36 replies to this topic

[positiveContact]

I've been fermenting my oktoberfest (brewed with 2308) since sunday.  I let it go for a couple of days around 49F.  Then I let it go up to about 51F for a day.  Then last night (day 3) I started to let it climb up to about 55-56F.  I intend to now slowly warm it to the low 60s over the next few days before letting it hang out there for a while followed by a cold crash and transfer to keg.

 

in the past i've just kept it cold for a week and then warmed it up to the low 60s with no gradual transition.  I'm hoping this will accelerate the clean up process and end up with a better overall fermentation.

 

what do you guys do?

[HVB]

Now, as you know I am not well versed on lager fermentations but I have tasted a few beers done with Mike McDole's "fast" process and they were very good.  Here is a description Mike wrote about his method.

 

My Dortmunder Export (1.050) takes two weeks from flame to glass. I raise the temperature in response to the level of fermentation I see in the blow-off. A typical regimen would be 50F for about three days, 52F for another two days, 55F for two days, 60F for two days, 70F for 3 days. Then I rack and crash on day 12, filter and carbonate on day 14. I use WLP833.

[positiveContact]

yeah - that sounds like it's similar to what i'm doing.  i haven't been taking gravity readings but have instead by gauging this by how crazy the airlock is.  once i started to see it slow down i started to raise the temp to keep it going.  at this point i'm guessing it's barely doing anything at all.

[Steve Urquell]

When mine slows, I'll pull a hydo sample. If it's ~ 1.020 I'll unplug the ferm chamber and let it free rise over the next few days until it reaches 65ish.When it's done/dropped clear and tastes right I chill 5F per day till it's at 32F and clear, then rack to secondary with gel, sit at 32F till clear(usually a week), then keg and carb while lagering. Start drinking when I feel like it. They usually improve for the next 1-1.5 mths on standard gravities.

[positiveContact]

When mine slows, I'll pull a hydo sample. If it's ~ 1.020 I'll unplug the ferm chamber and let it free rise over the next few days until it reaches 65ish.When it's done/dropped clear and tastes right I chill 5F per day till it's at 32F and clear, then rack to secondary with gel, sit at 32F till clear(usually a week), then keg and carb while lagering. Start drinking when I feel like it. They usually improve for the next 1-1.5 mths on standard gravities.

 

this is closer to what i've done in the past.

[SchwanzBrewer]

When mine slows, I'll pull a hydo sample. If it's ~ 1.020 I'll unplug the ferm chamber and let it free rise over the next few days until it reaches 65ish.When it's done/dropped clear and tastes right I chill 5F per day till it's at 32F and clear, then rack to secondary with gel, sit at 32F till clear(usually a week), then keg and carb while lagering. Start drinking when I feel like it. They usually improve for the next 1-1.5 mths on standard gravities.

 

That sounds like good practices to me, especially if you don't filter.

[Steve Urquell]

this is closer to what i've done in the past.

I've pretty much settled in to let em do their own thing w/o rushing them. I don't think Tasty's schedule will harm anything since growth phase is over and ester production is over after it's been churning for a few days. I've done it that way before and the beer was fine but still improved in the keg over the next 2 mths.Lager be all like "I do what I want!"

[positiveContact]

I've pretty much settled in to let em do their own thing w/o rushing them. I don't think Tasty's schedule will harm anything since growth phase is over and ester production is over after it's been churning for a few days. I've done it that way before and the beer was fine but still improved in the keg over the next 2 mths.Lager be all like "I do what I want!"

 

this is mostly that i want to make sure i end up with something as clean as possible and i think making sure the yeast cleans up after itself is part of that.  i've started ramping my ale fermentations in a similar manner (shifted up to ale temps) and it seems to be producing high quality results.  so i figure something similar might be good for a lager as well

[BlKtRe]

I also have always done what chils described. I don't filter but certain styles and higher gravity lagers always seem to get better with longer lager times.

[positiveContact]

I also have always done what chils described. I don't filter but certain styles and higher gravity lagers always seem to get better with longer lager times.

 

this is a pretty moderate gravity lager.  i think it started at 1.057.  nothing too crazy.

[positiveContact]

i've stopped using gel on everything.  lagers clear up for me no problem.  even my recent hoppy pale ale made with oatmeal is clear as a bell.

[BlKtRe]

How old is it?

[Steve Urquell]

i've stopped using gel on everything.  lagers clear up for me no problem.  even my recent hoppy pale ale made with oatmeal is clear as a bell.

My lagers are crystal clear sitting at 32F when racking to secondary. They just seem to taste a little cleaner/finer--pun intended-- after gelling. I feel like lagers that I haven't gelled could've been a little bit better if I had done it and I will regret not doing it until the keg blows.Could be all mental, I dunno.

[positiveContact]

How old is it?

 

the pale ale?  it cleared up after about 2 weeks in the keg.  a big part of it was just the fine hop particulate needed to get consumed, which I gladly did

[Big Nake]

Maybe I'm more hands off but I chill my wort to 45-50°, oxygenate and pitch and then place the primary in the 47° fridge and let it go at that temp. On some batches it may be 10 days on others it might be closer to 3 weeks... it may just depend on whether I need the fridge for another batch. When I take it out of there, it gets a gentle swirl and it sits on the basement floor for 2-3 days and then goes to secondary w/gel where it sits for longer on the basement floor and clears up. Then I send it to a keg and chill it to about 35-40° (usually overnight). The next day I might drop more gel solution in there, especially if it's a pale beer that I want clear. Then I carb at 25psi for about 48 hours, take it off the gas and let it sit at that same temp until it hits the taps. At the moment I have 5 lagers in the spare fridge. 2 have been in there a week, another 2 have been there for a little over a month and another one is at about 6 weeks. I would have had no issues bringing those to the taps earlier but I just haven't needed to replace a keg in that time. I never have the need to bring a beer from 'flame to glass' in 2 weeks. So if his schedule is just for speed, I'm fine with it. If his schedule actually makes a better beer, I would want to look at it closer because better lager is more important to me than faster lager.

[positiveContact]

So if his schedule is just for speed, I'm fine with it. If his schedule actually makes a better beer, I would want to look at it closer because better lager is more important to me than faster lager.

 

i found that a similar schedule might have made my ales better.  i think there is something to be said to having a lager ready to drink sooner.  it's going to taste that much fresher and possibly solve some flavor issues that might not "age out" with lagering.  i'll let you guys know how the beer turns out though

[Big Nake]

i found that a similar schedule might have made my ales better.  i think there is something to be said to having a lager ready to drink sooner.  it's going to taste that much fresher and possibly solve some flavor issues that might not "age out" with lagering.  i'll let you guys know how the beer turns out though

I'm always open-minded and will always consider myself a student of this hobby but the idea of faster lagers goes against everything we have ever seen. The flavors produced during primary (sulfur, diacetyl) can be metabolized during the d-rest and then the beer is supposed to smooth out after lagering for X amount of time. It would be very interesting to see if this is true because it would up-end hundreds of years of brewing history. Oh... remember too that he says he filters. Would that work towards speeding things up? I would think so.

Edited by KenLenard, 17 April 2014 - 01:14 PM.

[positiveContact]

I'm always open-minded and will always consider myself a student of this hobby but the idea of faster lagers goes against everything we have ever seen. The flavors produced during primary (sulfur, diacetyl) can be metabolized during the d-rest and then the beer is supposed to smooth out after lagering for X amount of time. It would be very interesting to see if this is true because it would up-end hundreds of years of brewing history. Oh... remember too that he says he filters. Would that work towards speeding things up? I would think so.

 

there are a lot of different temp profiles for lager beer brewing.  check this out.

 

https://braukaiser.c...rmenting_Lagers

 

 

Edited by TheGuv, 17 April 2014 - 01:17 PM.

[positiveContact]

I'm doing something kind of like "C" but slightly warmer.  just for reference.

Edited by TheGuv, 17 April 2014 - 01:35 PM.

[Brauer]

Now, as you know I am not well versed on lager fermentations but I have tasted a few beers done with Mike McDole's "fast" process and they were very good. Here is a description Mike wrote about his method.My Dortmunder Export (1.050) takes two weeks from flame to glass. I raise the temperature in response to the level of fermentation I see in the blow-off. A typical regimen would be 50F for about three days, 52F for another two days, 55F for two days, 60F for two days, 70F for 3 days. Then I rack and crash on day 12, filter and carbonate on day 14. I use WLP833.

That's essentially the Narziss method, perhaps slightly speeded up by not naturally carbonating and filtering. That's at least 70 years old, at this point, I think. My understanding is that this is a very typical schedule in Germany and it's near what I do (I skip the 70F step, naturally carbonate and don't filter). I also make traditional gravities of 1.040-1.048, which tend to finish quick and clean. I've seen it written a number of times that the German philosophy is that a lager should be in a glass by 6 weeks, because it goes down hill after that. Americans may be expecting something different from their lagers, than Germans, because we are used to "refined" macro lagers and mainstream German lagers that have been pasteurized and sat in shipping containers, warehouses, and on shelves. Germans are used to beers brewed locally and served fresh (at least they were a few decades ago... I drank most of my German beer in the 70s when practically every other town had a brewery) and freshness is highly prized.