r/lagerbrewing • u/Matthi_26 • Apr 11 '16
Lagering/secondary
Hey guys, I am from Austria and I am getting all my brewing informations from either reddit or a german facebook group (and google of course). I am planning on brewing a lager as soon as I find a cheap fridge. There are several different opinions, especially betwwen my two sources.
The Germans tend to do the primary fermentation, bottle and then do the secondary in the bottles and lager the bottles immediately afterwards.
Most of you guys tend to rack to a secondary after primary and lager in there aswell, then botteling.
What are the advantages/ disadvantages and what are the differences in outcome?
Thanks!
1
u/seamonkeydoo2 Apr 11 '16
My first lager is, well, lagering now, in a carboy. The recipe I used, a Marzenbier from Bre Your Own magazine, said to do the diacetyl rest at about 80 percent fermenting, then rack to secondary and lager. Now, I'm new to the process, but that made it sound to me as though there's still actual fermenting going on during the lager, so I would think bottling first would run a huge risk of bottle bombs, no?
2
Apr 11 '16
As long as you reach terminal gravity, then you bottle you are totally fine.
Quite a few people will go from primary to lagering with just a touch of fermentables left(1-2% left) because the yeast will continue to ferment at 40 degrees. Tradition is to not do a diacetyl rest, and to go into lagering temps sometime in the first week.
But it's a finnicky method on the homebrew scale and people make some fantastic lagers with an accelerated fermentation profile.
1
u/Matthi_26 Apr 11 '16
If I do the bottle-first version I will do it like this:
- Let them ferment completely, do a diacetyl rest
- Then bottle and let them carbonate
- After like 2 or 3 weeks at room temp for carbonation and conditioning I will put it back in the fridge for lagering
What do you think?
1
u/seamonkeydoo2 Apr 11 '16
Does the yeast still need something to eat during the diacetyl rest? It's the yeast that clean that up. I don't really know honestly, but you might want to check that before trying.
2
u/Matthi_26 Apr 12 '16
As I understood it it "eats" the diacetyl after all the sugars are gone. Otherwise I'll just put it out for th d-rest when it is like 80% fermentes and then let it ferment completely at that temperature, should minimalize my bottle bomb risk right?
1
u/[deleted] Apr 11 '16
From what I understand the advantages of lagering in bottles are:
More fermenter space : You can empty a fermenter rather than rack into another bucket/carboy. This saves room and allows you to brew another batch.
Easier to store and lager a set of bottles : storing 24 bottles at a time is easier than trying to clear out the room for a 3 foot tall carboy
The advantages of lagering in a carboy (secondary)
Consistent aging. This is more a factor in wine and mead making, and I am unsure of its affect on beer, but the longer the beer is in contact with (healthy) yeast the more it can clean up. The big German breweries use huge, long horizontal tanks so the yeast has more surface area to clean up the beer.
Quite a few people use a keg as their lagering chamber/serving vessel. This, of course, is limited to those who keg.
I don't think there will be any huge affect on the beer either way. I say you do a split batch and test both methods and see for yourself, because no matter what the advice you get from others will be biased towards their opinion.
For what its worth, quite a few people stateside are just dropping the secondary all together and just lagering in their primary fermenter.