philistine
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 1/4/14
- Messages
- 436
- Reaction score
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Hey Brew Dudes,
So, lets just cut to the chase:
brewing a Helles
pitched the yeast on 11/5
Ive done a D-rest
gradual drop in temp over 5 days
we're now sitting at 1c and have been for about a week
total time in fermenter so far - 3 weeks & 3 days
I want to bottle it this weekend and lager/condition in said bottles.
Is it too soon?
I know there's a hundred different views on the matter, but Im liking this one :
http://byo.com/stories/item/2313-plate-chillers-lagering-mr-wizard
"Some folks talk about flavor maturation, flavor mellowing and beer stabilization when they talk about lagering, but these are all different terms for the four objectives I cited. The only thing that should be performed before bottling is clarification, and this only needs to be done partially since yeast is needed for bottle conditioning and the bottle bottom serves reasonably well to keep yeast sediment out of the beer, provided that some care is exercised when moving bottles around and when the beer is poured.
I suggest fermenting your lager until the final gravity is stabilized and then allowing it to sit at the fermentation temperature for a few days to give the diacetyl and acetaldehyde reduction steps a solid head start, if not more than enough time to be complete. Move the beer to a cold place, such as a refrigerator or snow bank for about a week. The cold temperature will knock a lot of the yeast out of solution and make racking easier prior to bottling. I then would rack, prime and bottle.
So, lets just cut to the chase:
brewing a Helles
pitched the yeast on 11/5
Ive done a D-rest
gradual drop in temp over 5 days
we're now sitting at 1c and have been for about a week
total time in fermenter so far - 3 weeks & 3 days
I want to bottle it this weekend and lager/condition in said bottles.
Is it too soon?
I know there's a hundred different views on the matter, but Im liking this one :
http://byo.com/stories/item/2313-plate-chillers-lagering-mr-wizard
"Some folks talk about flavor maturation, flavor mellowing and beer stabilization when they talk about lagering, but these are all different terms for the four objectives I cited. The only thing that should be performed before bottling is clarification, and this only needs to be done partially since yeast is needed for bottle conditioning and the bottle bottom serves reasonably well to keep yeast sediment out of the beer, provided that some care is exercised when moving bottles around and when the beer is poured.
I suggest fermenting your lager until the final gravity is stabilized and then allowing it to sit at the fermentation temperature for a few days to give the diacetyl and acetaldehyde reduction steps a solid head start, if not more than enough time to be complete. Move the beer to a cold place, such as a refrigerator or snow bank for about a week. The cold temperature will knock a lot of the yeast out of solution and make racking easier prior to bottling. I then would rack, prime and bottle.
