Lager Question

[Chappie519]

Hi,

I have a lager in primary at the moment. Is it possible to go straight to a sugar primed corni with this brew and then lager it at a cold temp for a while and then drink from this keg? Or will it suffer a haze, etc?

Cheers

[maxashton]

It is possible to do it that way, but if you can lager in an airlocked secondary for 10-15 days at close to freezing you will get much better results.

[mysterio]

The yeast probably wont consume the sugars at lagering temps. You could prime and leave it around 10C, then start drinking in a week. Best is to keg it, lager for as long as you can wait then force carb.

[maxashton]

But that's what lagering is.

Primary cleans up the sugars, lagering cleans up the flavours. True lager yeast will remain sufficiently active at low temperature to do it's job. Raise the temperature for a few days later on to release the diacetyl from the brew.

Steve Flack can probably explain the science better than me.

The cold secondary is what contributes the smooth clean flavours essential in lager.

[mattmacleod]

Has the lager reached terminal gravity yet?

If not you could do what I believe a lot of commercial breweries do and rack it to your keg about 2 gravity points above your FG and allow it to carbonate as the yeast consumes the last remnants of fermentables.

You'd still need to store it for as long as you can bear as cold as you can get it. I'd be inclined to keg it and then hide it away somewhere cold and try to forget about it!

[Aleman]

Primary cleans up the sugars, lagering cleans up the flavours. True lager yeast will remain sufficiently active at low temperature to do it's job. Raise the temperature for a few days later on to release the diacetyl from the brew.

To a certain degree yes . . . You need to raise the temperature at the end or primary fermentation to clean up diacetyl, not after lagering as there will be too little yeast left in suspension to clean up the diacetyl. What the OP is suggesting will work . . . What I would do (If I had to carbonate naturally ) would be to rack the beer out of primary into the corny keg with priming sugar, then put the keg somewhere cold (at around 8C, you want a reasonable level of activity) for say 3 weeks, then I would vent the keg, and drop the temperature as cold as possible (certainly to 0-1C) and lager it for a further 8-9 weeks (Assuming a 1.048 Beer) . . . . If I was in a hurry then I would drop the temp to -2C for a fortnight, then bring it back up to 1C for another two weeks. . . . In my case I would rack the bright beer into another corny, but you can raise the temp back up to 80-10C for serving and serve direct from the secondary, which is what I have done with my CAP (Which went into secondary at the beginning of April)

[Talisman]

but you can raise the temp back up to 80-10C for serving

oooh watch your mouth for burning, drinking at those temps... or blow on it first...

[Talisman]

but you can raise the temp back up to 80-10C for serving

oooh watch your mouth for burning, drinking at those temps... or blow on it first...

[maxashton]

Holy double post batman.

[Talisman]

bugger it i only clicked submit once...
(done that to me a few times when i post from work...)

[Chappie519]

Cheers everyone. So Aleman, I will raise the temp for a few days to about 15c? The put into a corni with priming sugar (normal amount?). Leave at 8c for 3 weeks then vent. So during the lagering will it build pressure again? And if i rack into another corni after that, can i prime that keg?

Cheers

[Aleman]

Cheers everyone. So Aleman, I will raise the temp for a few days to about 15c? The put into a corni with priming sugar (normal amount?). Leave at 8c for 3 weeks then vent. So during the lagering will it build pressure again? And if i rack into another corni after that, can i prime that keg?

The reason for venting is to release volatiles form the beer than 'could' influence the taste of the beer . . . then you reduce it to lagering temps 1-2C) . . . The beer should be more than adequately conditioned not to require additional primings, in fact if you are not careful with the priming sugar it will be over primed (I use the carbonation calculator in Promash to get the condition where I want it) . . . but you will need to use gas to get it out of the corny.

TBH I see little point in producing a bright clear lager and then using primings to dispense, all you will do is introduce yeast . . . not required.

[maxashton]

I tend to agree with lagers. If you've got a corny keg, might as well force carbonate lager.