Bottling before lagering?

[schoellhorn82]

Situation:

Kegged 20 gallons of Oktoberfest to lager at 35dF for a month or so. It was actually 21.5 gallon. I don't know how that happened (obliviously extra water) but i hit my OG. So I bottled the rest and am going to bottle condition for 2 weeks before lagering for a few weeks. Anyone have experience doing this method?

My thoughts are the flavor profile is pretty much set so sitting for 2wks in the bottle shouldn't change. I'm just wondering if i'll have the same effect starting to lager 2 weeks later vs the kegs that are starting now. I view the extra as extra and it's so good i'd drink it flat right now I have not bottled in years so this is an interesting experiment to say the least and its still going to be beer.

 

[Beernik]

I used to bottle before lagering in a mini fridge before I got my ferm chamber freezer. It works fine. For bottling, I'm starting to think that it may actually work better. I had a handful of bottles from my last two lagers that were completely flat when I lagered before bottling.

Just let them carb two or three weeks and then lager them how ever long you were going to lager them.

For future brews, I'm thinking I'll cold crash/lager at 36F for three weeks. Bottle carb for three weeks. Then lager a couple more weeks. I'm testing this procedure right now with a blonde ale that used Kolsch yeast.

 

[schoellhorn82]

Cool let me know how it turns out!

 

[Beernik]

I'm one week into carbing. So it will be a couple more weeks.

 

[Beernik]

Looking back at my notes, I cold crashed for 16 days.

Two weeks of cold crashing didn't prevent it from carbing in 12 days. It could use a little more time to allow yeast (from carbing) to settle out. So I'm pretty much ready to call this test successful. I think I'll give it another week before moving the rest of the bottles back into the fridge.