A question about lagering

[Tim74]

This might be an incredibly stupid question, but... I've read here all about the lagering process, but is this worth doing with kit lagers, or is it only beneficial with lagers made from all grain brewing? I have a Coopers Australian Lager kit which will probably be ready at the weekend, so is it worth moving the FV to a cooler (I'm guessing a couple of degrees above freezing) place for 6-8 weeks?

[Trough Lolly]

G'day Tim,
Feel free to cold condition the beer to help clear it up, but since the kit uses ale yeast, it'll most likely go dormant in the fridge, unlike lagering with a lager strain...

I asked Paul Burge (Coopers Brewery) this question before and he said:

The yeast supplied with Coopers Lager is an ale strain, as with all our white cans with coloured lids – Draught, Real Ale, Bitter, Dark Ale and Stout.
If you are not planning to have the yeast go through a secondary fermentation (ie the brew will be force carbonated in the keg) then it should benefit from cold conditioning.

Cheers
Paul

Cheers,
TL

[Tim74]

Thanks, TL. So I guess that I would have to ditch the ale yeast in the kit and replace with a lager yeast then. I will try that with my next Cooper's lager kit.

Edited to add:Just one more thing. If I do cold condition the lager, do I move the FV with the yeast sediment into a fridge, or do I siphon the brew into a clean FV (leaving the yeast sediment behind) and then put that in the fridge?

Tim

[steve_flack]

Thanks, TL. So I guess that I would have to ditch the ale yeast in the kit and replace with a lager yeast then.

To be honest it depends on whether you can maintain the correct fermentation temperature for a lager yeast. IMO a clean ale yeast will do a better job of a (pseudo)lager at 16-18C than a lager yeast will. If that's the case then one of the German alt or Kolsch liquid yeast strains would do a decent job....or at a push US-05.

If you can keep it steady between 10-12C then by all means go with a lager yeast. If you can find it W34/70 is good.

[Tim74]

Hi Steve, I can more or less maintain 10-12C at this time of the year in a spare bedroom. Thanks for your advice about the yeasts too. Can you shed any light on whether or not I move to cold storage after siphoning into a clean FV, or would I leave the lager in with the yeast sediment? Apologies for all the questions; I've only been doing this since Christmas and it's taken over all of my spare time...

[steve_flack]

Lagering is done on the yeast however whether or not you rack first is a good question. If you have plenty of yeast in suspension I'd imagine it would be better to rack first as you'd have enough yeast. If it's all settled out then probably I'd leave it alone.

Personally what I do is a diacetyl rest towards the end of fermentation. This involves raising the temperature of the beer to around 16C when the SG of the beer reaches a third of the OG (so around 1.016 for a 5% lager) and then leave it there until the fermentation finishes plus a couple more days. I then gradually (well sometimes not that gradually) drop it to as low a temp as I can get it - currently around 2-3C for lagering. I have to admit I don't lager very long - a couple of weeks - which will appall the purists, but I'm happy with the results. Having the diacetyl rest serves a lot of the point of a long lagering period anyway AFAIK. After a few days of lagering I would drop most of the sedimented yeast (I use a conical so this is easy) but there is always plenty left behind that doesn't get dropped so there's enough yeast to continue lagering.

[Tim74]

Cheers Steve, that's exactly what I needed to know. I'll try it with my next lager.

[steve_flack]

There's a load of info here

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... ing_Lagers

[Trough Lolly]

G'day Tim - Steve's posts are spot on. I too factor in a short diacetyl rest before lagering for a couple of months - but to be honest, I really only go through the whole lagering process if I'm using a true lager strain at the time.

At the risk of being denied entry into Germany next time I visit, I too use "clean finishing" ale yeasts such as Wyeast 1056 / US-05 for my Koelsch's. I have just kegged one and it tastes quite promising...

Cheers,
TL