Larger Wonders

[hamstringsally]

I have two beauties sitting in my fridge at the moment in the primary bubbling away nicely at 11 deg. wondering what a few people do out there for teir lagers after the primary. last time after three weeks in the primary i cubed it and put in another fridge for 4 weeks at 4 deg. then bottled after that.
Is this the process common or is there any suggestions people would say works alot better?


cheers

hammo

 

[manticle]

Sounds ok. Traditionally lagers are also brought up in temperature at the last little bit for a diacetyl rest.

Some people say it's not necessary unless you taset diacetyl but worth researching anyway.

 

[hamstringsally]

Sounds ok. Traditionally lagers are also brought up in temperature at the last little bit for a diacetyl rest.

Some people say it's not necessary unless you taset diacetyl but worth researching anyway.

mate if i leave it cubed for say 5 to 6 weeks at 4 deg will the yeast still fire up when i bottle it for carbination at room temp? the last lager i did like this but could not wait longer than 1 week and drank some and found them to be a bit flat. thought it could have something to do with my capping machine, just not leaving it long enough in the bottles or the yeast did fire back up enough after the cubing process

 

[manticle]

Should be fine to carb up but you will need to be patient. if you can wait four weeks to bottle you can wait four weeks for it to carb.

Put it elsewhere and brew something else for quick drinking.

 

[hamstringsally]

Should be fine to carb up but you will need to be patient. if you can wait four weeks to bottle you can wait four weeks for it to carb.

Put it elsewhere and brew something else for quick drinking.

thanks mate thought that could be the case. do you rate kegging system? ive been bottling for years with can kits and now all grain but dont really know much about kegging at all really. i like the fact that you can go to a shindig and just take a few long necks or give a few away to mates. does kegging skip the time to wait for carbination?

cheers mate

 

[manticle]

I bottle only. Kegs would be nice if I lived in a space where I could set up a bar but I would still bottle a few from every batch.

 

[Effect]

It most certainly can speed up the carbing process. Have a look through the articles up top through the kegging how tos and such. You can force carbonate a keg of beer, which simply put is you have a cold keg of beer (has to be cold or it won't absorb as much co2), set the regulator high so it pushes more than normal gas into the keg and then you shake the shit out of it for about 30-60 seconds. Wait 15 minutes, vent and then serve.

I however tend to just set my kegs up at serving pressure and within a week they are perfectly carbed. I would certainly recommend getting into kegs as soon as you are into ag (can't tell from your other posts) and have thr money, space etc. Well worth the investment. If you are worried about the issue of taking bottles to parties or giving away a bottle to mates, without spending anymore money then you need to, you can bottle some up when you keg, maybe do a slightly larger batch than normal? But if you wanted to, you can spend extra to get gadgets which allow you to bottle up beer from the keg when it is carbed.

The downside to kegging is that you will drink your beer much faster than when you bottle. You can have say, 5 glasses of beer which could be 2.5 bottles, but you don't have to tip out the other 0.5 bottle of beer (and you probably wouldn't've opened the last one aswell).

Can't recommend kegs enough. As soon as you have a spare $1000 do yourself a favour and get em. Mind you, you can do it for cheaper than $1000 and many people here do it cheaper, but $1000 should cover 4 kegs, second hand fridge, two taps, gas bottle, regulator and all the fittings.

Cheers
Phil