First Lager questions

I am finally brewing my first lager and am getting some conflicting advice on how to do it.

After I finished brewing and chilled the wort to about 65 degrees, I put it in my second fridge with a temperature controller and got it down to 50 in about two days. I left it there for 12 days, and the FG was very close to what it's supposed to be. I took it out of the fridge and let it warm up to 66 over the last 3 days. I did this because I was told I needed to for a diacetyl rest. However, in doing research, it seems not everybody does it. Sooo, I don't know if it's necessary or not.

Now I think I'm ready to actually lager. I plan on racking to a secondary today or tomorrow. The biggest question is about cold crashing. I've been told to stick in the lagering chamber (fridge), and let it drop to 34ish and sit for a month. The other method I was told is the temp needs to drop slowly to 34 over the course of a week or so.

So to recap:

1.) Do I need to do a diacetyl rest? If so, did I do it correctly?

2.) How fast do I cool to lagering temperature?

1. Looks like you did the d-rest correctly. I tend to do mine a bit earlier than you, but I don't think it matters that much.
2. I'm sure there will be many opinions on this but I typically drop the temp 5* every 12 hours until I reach my lagering temp; I also do not worry about racking to a secondary to lager for 3-4 weeks as I think it is a hassle and only leads to more likelihood of contamination.

You only need a diacetyl rest if you detect diacetyl, which tastes like buttered popcorn or butterscotch, and sometimes can also be detected by an oily feeling in your mouth. If there's no diacetyl, then it's safe to skip the D rest. However, it's never wrong to do a D rest regardless. The best timing to do a D rest is when specific gravity is half of what you started with. So for a 1.060 original gravity beer, when SG hits 1.030, that is the time to begin the D rest. Yours started late so you might not get as much benefit from doing a rest. But like I said, if there's no diacetyl anyway then it doesn't matter and also doesn't hurt to have done one.

Chill down as fast as you like.

You might still detect diacetyl in the finished beer for the first few weeks, even after a D rest, and that is normal. If you do, then keep the beer warm for 3 weeks before cooling it down again, as warmth helps the yeast to break down the diacetyl. If there's no diacetyl at all, then keep it cold.

idleclamp said:

I am finally brewing my first lager and am getting some conflicting advice on how to do it.

After I finished brewing and chilled the wort to about 65 degrees, I put it in my second fridge with a temperature controller and got it down to 50 in about two days. I left it there for 12 days, and the FG was very close to what it's supposed to be. I took it out of the fridge and let it warm up to 66 over the last 3 days. I did this because I was told I needed to for a diacetyl rest. However, in doing research, it seems not everybody does it. Sooo, I don't know if it's necessary or not.

Now I think I'm ready to actually lager. I plan on racking to a secondary today or tomorrow. The biggest question is about cold crashing. I've been told to stick in the lagering chamber (fridge), and let it drop to 34ish and sit for a month. The other method I was told is the temp needs to drop slowly to 34 over the course of a week or so.

So to recap:

1.) Do I need to do a diacetyl rest? If so, did I do it correctly?

2.) How fast do I cool to lagering temperature?

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As you have discovered, there is more than one way to skin the cat...or brew a lager.

I suggest you look up the method used and written up in Brulosophy's Lagering Methods.

I keg my beers, so my method may vary from yours. I ferment at 50F, then let my temps rise to 66F for a d rest. Lagers are especially noted to be clean beers so no off flavors have a place to hide. This d rest reportedly allows the fermentation to finish up, then gives the yeast a chance to clean itself up of off flavors. Yes, you did it right.

I then simply set my chamber to 34F and let it come on down, still in the fermenter. Once the temp stabilizes at 34F, I add a bit of gelatin as a fining/clearing agent. All this takes a couple of days, then I rack to keg and leave it sit for 6-8 weeks to lager condition.

To answer your questions specifically:

I do a d-rest, but not everyone does. If you elect to do one, you did it properly.

I bring my temp down by setting controller to 34F and letting it come on down. I don't try to labor over this and step it down slowly. Again, lots folks have various opinions and various ways of doing it.

One thing you mentioned is racking to secondary. I am not a secondary kind of guy feeling this is one more step that is not needed and may introduce a risk to infect your beer. I do the entire process in primary, and rack to keg for a lagering/conditioning period at 34F.

Good luck...lagers are awesome!!

I agree with Morrey regarding secondary. Don't rack it. Just leave it in the primary. The only reason to rack it really is if you need the fermenter back for a new batch. Otherwise it's better to just leave it in primary. Fears regarding autolysis are valid but not until the beer is about 8 weeks old in my experience. If aging less than that, which you are, then it's easiest and best to just keep it in primary.

Awesome, thank you all for the advice.

I've only been brewing for about a year and a half. The most frustrating part of it is asking 3 different people the same question and getting 4 different answers. And then read two books and get two more answers. But I'm starting to relax a bit more with it. It's been very helpful when people try my beers and with a quizzical look on their face say, "You made this? It's really good."😎

The old books are becoming obsolete knowledge. For the best information, you really do need to hang out on forums like this one. But not just this one either. The AHA forum in particular is another great one.

idleclamp said:

Awesome, thank you all for the advice.

I've only been brewing for about a year and a half. The most frustrating part of it is asking 3 different people the same question and getting 4 different answers. And then read two books and get two more answers. But I'm starting to relax a bit more with it. It's been very helpful when people try my beers and with a quizzical look on their face say, "You made this? It's really good."��

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I understand your frustration gathering accurate information while trying to hone your brewing skills. Lots of things change with time and technology. Just as Germans brewed Marzens in March and lagered them in caves until October, they did so since refrigeration was unknown. Now that the average homebrewer has access to refrigerators with temp controllers, all of that laborious technique has now changed. Many of the "old school" techniques written about in books (and still regarded as gospel) have changed and we all need to keep up accordingly. BIAB was largely unknown until a few years ago, but I am making premium beers with this method today. When I started brewing in the 80's, I used a pre-hopped liquid malt extract that produced some of the most gosh awful beers you ever tasted. Now, I have access to the same malts, hops and brewing equipment huge breweries use.

Sorry for the long diatribe, but it takes a long time for new techniques to become embraced. So, yes, ask 3 brewers the same question and you'll get 4 different answers. I have used all the techniques that were suggested and took the best of each and developed my own techniques. You are doing everything right as you described. Try different things and see if they make a difference in your final product. Enjoy trying different techniques and don't forget to keep notes to look back on. CHEERS!!

After yeast finish fermenting the sugars, they need to clean up all of the off-tasting by-products (including diacetyl). The traditional way to do this was in the lagering phase (no d-rest). To keep the yeast working at lagering temps, the beer had to be gradually cooled, as a sudden crash-chill would cause them to drop out of suspension too early.

Having a D-rest, or a longer ferment, means that most of the by-products have already been cleaned-up. The main purpose of the lagering phase is then to drop sediment out of suspension. To do this, it's fine to crash chill. If you still want the yeast to perform during the lagering phase, drop the temperature slowly (preferably no more than 4F per day).

So, some valid ways to ferment lagers are:
Ferment temp (say, 50F) until ferment is maybe 80% complete, then lower temp by 2F per day to lagering temp. Lager for xxx weeks.
50F for two weeks after FG is reached, slowly drop temp or crash chill to lagering temps. Lager for xxx weeks.
50F until ferment is maybe 80% complete (you could go as early as 50% complete), raise temp for a d-rest until a few days after FG is reached, slowly drop temp or crash chill to lagering temps. Lager for xxx weeks.
Ferment at ale temperatures for a few weeks. Crash chill to lagering temps until clear. Some yeasts (eg. W34/70) are more suited to this than other strains.

The Brulosophy article was very helpful. I guess I need to just figure out what method I want to use. My tendency is to not be very patient. I'm much better about that now.

So, this is where I'm at now. I racked to the secondary (before I got responses on here. Did I mention I lack patience?). I have it coming down at 5 degrees per 12 hours in my fridge. If I can get it to bottles faster than a month from now, that would be great. However, I don't want to sacrifice taste for speed. Based on the lagering article, it sounds like that's not the case. Again, I don't mind waiting. Also, it looks like I can also use gelatin to clear it up more. When would I do that? A couple of days before bottling?

Last question: Do I need to let the beer come up to room temperature before bottling?

idleclamp said:

The Brulosophy article was very helpful. I guess I need to just figure out what method I want to use. My tendency is to not be very patient. I'm much better about that now.

So, this is where I'm at now. I racked to the secondary (before I got responses on here. Did I mention I lack patience?). I have it coming down at 5 degrees per 12 hours in my fridge. If I can get it to bottles faster than a month from now, that would be great. However, I don't want to sacrifice taste for speed. Based on the lagering article, it sounds like that's not the case. Again, I don't mind waiting. Also, it looks like I can also use gelatin to clear it up more. When would I do that? A couple of days before bottling?

Last question: Do I need to let the beer come up to room temperature before bottling?

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I think you are on track! To be all honest, I was busting a gut to try my first lager, however it was kegged so its an easy thing to sample. It was pretty "edgy" and by that I mean it was not mellow or well rounded. That took the wind out of my sails and I said oh well, this lager deal is not so great after all. I just left it in my lagering chamber and figured I'd dump it or blend it somewhere down the road. I tried it a month later...whoa baby...this stuff is darn good!! In the case of lagers, they do improve with time. I am teaching myself patience! LOL

I bring mine down to 34F and add gelatin to clear. Gelatin works best cold since the proteins clouding your beer tend to coagulate better at low temps. Give it a couple of days to settle off. Then I rack mine to keg and direct into the lagering chamber still at 34F for CO2 carbing, so it never gets back to room temps.

With bottling, you will be carbing in the bottle and the yeast will be mighty sluggish at 34F. If you bring back to room temp for the yeast to work during the carbing phase, carbonation should be done in a week or two. Then you'll probably be best served to bring the bottles back into the fridge for your cold lagering phase. Hopefully a lager bottling expert will see this and add their advice.

I bet you are going to have some great beers soon!

I have a question as well on this. (Sorry for hi-jacking)

I brewed my first a lager (Baltic Porter) recently. It's been in my ferm chamber for the passed month. I started fermentation at 59F for about a week, then slowly dropped the temperature to 39F (my ferm chamber won't go colder).

I suppose it is too late to do a d-rest now? I tasted it 2 weeks ago and it had this small "hot alcohol" taste (I assumed it was because it obviously needed more time).

Also, how long should I keep it at 39F until I bottle?

Anyone?

@jojacques, starting at 59 F and then going down from there is pretty much the opposite of what I would do and what many would recommend, at least for the first couple of weeks. It is indeed too late for a D rest but if you don't taste diacetyl, then there is no need for a D rest anyway. The hot alcohol is probably from the period at 59 F, as well as the high gravity of the recipe. It should mellow with age. Give it 6-12 months.

How about secondary?
Should I now move to secondary or leave in primary?

jojacques said:

How about secondary?
Should I now move to secondary or leave in primary?

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No need to rack to secondary. Just keep it in primary for another week or two, then bottle or keg when stable. You should check the specific gravity right now and ensure it doesn't change after another week. If the gravity is still decreasing then measure it every 3-4 days until it remains stable. If you were to bottle an unfinished beer, it could gush or explode. In a keg it wouldn't matter as much.

dmtaylor said:

The best timing to do a D rest is when specific gravity is half of what you started with. So for a 1.060 original gravity beer, when SG hits 1.030, that is the time to begin the D rest.

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I'm still a little confused by this aspect of the lagering method. I brought this up in the comments section of the Brulosophy post about lager. When one says do something like raise the temp to X degrees at 50% OG I originally thought it would be 50% of the apparent attenuation. Using the above example, let's say the estimated FG is going to be 1.014. That gives 60 - 14 = 46 points to play with. 50% of 46 is 23 so I would think that a SG of 1.037 would be the halfway point.

Just taking 50% of your OG means your assuming that the SG is going to go to 1.000, right? Granted, we're not talking a big difference in this example but I'm still curious as to the "proper" math to throw at this benchmarking part of the lager fermentation. Won't someone show me the way and/or how dense I'm being about this?

Todd

wapitiscat said:

I'm still a little confused by this aspect of the lagering method. I brought this up in the comments section of the Brulosophy post about lager. When one says do something like raise the temp to X degrees at 50% OG I originally thought it would be 50% of the apparent attenuation. Using the above example, let's say the estimated FG is going to be 1.014. That gives 60 - 14 = 46 points to play with. 50% of 46 is 23 so I would think that a SG of 1.037 would be the halfway point.

Just taking 50% of your OG means your assuming that the SG is going to go to 1.000, right? Granted, we're not talking a big difference in this example but I'm still curious as to the "proper" math to throw at this benchmarking part of the lager fermentation. Won't someone show me the way and/or how dense I'm being about this?

Todd

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Todd, I can understand your question and many brewers use the hydrometer to gauge their next steps as you referenced.

I am not one of those, and I employ time as a reference in lieu of strict hydrometer readings. For example I'll start the fermentation process at 50F for a lager with an OG of 1.050. In 10 days I'll take a reading and see how much farther I need to go. If my yeast attenuates at 75%, I can predict my FG to be around 1.012. When I read on day 10, and I see I am at 1.020 (for example), I know I can move into my d-rest at 65F. This warmer temp will aide the fermentation in finishing as well as cleaning up off flavors.

In summary, I use my hydrometer as a check, not as a guide. If my gravity reading had been at 1.030 on day 10, I'd leave it be til it got lower before moving into the d-rest. D-rest should be your finishing stage but not designed to accommodate a large majority of your fermentation time as higher temps cause flavor issues if left too long.

There are many ways to approach brewing, especially brewing a lager. Mine is but one of these various methods.

wapitiscat said:

I'm still a little confused by this aspect of the lagering method. I brought this up in the comments section of the Brulosophy post about lager. When one says do something like raise the temp to X degrees at 50% OG I originally thought it would be 50% of the apparent attenuation. Using the above example, let's say the estimated FG is going to be 1.014. That gives 60 - 14 = 46 points to play with. 50% of 46 is 23 so I would think that a SG of 1.037 would be the halfway point.

Just taking 50% of your OG means your assuming that the SG is going to go to 1.000, right? Granted, we're not talking a big difference in this example but I'm still curious as to the "proper" math to throw at this benchmarking part of the lager fermentation. Won't someone show me the way and/or how dense I'm being about this?

Click to expand...

The rule of thumb that I have heard most often is to begin the D rest when fermentation is about 2/3 complete (not 1/2), which would be 2/3 of the available points that you're talking about above, so for example 46 x 1/3 left = 15, plus 14 gives you 1.029, or about the same as the 1.030 that my shortcut method would have been. A point or two difference between the calculations is not critical.

Since average apparent attenuation is about 75%, the math works out if you multiply 2/3 gone out of 3/4 apparent points available (75% attenuation), which is 2/3 x 3/4 = 2/4 = 1/2 of the original gravity. So even my shortcut can be justified mathematically.

Of course, just always ignore the 1. in the specific gravity to convert to "gravity points". So 1.060 is the same as 60 gravity points, cut that in half, yadda yadda. This takes you to almost exactly the same place as the complex math above. If the yeast is much more or much less attenuative than 75%, then the more complex math might become helpful. But probably 9 times out of 10, my shortcut is "good enough".

Morrey, So your using the "scale" of ...

OG = 1.050
25% = 1.038
50% = 1.025
75% = 1.013 (estimated SG at stated apparent attenuation)
100% = 1.000

Instead of using 1.050 - 1.013 = 1.037 (or 37 points) and working with that to give ...

OG = 1.050
25% of 37 pts. = 1.041
50% of 37 pts = 1.032
75% of 37 pts. = 1.022
100% of 37 pts. = 1.013

Maybe 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of the other but a puzzle nonetheless.

Todd

wapitiscat said:

Morrey, So your using the "scale" of ...

OG = 1.050
25% = 1.038
50% = 1.025
75% = 1.013 (estimated SG at stated apparent attenuation)
100% = 1.000

Instead of using 1.050 - 1.013 = 1.037 (or 37 points) and working with that to give ...

OG = 1.050
25% of 37 pts. = 1.041
50% of 37 pts = 1.032
75% of 37 pts. = 1.022
100% of 37 pts. = 1.013

Maybe 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of the other but a puzzle nonetheless.

Todd

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That's the way I view it, Todd. With our example showing the starting gravity of 1.050 and predicting 75% of the sugars to be converted, I'll be looking for a final gravity reading of 1.013 or close. Like Dave says, a point or two deviation either way is typically expected. Like you say, 6 of one, half dozen of another. You know to look for .013 which is 37 points or 75% anyway you slice it.

Hey guys. So I had to remove the lager from the ferm chamber after 2 months. I am planning on bottling it tomorrow, but I am suprised to see airlock activity since I removed it from the ferm chamber. Is it safe to bottle or am I playing with fire (and potential bottle bombs?)

jojacques said:

Hey guys. So I had to remove the lager from the ferm chamber after 2 months. I am planning on bottling it tomorrow, but I am suprised to see airlock activity since I removed it from the ferm chamber. Is it safe to bottle or am I playing with fire (and potential bottle bombs?)

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Must be CO2 coming out of soltion when the beer is warming.

If your beer (even a lager) is still fermenting after 2 months you have problems in your fermentation temperature control.

I am ramping the temp to d-rest in two weeks and then cold crashing a few days later.

Makes sense! Thanks!