Anyone lager in a keg?

[jwill911]

I recently upgraded my brewing setup to a Brewbuilt X3 conical w/Icemaster Max2. Got the everything from Brewhardware, as usual a positive experience. I'm on my 2nd batch fermenting in the X3 and have been putting together the parts to lager in a keg. I got the idea from a brew club member. Since I have a second channel on the Max2 I can use that and save my kegerator from pushing the temp down to low 30(f), and free up the kegerator.
Here's my parts list:
1. Corny keg
2. Gotta Brew Cool Zone cooling jacket
3. Corny keg lid w/ 1.5" TC
4. 1.5" TC "T"
5. 1.5" TC 200 cm thermowell
6. Insulation bubble wrap to hold the temp
I'm hoping to start a discussion to learn from others and share ideas. I have a decocted NZ pilsner in the X3 that's just about terminal gravity.

 

[lumpher]

Sure. There's nothing wrong with lagering in a keg. If you have a Spunding valve you can ferment it, D-Rest it if needed, cold-crash, lager, and serve in the same keg. I personally don't do all that in the same keg, but some here do.

 

[Franktalk]

All the time! Age, lager, brighten, clear, carbonate, chill, cold-crash, lots of things you can do in a keg without worrying about oxygenation, yeast autolysis or any of the things that can happen in a fermenter.

 

[jwill911]

I was hoping for some discussion and how others are doing it, so I could learn. I understand the advantages, I've fermented in a keg but haven't really used a keg for extended lager'ing.

 

[doug293cz]

I was hoping for some discussion and how others are doing it, so I could learn. I understand the advantages, I've fermented in a keg but haven't really used a keg for extended lager'ing.

What's there to learn? Lagering is simply cold storage.

Brew on

 

[fluketamer]

technically we are all lagering in the keg.

none of us pasteurize our beers so they are still alive and still cleaning up (lagering) the beer while in the kegerator

 

[oakbarn]

I always lager in a keg. Only way to get it to a stable temp for 30 days. I have fermeted in a Keg but have glycol chilled conicals so no longer do that.

 

[Dland]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as oakbarn. Usually I rack from conical to kegs, just before active fermenatation is over, do a D rest and spund carbonate.

Then I crash the kegs and lager them at around 30F, usually I try wait at least 3 months for lagers, and 3 weeks for ales. Longer waits do result in some improvement, but after those intervals, the beer is usually pretty good.

One of my biggest splurges for homebrew was buying this freezer which holds 12 corny kegs. Never underestimate the importance of the cold side of the brewing process, especially when trying to refine one's beer to the next level.

A external thermostat turns this rig from a deep freeze to a unit that can easily keep kegs colder than any refrigerator, and not work that hard doing it.

.

 

[Skeeter686]

While I don't have a chest freezer that holds 12 kegs, just today I just pulled out a keg from my "lagering freezer" (when my wife hasn't commandeered it for curing sausage or something else not beer related). So yeah... I lager in kegs.

My plan is to transfer the contents to a clean keg, so that I won't stir up the settled stuff when I transport the beer to an event in a week.

 

[jwill911]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as oakbarn. Usually I rack from conical to kegs, just before active fermenatation is over, do a D rest and spund carbonate.

Then I crash the kegs and lager them at around 30F, usually I try wait at least 3 months for lagers, and 3 weeks for ales. Longer waits do result in some improvement, but after those intervals, the beer is usually pretty good.

One of my biggest splurges for homebrew was buying this freezer which holds 12 corny kegs. Never underestimate the importance of the cold side of the brewing process, especially when trying to refine one's beer to the next level.

A external thermostat turns this rig from a deep freeze to a unit that can easily keep kegs colder than any refrigerator, and not work that hard doing it.


View attachment 883050.

 

[jwill911]

Thanks Dland! I appreciate getting a real answer to my question. I more than likely will not go that far. But that’s good food for thought.
Thanks, jw

 

[hottpeper13]

My beers are in primary for 3 weeks. I can't cold crash in the fermenter colder than 50*. Beers get racked to a keg with 3-4 oz sugar, set beside chamber for 2 weeks then put in lagerator side at 33* on CO2 if needed. The pipe line is the deciding factor in how long the lagering will be, most are 4 weeks.

 

[Willy]

Currently fermenting an 8 gallon Czech Pilsner in a mondo sized 10 g corny megamouth with a BrewHardware customized 1 1/2" triclamp port. This sits inside a smaller freezer turned "cold ferm chamber " via a simple inkbird temp controller.

The wort goes in a little below 90° and I let it cool to mid 70s before I pitch 2 packs of 34/70. On days 0-4 I vent the majority of the ferment gas into a ball jar of water & starsan. Then I put on a spunding valve set to 10 psi and let it finish. Day 11 I raise the temp to 62-63 and give it a D rest. Day 14 I transfer to a 5 gal corny and a 3 g corny. Cold crash and lager in the new vessels.

I usually use a conical in the cooler months for lagers/pilsners/marzan - it just is easier this way in the summer when it is very hot outside. Also have a 6.5 g corny I often use as a fermenter for a 5 g batch.

 

[wdavis2003]

Sounds like you made yourself a brite tank. Which I'm kinda jealous of.

Most of us 'lager' and carbonate our beers in a keg at the same time. Mine go into the kegerator at 35 degrees on gas. Usually about a month in they've hit their stride.

 

[Witherby]

What's there to learn? Lagering is simply cold storage.

Seriously?

I've posted this before, but it is worth repeating.

In Modern Lager Beer: Techniques, Processes, and Recipes by Jack Hendler and Joe Connolly, they lay out the "four main purposes of lagering" (paraphrasing the book Practical Handbook for the Specialty Brewer: Fermentation, Cellaring, and Packaging Operations Volume 2, edited by Karl Ockert):

1. Flavor maturation; eliminating the undesirable flavors and creating desirable ones
2. Clarification through the sedimentation of yeast and other insoluble materials
3. Chill stabilization by promoting the creation of protein tannin complexes that can be removed by sedimentation or filtration
4. Development of carbonation

On the next page: "One thing is certain when it comes to flavor maturation: yeast is the key component. Such modifications only happen in the presence of yeast."

Continues a little further:
"When it comes to flavor maturation, the time required for lagering will vary depending on a number of factors, including the strength of the beer and the amount of added materials, particularly hops and adjuncts (table 3.5). But the most significant variable that determines the time and temperature of lagering will be how the primary fermentation was conducted."

Table 3.5
Major factors that determine lagering time

A few pages later:

"When determining the appropriate lagering temperature, consider the four main objectives of lager -- flavor maturation, clarififcation, stabilization, and carbonation -- and which are to be achieved. For flavor maturation, choose a warmer temperature in the 35-46F (2-8C) range. To address clarification and stabilization, very cold temperatures, even down to the freezing point of the beer are recommended."

Do I follow any of this? Not really, since I just read the book.

Like others, I am a lazy lagerer. I transfer the beer to a corny keg, kräusen it, let it naturally carbonate (sometimes at cellar temperature, sometimes in the mid 40s if I have time) and then lager it in my beer fridge at beer fridge temp. Occasionally I will lager at near freezing if I am trying to get a super clear beer. But my chest freezer is my fermentation chamber and fermentation temp always overrides lagering temp.

I am brewing a German pils tomorrow, followed by a Dunkel and a Christmas bock which should really get a proper lagering.

 

[doug293cz]

Seriously?

I've posted this before, but it is worth repeating.

In Modern Lager Beer: Techniques, Processes, and Recipes by Jack Hendler and Joe Connolly, they lay out the "four main purposes of lagering" (paraphrasing the book Practical Handbook for the Specialty Brewer: Fermentation, Cellaring, and Packaging Operations Volume 2, edited by Karl Ockert):

1. Flavor maturation; eliminating the undesirable flavors and creating desirable ones
2. Clarification through the sedimentation of yeast and other insoluble materials
3. Chill stabilization by promoting the creation of protein tannin complexes that can be removed by sedimentation or filtration
4. Development of carbonation

On the next page: "One thing is certain when it comes to flavor maturation: yeast is the key component. Such modifications only happen in the presence of yeast."

Continues a little further:
"When it comes to flavor maturation, the time required for lagering will vary depending on a number of factors, including the strength of the beer and the amount of added materials, particularly hops and adjuncts (table 3.5). But the most significant variable that determines the time and temperature of lagering will be how the primary fermentation was conducted."

Table 3.5
Major factors that determine lagering time

View attachment 883087

A few pages later:

"When determining the appropriate lagering temperature, consider the four main objectives of lager -- flavor maturation, clarififcation, stabilization, and carbonation -- and which are to be achieved. For flavor maturation, choose a warmer temperature in the 35-46F (2-8C) range. To address clarification and stabilization, very cold temperatures, even down to the freezing point of the beer are recommended."

Do I follow any of this? Not really, since I just read the book.

Like others, I am a lazy lagerer. I transfer the beer to a corny keg, kräusen it, let it naturally carbonate (sometimes at cellar temperature, sometimes in the mid 40s if I have time) and then lager it in my beer fridge at beer fridge temp. Occasionally I will lager at near freezing if I am trying to get a super clear beer. But my chest freezer is my fermentation chamber and fermentation temp always overrides lagering temp.

I am brewing a German pils tomorrow, followed by a Dunkel and a Christmas bock which should really get a proper lagering.

Yeah, beneficial things happen during cold storage, but all the brewer has to do is provide cold storage in a sealed container, and wait. How long to wait is going to depend on the nature of the beer itself, and personal preference. The type of container is not important - it just needs to be air tight (O2 impermeable to the extent possible), and not be made of a material that can leach contaminants into the beer.

Brew on

 

[Closet Fermenter]

I just have one lager under my belt, so no expert. I fermented a 5 gallon Mexican lager in a 10 gallon corny in an inkbird controlled freezer. After the fermentation was complete, I changed the controller to lagering temperature and let it sit, connected to gas to keep enough pressure to keep it sealed, for about six weeks or so. Then, since I had installed a floating dip tube in that keg, I just served directly from it.
I carried some to a friend’s for the 4th and he was impressed. I will probably continue to use this procedure until or if I have a different setup or find a better way.

 

[Deadalus]

Lagern is the German verb for storing something, not that I speak or understand German. I think #4 above is a stretch because lagering includes storing cold. It is not necessary to lager to achieve carbonation. Beer requires ageing to achieve carbonation. Cold will inhibit carbonation speed. I wouldn't say I was going to lager the beer now to carbonate it. And roughly from what's stated, cold is <46F.

I'm not disagreeing with the other three reasons but the chart is unhelpful because it's only ordinal and doesn't indicate the magnitude of the effects. Expect that a colder primary will take longer. What's "longer", is it significantly longer? An extra hour, day, week, month? All adjuncts are the same effect? Perhaps the text is more detailed...

 

[Beermeister32]

Most of us lager in kegs. I like 90 days aging on lagered beers.

 

[DavidBD]

I'm working on my first lager using the X3 and I just kegged it this afternoon. I have the pressure fermenting kit, with spunding valve.
I'm going to lager in the keg in a small refrigerator, which will be around 35F.
The Icemaster 2 is not really getting my fermenter ice cold in my hot garage in the Texas summer. It would only get the X3 down to 39F or so.
That's OK; my plan was to ferment at 52F, then give it ten days or so at 40 to 42F for early maturation, then keg and lager a little colder.
I think the yeast would be nearly inactive much below 40F, and I wanted to give it a chance while still active to clean up.
I also blew off sulfur and bubbled more CO2 through it about a week after fermentation stopped. I think that will help.
The beer cleared around day 23. It was at 41F at the time. I dropped pressure to let it fully settle, and kegged it a couple of days after that.
I have high hopes for this beer. It already tastes great. I'm using WY2206 Bavarian Lager yeast (optimal range is 46-58°F).