lagerrrrring

prieff · Post by **prieff** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 7:16 pm

I have 3 batches of Octoberfest in carboys in my freezer. I am also fermenting a batch of Gold Honey ale, a batch of Helles, and a Kolsch. Once the Helles and Kolsch ferment out I will be making 2 more of each. These are all for my Oktoberfest party. My question is: how long should I let the lagers sit on the secondary yeast before I final keg them? I need the carboys for the other batches and cornys take up less space in my freezer. Thx!!

Paul

tompb · Post by **tompb** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:01 pm

There's no reason you can't lager them in cornies. No real need to secondary.

prieff · Post by **prieff** » Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:34 pm

My question is this: How long should a lager sit on the secondary yeast? When can I keg for the rest of the lagering period? Or does the "lagering" have to be done on the yeast?

Just thought that the yeast was required to do the "cleanup". Most of the yeast looks like it is cooled right out of suspension. Thx.

Paul

BTW. I will pay dues... just not sure I can make it to evening meetings with work and all. I modified my fermenting fridge to handle 2 more buckets and to do 2 diff temps. Will post pix soon.

tompb · Post by **tompb** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 12:06 pm

As long as you pitch enough good healthy yeast you can just let in sit for an extra week after fermentation seems done. Raise the temp about 10 degrees for that last week. That should help the yeast clean up any leftover byproducts. Then just keg and lager, no need to secondary.

This is just info I have gathered from JZ on The Brewing Network. Maybe some of our lager brewers can chime in with their experience.

BrewHound · Post by **BrewHound** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 2:32 pm

I agree with tom, there is no reason to secondary on this. However, should state that I have never lagered before, I as well am going on what I have read and heard on the Brewing network and other podcasts.

carrisr · Post by **carrisr** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 4:05 pm

My first lager (munich helles) is sitting the the fridge at 53F right now. From what I've read and from what Lee told me, if you pitch at a colder temp than you ferment at it should go very clean, with really no need to do a d-rest (bringing the temp up after fermentation).

What I did was transfer from the brew kettle to a carboy, then chilled it overnight to about 48F. The next morning I transfered that off of the trub into another carboy. I added oxygen and pitched the yeast. Over the next couple of days I let it warm to 53F. It'll be at 2 weeks tomorrow. I'll check the gravity again to make sure it's done, and if so I'll start lowering the temp over the next few days to around 35F.

We'll see how it turns out.