Lager Fermentation

[arturobandini]

I've had a Lager in the FV for the past 8 days and it doesn't seem to be showing any signs of abating. It's developed a dark brown thick yeast head which has not evaporated yet whereas my Brewferm Diabolo dropped out quite early. I used a Brewbuddy Lager kit as I had it lying around (it wasn't my choice honest!) and thanks to searching and reading an old DaaB post I used 1kg BKE and Safale US-05. This ale yeast is apparently good to ferment out Lager at a higher temp than you normally wish as Lager is meant to be cold fermented.

So like I say it's plodding along and I'm hoping it will wrap itself up in the next few days and I can get it into bottles and lay down for the next 5 weeks. This is where I'm wondering if I should get it straight into cold storage ,as you would a regular Lager, or do a secondary ferment at room temp as you would an ale; as I'm using an "ale type" yeast?.

Thanks

[sparky Paul]

If you are waanting some fizz in your lager, which is usually desirable, you will have to secondary ferment in the bottles to get the carbonation. I add quite a lot of sugar to lager when bottling, at a rate of 2 tsp per litre. This gives a very good level of carbonation, but the bottles will need several hours in the fridge before opening - they will be very lively at room temperature.

[arturobandini]

Ok cheers Paul,

I was just wondering what with it being a Lager would it carbonate properly at low temperatures? Like I said I've used Safale 05 which DaaB advises for brewing Lagers without the low temperature "Lagering" so I thought this might negate any low temp carbonation attempts. I'll just go on and fizz her up and carbonate as normal whenever it ends it's fermentation...

[sparky Paul]

The lager yeast will carbonate at lower temperatures than an ale yeast, but it will take longer. It wouldn't do any harm to put it somewhere a little warmer for a week or so, to get the ball rolling.

[arturobandini]

Thanks again Paul you've pretty much confirmed my suspicions. On a side note, I know Beer tends to look darker in large quantities but my lager (8 days) looks pretty damn dark to me. Anyone else had this?

[sparky Paul]

It's not uncommon to find kit lagers turn out darker than you'd expect, the Brewferm Pils I'm supping now looks like a light bitter.

What will make it worse is using an old kit, extract darkens with age, and also using Beer Kit Enhancer instead of Spraymalt. I reckon the 50% Spraymalt in BKE is medium, which darkens the beer quite a bit. Use a mix of Glucose and Extra-Light Spraymalt, or Light Spraymalt if you can't get Extra-Light.

[arturobandini]

Probably the beerkit enhancer coupled with an older kit then. My brother just had it sitting in his FV for the past two years but it was well in date when I put it on. Not that I'm really bothered about the colour to be honest. If I can get a good refreshing, sparkling pint out of this it will be more than mission accomplished. I hope it'll be alright by Christmas but the general consensus seems to be leave Lager as long as possible.

[arturobandini]

Took a test sample to get the current sg and it's sitting at 1020. The brew is very much on the go as I said with a large yeast head still on top and a steady amounts of heavy bubbles coming through. I've got the temperature in here fairly lowish considering I wrapped my belgian ale in a towel and constantly fretted over it's temperature. Seems to be working though and the taste was very "lagerish" already. Let's hope it gets down to around 4.5%!

Oh and as for the colour...it's a completely normal Lager colour. I think my FV was playing tricks on me as it looked like a Stout from the outside!

[sparky Paul]

Sounds like it's progressing fine.

Unfortunately, lager is one of those beers which benefits a great deal from a long maturing period... it's usually long gone before it reaches its best, but try and save a bottle or two.