Whats The Longest Time You Can Cc A Lager?

[johnno]

I have in CC a lager that has been there for nine weeks. I dont keg so I have to bottle condition.
Whats the longest possible time you can CC for, before there being no yeast left to carbonate the brew up?
Or do I not need to worry about this and can leave it there indefinately?

cheers

 

[action man]

personally i would only leave it in there for a couple of weeks at most, any longer and the secondary fermentation in the bottle will take far too long, or mayabe not at all.


i rack my beers to a second fermenter after the primary is just about done (sg 1014-1012) and CC for a couple of weeks before bottling. i just leave the bottled beer in a coolroom for longer after a week or so to lager and i have no problem with cloudiness as all the yeast packs down.



you may need to rouse the yeast, but only slightly to get a decent secondary fermentation once bottled.

 

[johnno]

action man,
The first lager I made earlier this year was in CC for 6 weeks and it carbonated fine. It took about 4 weeks.

cheers

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Ummm Dec 2002 I brewed a big spiced lager, OG 1130. CC'd 4 months, primed lightly and bottled, took 9 months to condition up.

Dec 2003 brewed another big lager, 10.5% doppelbock, this time CC'd 5 months but added a tsp Saflager S23 at bottling.

Lesson 1, even a huge beer CC'd 4 months eventually conditioned up, but the high alcohol content meant the yeast was pretty buggered.

Lesson 2, CC for even 4 weeks, the beer will condition up no probs unless of huge alcoholic strength

Jovial Monk

 

[dougy]

I have an ale that has been CCing for about 6 weeks.
Should I rouse the yeast before bottling?

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Nope. There will be plenty of suspended yeast (even in the big lager there was yeast after 4 months)

One reason for CC'ing is to get the beer to drop a lot of yeast b4 bottling

Jovial Monk

 

[Darren]

6 weeks for me then it is usually gone