Pilsner: Lagering And Bottling

[jonw]

Hello folks,

My first AG pilsner has just finished fermenting in the chest freezer at 10 degrees. I've bumped the fridgemate up to 18 degrees for a diacetyl (sp?) rest.

My question is: what should I do now? I've read a lot about lagering and bottling, and everyone seems to have a difference opinion about the sequence of events, temperatures, and even how quickly the temp should change. Here's what I plan to do:-

1) Rest at 18 degrees for a couple of days.
2) Rack to secondary
3) Set the fridgemate to 1 degree, and crash cool to lagering temp.
4) Lager for a couple of weeks
5) Bulk prime and bottle
6) Set the fridgemate to 18 degrees, and condition for a couple of weeks

I might not even bottle condition in the freezer - bottles may have to make way for a fermenter! In which case conditioning and storage temp will be the ambient temp under my house.

Is this the right way to do it?

Cheers,

Jon

 

[Fatgodzilla]

Hello folks,

My first AG pilsner has just finished fermenting in the chest freezer at 10 degrees. I've bumped the fridgemate up to 18 degrees for a diacetyl (sp?) rest.

My question is: what should I do now? I've read a lot about lagering and bottling, and everyone seems to have a difference opinion about the sequence of events, temperatures, and even how quickly the temp should change. Here's what I plan to do:-

1) Rest at 18 degrees for a couple of days.
2) Rack to secondary
3) Set the fridgemate to 1 degree, and crash cool to lagering temp.
4) Lager for a couple of weeks
5) Bulk prime and bottle
6) Set the fridgemate to 18 degrees, and condition for a couple of weeks

I might not even bottle condition in the freezer - bottles may have to make way for a fermenter! In which case conditioning and storage temp will be the ambient temp under my house.

Is this the right way to do it?

Cheers,

Jon

I love these sort of "how long is a piece of string" questions. The answers about to flow forth will sway all over the shop and everyone will think they are right because they probably are right and then be told they are wrong by someone else, who will probably also be right.

For the record, I have done exactly what you propose to do in the past. At no time will you ever get to know whether what you did was good, bad or indifferent unless you do one thing. Bottle and treat some one way, then bottle and treat some another way. keep good records, cos sure as God loves bogans, you'll forget in a few months what the heck you did. (been there, done that too). Best of luck on this one.

 

[Ray_Mills]

Hi Jon
Looks like things are going well at this stage, from experience i would rest the beer around 20c for the next 3 to 4 days, what this does as well is it will totally ferment out, and thats what you want.
All you have to do now is rack the beer to another fermenter and lager it for 3 to 4 weeks at around 2 tro 5 degrees. Just leave it alone and let it lager and settle.
After this period, just bottle the beer as normal, let it carbonate over 2 to 3 weeks this time of the year, it takes longer in the winter.
After that, drink and enjoy
Cheers
Ray

 

[jonw]

Thanks for the advice guys - I left it at 18 degress until Sunday, racked off to a cube, and now it's sitting at 2 degrees. Let's see how long my patience lasts - I reckon it'll be a couple of weeks!

 

[royale]

Hi,
I'm almost ready to bottle my first lager but have a question regarding bottling temperature.
After largering do you bring the temperature back up to room temperature before bottling or can you just bottle strait away (1-2 degrees)

I didn't do the diacetyl rest before lagering if this makes a difference.

Cheers
Brett

 

[jonw]

After largering do you bring the temperature back up to room temperature before bottling or can you just bottle strait away (1-2 degrees)

I didn't do the diacetyl rest before lagering if this makes a difference.

I've learnt that you only need a diacetyl rest if your lager's got diacetyl in it! Can you taste it? If not, no worries.

I would go ahead and bottle straight out of lagering. The only problem's going to be your hands getting cold ;-)

 

[Hogan]

After largering do you bring the temperature back up to room temperature before bottling or can you just bottle strait away (1-2 degrees)

Bottle it at the lagering temp.

It is best to let it bottle condition at the temp you fermented at, however it will take a lot longer for the bottle to carb up than if you store it at ambient temp.

Cheers, Hoges.

 

[royale]

Awesome.

Thanks for the advice.

I took a sample before dropping to largering temperature and it was tasting pretty good. It was a couple of gravity points higher than what I would have liked but I think I had my sparge water a bit warm which is probably the reason.

 

[Dazza_devil]

Same for bulk priming as opposed to carb drops?