pitched lager yeast at prime.. dumb idea?

[MarzBock]

Okay, so I was feeling like an experiment.. here's what I did.

I brewed the Fat Squirrel clone, partial mash (high OG around 1.080)... fermented it out on Safale-05 in about 10 days at 60-63F. Transfered to a secondary and let it sit for a week. NO activity in the airlock, I mean DEAD.

So, I bottled as normal with 5oz corn sugar. I tasted the beer and it was extremely hoppy. I'm not a big fan of super-hoppy beers, so I figured that this one will have to sit for a month in the bottles to mellow out. I had an old packet of Saflager yeast sitting around (expired around Sept-2010) that I had no plans for, so I went ahead and pitched half the packet (~5g) and bottled the beer.

My plan was to let the bottles sit in the garage for a month. Garage temps range from 40Fs at night, up to maybe 55F peak during the day.

I'm hoping for a nice clean finish on this beer. Honestly I have never done anything like this and I have no idea what will happen.

Question: Do you think these bottles will carb up nicely at such a low temp? Normally, I would leave my bottles at around 68-70F for 3 weeks with good results. I assume it would take longer at a lower temp, but HOW long is the question.

thanks
Marz

 

[rjwhite41]

Old yeast and cold temps don't sound like a terribly good idea to me. Why can't you keep the bottles at a higher temp. Also, I don't understand why are adding more yeast. Just because you didn't have any airlock activity doesn't mean there isn't active yeast in there. After all that I would probably start checking at the 4 week mark expecting carbonation in 6.

 

[MarzBock]

I'm letting them carb at a lower temp in an effort to "lager" them during the prime. I realize that the lower temp will slow things down, but I thought that maybe it would produce a "cleaner" finish with higher clarity.

I've read in another recipe (Blonde Belgian Ale) where it was suggested that one add half-a-packet of yeast to the prime bucket. This was described as providing a "clean finish" to the beer. This recipe did not, however, suggest cold prime temps, as the extra yeast was to be an "english yeast" which opperates at 70F.

Like I said.. it's an experiment. If anyone is interested in the results, I can post an update in about a month.

 

[slicksmix]

Im not so sure anything will happen since your original yeast already ate all the sugar during primary fermentation. even though you're adding extra yeast to your batch, theres still only so much sugar to eat, and your original yeast could have done the job

but i could be wrong... hope it goes well for ya!

 

[Yooper]

I don't see any reason to pitch more yeast, as the beer was finished and there was plenty of yeast in suspension to carb up. But you did no harm, so it's not a big deal.

I'd let the bottles carb up at room temperature, and THEN "lager" them. You can cold condition any beer, ale or lager, but if it's bottled it's best to do it after you reach an acceptable level of carbonation. I even carb up my bottled lagers at room temperature, not in the lager temperatures of 50 degrees.

If you can't maintain temperatures of 50 degrees, even for lager yeast strains, the bottles will NEVER carb up, by the way.