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My standard procedure for making a lager, which I am quite happy with, is as follows.
Primary fermentation at 55° for about 3 weeks
Check for diacetyl (never discovered yet, so I have always skipped the D rest)
Rack to secondary carboy, and lager for 4 weeks at 34°, stepping to that temp 3°/day
Bottle with corn sugar and condition for 3 weeks
This process means that even with 2 setups, I drink faster than I brew. Anything I can do to shorten that time without sacrificing taste would be great. My last batch that I did I decided to lager for 2 weeks instead of 4. I'm not sure that was the answer. I decided to do that before I decided to keg. I was set up to keg when I would've bottled that batch, so I did keg it at 2 weeks.
Here's a change to my process I'm considering. At the lager step, which I've always done for 4 weeks, make it 2 weeks instead. Then I could keg the beer and throw it in my serving keezer for 2 more weeks, and just hook it up to my serving pressure manifold (10 psi) rather than my force carb manifold. At the end of 2 weeks, it should be carbonated just fine. The difference would be that instead of 4 weeks of lagering at 34°, it'd be 2 weeks at 34° and 2 weeks of 38°. That saves the 3 weeks of bottle conditioning time, and frees up the fermenting chamber to start another lager. I might be close to brewing as quickly as I drink at that point. Are there any considerations to carbonating while finishing up lagering? Does anyone use a similar procedure as the one I'm suggesting? I believe I'm going to try this for a batch or two anyway, but I'm interested in input.
Primary fermentation at 55° for about 3 weeks
Check for diacetyl (never discovered yet, so I have always skipped the D rest)
Rack to secondary carboy, and lager for 4 weeks at 34°, stepping to that temp 3°/day
Bottle with corn sugar and condition for 3 weeks
This process means that even with 2 setups, I drink faster than I brew. Anything I can do to shorten that time without sacrificing taste would be great. My last batch that I did I decided to lager for 2 weeks instead of 4. I'm not sure that was the answer. I decided to do that before I decided to keg. I was set up to keg when I would've bottled that batch, so I did keg it at 2 weeks.
Here's a change to my process I'm considering. At the lager step, which I've always done for 4 weeks, make it 2 weeks instead. Then I could keg the beer and throw it in my serving keezer for 2 more weeks, and just hook it up to my serving pressure manifold (10 psi) rather than my force carb manifold. At the end of 2 weeks, it should be carbonated just fine. The difference would be that instead of 4 weeks of lagering at 34°, it'd be 2 weeks at 34° and 2 weeks of 38°. That saves the 3 weeks of bottle conditioning time, and frees up the fermenting chamber to start another lager. I might be close to brewing as quickly as I drink at that point. Are there any considerations to carbonating while finishing up lagering? Does anyone use a similar procedure as the one I'm suggesting? I believe I'm going to try this for a batch or two anyway, but I'm interested in input.
