Devils Advocate: Quick Lager?

Feedback from experienced lager brewers requested:

I've brewed a few lagers and studied yeast quite a bit. I tend to agree with Chris White that Homebrewers are uncharacteristically timid/traditional when brewing with Lager yeast. I've wondered whether the traditional 2-4 week fermentation plus 1 week per degree plato of lagering is really necessary to make good beer. Ok, maybe not good "lager" - but good beer none the less. I'd like to hear what potential experienced lager brewers see in brewing+lagering beer in short time to free up cooling resources.

I don't really care if the beer is later stored/aged at regular room temperatures say 60-ish for any amount of time, I'm most interested in the possibilities of producing lager-fermented beer with under one-month of temperature control.

To begin - I propose the following and already have a 1.061 Munich/Rye/2-row fermenting with WLP833 that will follow the schedule below:

12-14 days at 50F then 1-2 days at 60F then 12-14 days at <40F then bottle. Obviously the beer could be aged after this, just not cold. I'm doing the temperature changes gradually but quickly and the beer will spend the entire month of ferm/lager on the yeast cake. I will report on the findings, but I'd like to hear your thoughts during the process.

I think this will work just fine. I always have a backlog of lagers that need proper lagering and periodically will have kegs that will sit in the 60's for several weeks. They appear to suffer no ill effects. I've never gone as short as one month grain to glass, but that is mostly due to not drinking up earlier batches fast enough so there is no tap available sooner. I've done 6 weeks and had great beers

I started dropping the temperature on day 14.5 after almost 60 hours at 60-62F DRest. The head is just starting to drop and beer clearing a tad. I'm dropping the temperature (now just below 50F) and I'm considering doing the lagering (12-14 days) at 45F to speed things up a little. It will only get 12 days at 45F (although it spent 1.5 days between 60 and 45). We'll see...

I found that if a proper amount of yeast is pitched (a huge amount, by ale standards) and the temperature is kept at 50 degrees, a lager doesn't need even 10-12 days in primary, maybe 5 would be adequate. Then a diacetyl rest (if doing, not always necessary) for 24 hours. I don't think any lager I've ever done has needed 12-14 days in primary.

I'd not want to shortchange the lagering time, though. Maybe not one week for every degree plato at 34 degrees, but I'd like to see at least 6 weeks lagering for most lagers. In my experience, a longer cold lagering makes a smoother lager than a shorter warmer lagering.

this might make sense - considering that many say one should drop the temp to lagering once 3/4 of attenuation has occurred. In my case (12 days 50F + 2 days 60F) I suspect it has almost completely attenuated (due to the yeast starting to clear and settle)...

but I do think it is common for many lager brewers to have a 10-12 day "primary" (meaning ~50F) fermentation period.

I wonder if a lagering-focused 28 day schedule like this might work:
5@50F 1@60F lower to 45 over 2 days then 20@45F

I would want to be diligent with the gravity measurements to make sure things were going quick enough to reach 3/4 attenuation in 5 days. I do pitch reasonable yeast, 350B well oxygenated/nutrition for this 5 gallon batch (2 stage starter)

it could of course then be bottled and left to mature for a while at room temp

I'm drinking this recipe (kegged) by week 3, that's with 2 weeks of lagering at 35f. It really doesn't get any better with age. Of course you have to take into consideration the recipe

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f58/schmipielschaerheingoldter-97553/

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aaronbeach said:

12-14 days at 50F then 1-2 days at 60F then 12-14 days at <40F then bottle. Obviously the beer could be aged after this, just not cold. I'm doing the temperature changes gradually but quickly and the beer will spend the entire month of ferm/lager on the yeast cake. I will report on the findings, but I'd like to hear your thoughts during the process.

Click to expand...

It's what I do for smaller lagers that have an O.G. around 1.040. They're usually just some type of adjunct extract batch I throw together. They turn out fine, not great but good for what they are. All while still in the primary.

Gradual temp. changes? I just pull it from the chest freezer that was set at 50 to the corner of a room that's about 65. Once I feel comfortable that it's completely done, it's crashed to 35.

So I've been thinking about default variables and structure for my regular lager fermentation/cooling schedules leading up to botteling/kegging.

Variables:
P: Primary temp, usually 48-52F
L: Lagering temp, usually 40-45F for quick lagering
C: Clearing temp, usually 32-34F for my freezer setup
DROP: just means drop temp (lower controller set point)
Days listed as XD, e.g., 2D = 2 days

lager: 28 days
7D @ P, 2D @ P+10, 2D DROP to L, 14D @ L , 1D DROP to C, 2D@C

Yooper said:

I found that if a proper amount of yeast is pitched (a huge amount, by ale standards) and the temperature is kept at 50 degrees, a lager doesn't need even 10-12 days in primary, maybe 5 would be adequate.

Click to expand...

Good to know, I've only done 4 lagers at this point, but they fermented just as fast as my ales it seemed. I pitched 2 batches with an active slurry (fermentation within 8-12 hours) and 2 batches with 2 packs of 34/70 (fermentation within 18-24 hours).