Lager vs Carbonate and Cold Storage?

Something I have always wondered about, and now that I am starting to do a bunch of lagers, wanted to ask.

After a primary ferment, I rack into a keg to lager. I have waited a few weeks, or more in most cases, and then either force carbonate the keg, or rack/prime and bottle (Don't have a counter pressure yet), and allow the bottles to carbonate over several weeks at room temp before returning to cold storage.

What would be the difference if you bottle right after primary, then go into long lager cold temp storage after the bottles or keg are already carbonated?

I know with bottles you would probably have more yeast is suspension and more sediment at the bottom, but in a keg it seems it would drop sediment faster under carbonation, and when you pull the first pints later it would pull out the yeast?

Space is the main issue. I brew enough that I would like the keg and carboy space for primary. If I can bottle earlier, carbonate, and move to cold storage faster, I get the space back.

Just curious? Want to get the best results, but wasn't sure how much difference in clarity, taste, or if the effects of a laagering step would not take place as quickly, or at all, if the bottles were under carbonation?

Lagering involves fermentation to take place at cold temperatures. The low temp prolongs fermentation and allows yeast to clean up after themselves over a long period of time. Cold conditioning is what you described not lagering.

pickles said:

Lagering involves fermentation to take place at cold temperatures. The low temp prolongs fermentation and allows yeast to clean up after themselves over a long period of time. Cold conditioning is what you described not lagering.

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I must disagree with this. At typical lagering temperatures of near freezing no fermentation is taking place. Yeast is dropping out of suspension with other molecules (tannins, proteins), but it is not fermenting. I think this is a simple confusion of terms.

Fermenting a lager, at lower temperatures (45-55F), should not be confused with 'lagering'. Lagering is cold conditioning; the terms are just used interchangeably, but they generally are applied for different lengths of time. Most people use 'cold-conditioning' to describe the process of cooling and crashing yeast out of ale over a period of a few days. Whereas 'lagering' is the same, but the term is often use to describe the cold conditioning of lagers over several weeks.

As for carbonation or no carbonation - yeast behaves differently under pressure, so if it were true that yeast was actively working at lagering temps, then this would be the difference. You wouldn't want to ferment the lager under pressure due to this. But storage (which is lagering) should be fine.

FYI, the following quote is taken directly from HBT Wiki:

"In the classical lager brewing method, as described above, the primary fermentation is over after about 7 - 10 days, but the attenuation of the beer is not yet at the attenuation level that is desired at bottling time. Good fermentation management allows the yeast to be actively fermenting even during the lagering (cold storage) phase. This need to be kept in mind when brewers talk about the length of primary fermentation for their lagers: What was the attenuation when the beer was racked to a secondary and what was the attenuation of the beer when it was done?"

The OP described cold condition after fermentation was complete, just my 2 cents.

The yeast can still work at the cold temps but it can be tricky for homebrewers to chill the beer from the primary fermentation temp (~50 F) to the maturation/lagering temp (<40 F) without shocking the yeast and making them go dormant. I think that's what the key words 'Good fermentatin management' mean in pickle's quoted HBT wiki text. So often homebrewers let the yeast finish their job at primary fermentation temps and then cold-condition it.

Check out Kaiser's Fermenting Lagers page.