Lagering

[labels]

If your made your lager correctly it should taste clean at any temperature. You may get a mere hint of fruity esters at higher temperatures but that should be all you get.

-=Steve=-

 

[Hippy]

I think you're jumping to the fact that at the cooler temperature (cold temperature, actually) - more flavour and general nastiness is not going to be detectable, but you're skipping the fact that a d-rest has been performed in between (which may get rid of diacetyl), and there also appears to be an additional 20-days between the 11C tasting and the 2C tasting - which could have driven off acetaldehyde and sulphur.

If I am making an incorrect assumption here, my apologies.

Spiesy, that's pretty much what I was getting at so thanks.

 

[qq7]

Hi Chaps,


Sorry to hijack your obviously well experienced thread with a newbie question...

4 brews into my career (lager with ale yeast, american brown ale, belgian dubbel, coopers stout - all ready made worts), I (maybe foolishly) decided to give lager a go.

So I've had it in the primary for a couple of weeks at 11 degrees. its been tasting nice a clean gravity reading constant for about 4 days at 1.011. eased the temp up to 17 for the d-rest, and the gravity started going down again, and started to get a faint apple flavour. I think from your thread that this is normal... although please tell me I'm wrong if so.

my questions are
1 - I only have bottles, no second vat or keg. Is it kosher to rack the lager straight into bottles for the lagering.
2 - If I am going to cold crash it - should I do that in the vat tonight, and bottle tomorrow (weekend bottling seems so much more civilised than the 11.30 pm of a mid week after work effort), or just straight into the bottles at 17 and then drop to as cold as my fridge will go (i doubt it will get to -1 - but I haven't tested it)

Thanks in advance

 

[labels]

Hi Chaps,


Sorry to hijack your obviously well experienced thread with a newbie question...

4 brews into my career (lager with ale yeast, american brown ale, belgian dubbel, coopers stout - all ready made worts), I (maybe foolishly) decided to give lager a go.

So I've had it in the primary for a couple of weeks at 11 degrees. its been tasting nice a clean gravity reading constant for about 4 days at 1.011. eased the temp up to 17 for the d-rest, and the gravity started going down again, and started to get a faint apple flavour. I think from your thread that this is normal... although please tell me I'm wrong if so.

my questions are
1 - I only have bottles, no second vat or keg. Is it kosher to rack the lager straight into bottles for the lagering.
2 - If I am going to cold crash it - should I do that in the vat tonight, and bottle tomorrow (weekend bottling seems so much more civilised than the 11.30 pm of a mid week after work effort), or just straight into the bottles at 17 and then drop to as cold as my fridge will go (i doubt it will get to -1 - but I haven't tested it)

Thanks in advance

You can bottle from 17C. Lager in the bottles is okay. Leave the bottles warm for two weeks and then store cold for a couple of weeks. Don't worry about the apple taste it will dissipate.

Steve

 

[qq7]

thanks labels

 

[Spiesy]

took a sample of my lager yesterday... picked the apple up (acetaldehyde), but not diacetyl or sulphur, which I was pretty happy about. I've taken it to a 17-degree d-rest for 24-hours anyway, will then drop the temp and lager. I just want to make sure I tick all my boxes.

 

[qq7]

You can bottle from 17C. Lager in the bottles is okay. Leave the bottles warm for two weeks and then store cold for a couple of weeks. Don't worry about the apple taste it will dissipate.

Steve

when you say warm, is room temperature ok - or should I keep in fridge at 17?
thanks
Steve

(ie - can I put another brew on???)

 

[labels]

when you say warm, is room temperature ok - or should I keep in fridge at 17?
thanks
Steve

(ie - can I put another brew on???)

I don't think you should go too warm ~under 25C. This is not a lagering thing, it's just not a good idea to store any beer hot or keep pushing it through great temperature variations - even commercial beer you buy, pasteurised or not it will affect beer stability and longevity. So I say don't be over concerned about temperature, it could be 20C but going up to 35C during the day and back down at night and so on for any extended period of time is probably not a good thing.

 

[WWDWD]

Ferment about 10 days at 11 degrees. D rest at about 18 for 2-3 days, drop to 10 degrees then 1 degree a day to 2 degrees for 2 days and add polyclar. Rack to secondary(Keg) and at -2 degrees for a week then filter into another keg.

Would it be okay to leave in the primary fermenter the whole time... or is it advised to rack to a secondary? I'll be bottling.. so I guess I do that at the stage where you would filter into the 2nd keg (after a week at -2)?