimise the time I have available - 7.5 weeks until the wedding.
I think my best option is to lager for the whole time, force carbonate and bottle it out of the keg.
I could also shorten the lagering time and lager at say 5-6 C and then bottle condition, or I could lager as normal for 6-7 weeks, and put a "drink in 5 weeks" label on the bottle, though I don't really want to do that in case the guests don't read it and drink an under-carbonated beverage.
