first lager - need advice

i brewed my first lager (munich helles) about a week ago and pitched it around 55, been in my temp controlled fridge at 51 deg for the whole time and is fermenting very well. i made a huge starter (4L) with wyeast 2308 munich lager. i'm a little unsure of where to go with it once it has fermented and i give it a brief diacetyl rest. i think my options are racking to a secondary and lagering it in there or lagering in a keg. is there any benefit to lagering it prior to kegging?

also curious about some ideas regarding when to get it off the primary yeast cake and trub? i wasn't able to filter out much of the trub which i know is thought to negatively affect lagers. i doubt if i'll know any ill effect from it, but i'm just wondering if some of you who don't filter trub try and rack to a lagering vessel sooner rather than later.

I would rack to a keg at 3 - 4 weeks and lager in the keg.

due to the amount of trub that made it into the fermenter, would there by any benefit to racking it after 2 weeks (provided it's been done fermenting for a few solid days)? the krausen is starting to recede now, i've been really surprised how vigorous the fermentation has been... i guess i'll start monitoring it in another week and see what happens.

android said:

due to the amount of trub that made it into the fermenter, would there by any benefit to racking it after 2 weeks (provided it's been done fermenting for a few solid days)? the krausen is starting to recede now, i've been really surprised how vigorous the fermentation has been... i guess i'll start monitoring it in another week and see what happens.

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My OPINION is that if you pitched clean healthy yeast, had good cleaning & sanitization then you don't have anything to worry about. Plus using a secondary can be more harmful then beneficial. I would let it ferment all they way out and then rack it to a keg and lager in the keg.

Get it off the yeast/trub as soon as is reasonably possible after primary fermentation is complete. I do mine at two weeks. A Helles is no beer to be messing around with the possibility of off-flavors and reduced foam stability, which can be contributed by decaying yeast cells and trub. This style demands ideal conditions.

What I do is ferment like I do with ales, leave it in primary for a month, then bring it upstairs for 72 hours in room temp as a diactyl rest, THEN I rack it over to a seconary and lager it....some folks advocate oing the d-rest earlier....but this works for me....

thanks for the replies, i'll let you know what i end up doing and how it works out.

Android, you and I are in the same boat, brewing our first lagers, and even making the same style! I also had a tough time getting the hot and cold break to not go into the fermenter, so it sounds like we even had the same experience on brew day.

I had a tremendously fast fermentation with mine, down to my expected FG only 4 days after pitching (I pitched at 66 and dropped it down to 50 in 24 hours). After 7 days in primary, I brought it up to 65 for 48 hours for the D-rest and then brought it back down to 50-52 on day 8 post-pitch.

At that time, I dropped the trub (it's fermenting in a conical, so the equivalent of racking off of the yeast/trub cake). I have had it in this secondary for a week, where it will sit until day 22, then I'll rack to a keg and lager under pressure for 4 more weeks before serving.

A few cool things I've noticed already: the hydro samples are clear as a bell - I let them sit in a champagne glass for 20 minutes or so, then decant and take my reading. The taste is delicious, and I'm really looking forward to a side-by-side tasting with the commercial brew that this is a clone of.

Lagering is fun!

sounds like a very similar experience. mine is still fermenting along... you can see the storm in the fermenter but it's definitely slowing down... today is one week, so i'll wait until probably thanksgiving day to take my first reading. i pitched around 55, so i didn't get the immediate fermentation, but it did start within 24 hours. depending in how well it has cleared, i might just rack to a keg for lagering, but we'll see... what commercial example are you attempting to clone? the only one i can find around here is the ayinger jahrhundert, which i'm pretty sure is a helles, but i'm not 100% sure.

ok, so the helles is out of the primary and has been lagering in a keg for almost a week now... and a spot opened up in the kegerator, so i put it in the back and put gas on it. is there any reason not to carb it while lagering?

android said:

ok, so the helles is out of the primary and has been lagering in a keg for almost a week now... and a spot opened up in the kegerator, so i put it in the back and put gas on it. is there any reason not to carb it while lagering?

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No, you can carb it while it's lagering. The only drawback I can think of is that it'll be way too easy to sample it over the next 6 weeks. In my house, it'd be gone before it was finished lagering if I did that!

+1 Yooper Comments, except as it is your first Lager I would suggest that much can be learned by sampling it as it ages. Then the next time you will know how long to leave it alone before drinking! Try to save a least a pint for the final taste.

+1 on that, Yoop! I also have mine in the back of the kegerator, and I was wondering the same thing about whether I could carb it while lagering. I'm gonna keep the picnic tap off of the keg just to give myself a challenge, lest I down it all by lager week 4.

Oh, and android, you asked me what beer I was attempting to clone: it was Augustinerbrau Marzen from Salzburg. A delicious Munich Helles, though they call it Marzen. I have three bottles of the real thing to compare it to, and I've hit the color spot-on, though my hops are slightly too pronounced. Plus, I only found out the actual hop they use in the real beer after I'd brewed (and I used the wrong ones of course), so now I am forced to make it again! Oh darn!

thanks for the comments... when i thought about possible drawbacks before making the post, excessive sampling prior to maturity definitely came to mind! too funny... i'll try to keep my paws off of it as much as possible, but i assume i'll try it once a week (just a little sample cup) to see how it's progressing.

I carbed mine in the keg a week, then I lagered for either 3 or 4 weeks. It came out fine.