Quick lager question

[jeffpn]

Does anyone ever drop their lagers from room temp (diacetyl rest) to near freezing as quickly as possible? Or does everyone step it down a couple degrees per day, as I've done so far?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

even putting it in the cold storage right away still takes a day or 2, but thats what I do

 

[PZ]

I drop it a few degrees a day, but as Ozark points out, it takes time to cool the large mass. My reasoning is that I want the yeast to keep working as much as possible during the lager period. That said, there is that whole day -- and I think it's longer than that -- to get the little guys gradually used to the colder temps.

 

[griz]

Greetings Jeff. When I lager, I ferment my beer per instructions (usually around the 55 degree mark). Once the initial fermentation is done, I transfer batch to 2nd carboy and set in my garage which I can make around 32-36 degrees during the winter (my wife hates it since her car is colder than usual). I have never performed the process of lowering the tempt each week, but simply placed the carboy in the garage. I make a lot of lagers and pilsners and have yet to make a bad batch. Besides the Salmon Fly Honey Rye ale recipe I make, my lagers and pilsners are my favorite and come out great each time.

 

[jeffpn]

I appreciate the input. The instructions for the first lager I made say to lower the temp 1°-3° degrees/day. somewhere I heard the reason for that is to reduce the likelihood that the yeast gets shocked from the sudden chilling, releasing some chemical that detracts from the beer. My current lager I reduced 4°C/day. Only took 4 days to get to my final temp, instead of a week and a half. Anything I can do to shave time off of my lagers is great. I'm also kegging during the last 2 weeks of my 4 week lagering, so I can get a jump on lagering. That only happens when I have an available keg.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

after I drop my beer to near freezing I don't look for any more fermentation, thats the point, you want to drop all sediment and yeast to the bottom clearing the beer

 

[jeffpn]

I get that. Fermentation should be complete before you lager. What I read is that the sudden drop in temperature has negative effects on the yeast that have nothing to do with fermentation.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

you can take 3 days to lower the temp but it takes a day or more to react and catch up to each change so really your adding 6 days just to lower your temp which is fine if you lager for 2 weeks or more but not absolutely necessary

 

[jeffpn]

I think this web page is interesting. They don't mention slowly adjusting the temperature. They do state that they use a 2 week lager period. I may have to try that myself. I've been lagering for 4 weeks on my batches. Of course, I don't have a centrifuge to help with clarity. I'm more concerned with flavor than appearance anyway.

http://www.yuengling.com/process/

 

[oliver]

piggybacking for a lager question here...

She just bought a new ink bird, and i've set it up on our mini fridge. Any recommended ink bird setups for lagers? I have it set to 51ºF, both differentials set at 1º.

Also, this will be our first lager, some questions about racking and when to remove from yeast. I believe Ozarks said something like, "2 weeks at 45-50ºF, diacetyl rest for 1 week at 60º, cold crash to 40º and age for however long." I'm assuming i leave it in the primary for those first three weeks, and then when we cold crash, we'll rack it off the yeast and age for another couple weeks in glass in our uncontrolled fridge?

 

[jeffpn]

I do 3 weeks at 55° primary, about 2 days at 68° for a diacetyl rest, rack from primary, and a 4 week lager at 34°.

 

[oliver]

55, word. might ramp up a couple degrees then, since this fridge seems to insulate pretty damn good. ink bird is staring at me reading 50.9 for the past hour.