chefmatt34

Recipes 

Hey everybody, i am new to this forum although i have been a reader of it for a while. My question that i am confused about is how to naturally prime (carbonate) a lager beer without the ester and diacetyl effect of room temperatures. I know that you could do it at 50 degrees for a long time, but does it really negatively effect the cleanness of a lager to prime at 68 degrees for 2 weeks? Thanks .
Matt

chefmatt34

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I have another question that i am confused about as well. Any advise would be appreciated. Is it during the secondary period that you prime you beer for the lagers or do you secondary, than prime?

Yooper

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I'm no expert on lagers, but I've made quite a number of them. In my experience, once a lager is "done", keeping them at room temperature is fine. The flavor profile is set by the lengthy primary fermentation along with the lagering, so allowing them to carbonate at room temperature is just fine.

With lagers, I lager them in bulk, before priming and bottling. (Lager means "cold storage" in German). So, I might do a primary fermentation for 12-14 days, a diacetyl rest if needed, then rack into the carboy and begin the lagering process. I usually drop the temperature 5 degrees per day until I'm at 34 degrees, then keep the beer there for 6-12 weeks.
I hope this helps!

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Broken Leg Brewery
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chefmatt34

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thanks Yooper, you confirmed what had originally thought and done in the past. I guess i got some bad advise from someone else because i can tell you know your stuff.

menschmaschine

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You only need to bottle/prime lagers at fermentation temps when using a malt-based priming solution (spiese/gyle (saved wort), dme, lme, etc.). (For example, if you were trying to follow the Reinheitsgebot, you couldn't use corn sugar for bottle priming.) If you use corn sugar, you can prime at "room temp." The reason for this is because lager yeasts will produce esters when fermenting wort (maltose) at higher temps (including for bottling), but they will ferment dextrose cleanly even at room temp.

chefmatt34

Recipes 

That also makes a lot of sense, thanks