Lager bottle carbonating

[GibonCZ]

Hello !
Quick question for the pros
Im moving into all grain so I can brew some nice lagers. I have a small fridge to store the fv in so the temp controll wont be a problem but at this stage I dont want be kegging yet.
Question(s) - how are lagers carbonated in the bottles ? Should I just add priming sugar and bottle it after few months lagering ? Will be there any yeast left ? Do I then leave the bottles in warm place to carnonate or back to the fridge as it is lager yeast ?

 

[foxbat]

If you leave your secondary fermentation until after lagering then you will have to lager again to drop the yeast and trub that it produces.

Do your carbonation first for a couple of weeks, test a bottle then put it away for lagering.

 

[matt76]

I'm confused about this - I'm currently lagering a Czech pilsner in the secondary FV, after which i plan to bottle.

In "How to Brew", Palmer recommends bottle then lager, but the advice i got here was lager in secondary FV and then bottle.

My understanding is "lagering" is just ageing or conditioning. Surely once it's aged then it's aged??? Or does carbonation somehow magically undo the aging/conditioning? aunsure....

I get that once you've bottled, the mini-fermentation that creates carbonation might stir up some sediment and cause some haze, but surely this will settle eventually to leave the beer clear, possibly just by cold crashing (e.g. put it in the fridge).

Like i say, I'm confused about this so feel free to put me right

 

[Dutto]

I too am confused.

I've never used the term "lagering" for the time a brew spends on a shelf after bottling and carbonation; that period I have considered to be "conditioning".

I've always considered "Lagering" to be where an active brew is kept in a fermentation vessel for a number of weeks at low temperature in order to let the yeasts work their wonders; before it was bottled, carbonated and then conditioned as per normal.

 

[matt76]

This braukaiser article is worth a read (though rather technical imho!):
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Fermenting_Lagers

In particular, this section on bottling:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Fermenting_Lagers#lagers_and_bottle_conditioning

It seems you can do it either way round, there are pros and cons to each.

(I can't say I'm much the wiser now though!)

 

[matt76]

Sorry @GibonCZ , I've kinda hijacked your thread here.....

This article is a little more user friendly:
https://byo.com/article/the-lowdown-on-lagering-advanced-brewing/

It basically says you can lager in the FV and then bottle, but cautions you may need to add a little extra yeast at bottling to obtain adequate carbonation (not the first time I've heard this)

 

[AlDaviz]

I brewed a bohemian Pilsner, layered for 7 weeks in secondary fv then added priming sugar and bottled !
Worked ok

 

[matt76]

I brewed a bohemian Pilsner, layered for 7 weeks in secondary fv then added priming sugar and bottled !
Worked ok

No extra yeast required then?
<Homer>Woohoo!</Homer>

 

[AlDaviz]

I was looking for the same answer myself a few months ago.
I didn’t add yeast but it took several weeks for the Pilsner to carbonate at room temp !

 

[AlDaviz]

So I’m interested to see what everyone else says, I’ve only done 6x brews upto now, red ale, lager and a couple of pale ales including a Dipa which turned out nice

 

[matt76]

To answer your original question @GibonCZ , my plan (and bare in mind I've only been brewing <6 months!) is I'm gonna leave mine in the cryogenic lagering chamber* for 6 weeks or whatever.

(* shed)

After that I'll bottle, adding sugar solution to my bottling bucket as normal, and I'll also add a little extra yeast - hopefully I'll be able to grow a little more Wyeast 2278 from the slurry I kept.

As @AlDaviz says (I think???), you might get away with not adding extra yeast and it will carbonate eventually, but it might take longer than normal.

Hope this helps straighten things out on your own mind.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[AlDaviz]

I layered mine in the fridge ! Missus wasn’t happy about me taking all the shelves out and fitting a piece of wood supporting the 20L of liquid Gold luckily when I brewed it was a stable 10deg in the garage for fermenting

 

[AlDaviz]

Lagered

 

[GibonCZ]

That's great guys thanks !!!

 

[GibonCZ]

I was looking for the same answer myself a few months ago.
I didn’t add yeast but it took several weeks for the Pilsner to carbonate at room temp !

Thats what i am confused about After adding priming sugar, isnt it supposed to go back to the fridge as the lager yeast works in lower temps?

 

[Dutto]

I've NEVER had to add extra yeast after lagering; even after 12 weeks in a secondary FV.

But I have had the patience to carbonate the brew for a minimum of two weeks at the top end of the lager yeasts tolerance range and then wait another two weeks to let the lager condition before tasting it!

 

[BeerCat]

Krausening might be worth looking into

 

[terrym]

Thats what i am confused about After adding priming sugar, isnt it supposed to go back to the fridge as the lager yeast works in lower temps?

My understanding is that yeast (even a lager yeast) would struggle at fridge temperatures, say about 4*C. So without a warm period at the front end the yeast might work, but it might not for an extended 'lagering' period. Why not just take all the guess work out of it, add the priming sugar after the primary is well and truly done and your beer is pretty much clear, give it one to two weeks in a warm place, and then put it in the fridge. If you bottle in glass the easiest way of finding out if your beer has carbed up is to bottle into one PET bottle, so you can feel how the bottle is progressively pressurising until it stops. I have just bottled a pimped kit pilsner into PET bottles, at the nearly clear stage, and after about 5 days it was fully carbed up, which is an unusually short time for me but not totally unexpected.

 

[HarryFlatters]

I've got a lager in my garage that I brewed on the 28th December, so primary has to be finished by now.

I'm going to keg that with some priming sugar and keep in the back bedroom for a fortnight, then fire it into the spare fridge at as cold as it'll go. I'm hopeful that there's enough yeast left to munch through the sugar as it got very cold for a few weeks. I've had a seedling heating mat on it, so it took the worst of the chill off. I also pitched 3 packets of MJ M76 Bavarian Lager Yeast, so we'll see what happens.

 

[GibonCZ]

That article

Sorry @GibonCZ , I've kinda hijacked your thread here.....

This article is a little more user friendly:
https://byo.com/article/the-lowdown-on-lagering-advanced-brewing/

It basically says you can lager in the FV and then bottle, but cautions you may need to add a little extra yeast at bottling to obtain adequate carbonation (not the first time I've heard this)

N

Sorry @GibonCZ , I've kinda hijacked your thread here.....

This article is a little more user friendly:
https://byo.com/article/the-lowdown-on-lagering-advanced-brewing/

It basically says you can lager in the FV and then bottle, but cautions you may need to add a little extra yeast at bottling to obtain adequate carbonation (not the first time I've heard this)

That article is great !!