Bottling before lagering?

[Muss]

What happens if I bottle and carbonate my kolsch then cold condition it?

The reason I ask is that I don't want to have to add more yeast at bottling time because the lagering phase has dropped all of the yeast out of suspension.

 

[Reidman]

Sounds to me like you'd be asking for some serious bottle bombs going this route.

 

[Got Trub?]

I'm sure he meant after fermentation was complete.

Cold conditioning after bottling is fine. Some would argue that conditioning in your primary or secondary will work better (read faster) as you have more yeast around to slowly do their thing but ultimately you would achieve the same result.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I have a German Kellerbier recipe that bottles/kegs after the primary. You don't prime it, but you cold condition it.

I haven't tried it yet, but it's on my "to-brew" list.

 

[Muss]

Sweet. I might do a bit of both then. Maybe cold condition in the carboy for 2 weeks, then bottle and carbonate while there's still enough yeast floating around, then cold condition the bottles for a bit more.

 

[SkaBoneBenny]

Perhaps it would be fine for a Kolsch, but with a real lager, isn't the point of "lagering" not only to clear up the beer, but to remove unwanted flavors and compounds from the batch? Sulphur flavors and such? I recall reading that in John Palmer's work...

I'll try to find the online article, but for now, back to the beer battered fish and chips!

-Ben

 

[Muss]

Perhaps it would be fine for a Kolsch, but with a real lager, isn't the point of "lagering" not only to clear up the beer, but to remove unwanted flavors and compounds from the batch? Sulphur flavors and such? I recall reading that in John Palmer's work...

-Ben

That's a good point. Won't adding fresh yeast at bottling time cause the beer to go cloudy again?

 

[Got Trub?]

That's a good point. Won't adding fresh yeast at bottling time cause the beer to go cloudy again?

You only need to add a very small amount of yeast. All beers carbonated in the bottle will have some yeast to settle out. If you are after a crystal clear bottle conditioned beer you will need to give it time and then pour gently.

 

[Beerrific]

What happens if I bottle and carbonate my kolsch then cold condition it?

The reason I ask is that I don't want to have to add more yeast at bottling time because the lagering phase has dropped all of the yeast out of suspension.

I cold conditioned my Kolch in the secondary for 4 weeks at ~40F. I bottled and primed with DME, they were mostly carbed at 2 weeks (that was last night when I tasted one).

You aren't going to be killing at those temps, they will go dormant. When I was siphoning out of the carboy, I could see I sucked up a little yeast from the bottom, that was enough to prime.