Carbonation and lagering

[Yourrealdad]

I made a Belgian tripel and it is close to being done. Jamil says to carbonate and then lager for about a month @ 45 degrees.

I am just curious, do you always carbonate and then lager? Can you just lager in a secondary or keg and then carbonate?

In a keg do you force carbonate or just carbonate normally?

This beer is going to be my first kegged beer and just want to make sure I am doing it right.

Thanks

 

[DrunkleJon]

I am not very experienced with lagering but with kegging you can carbonate naturally (with sugar, though you need less. Use a priming calculator for amounts) or force carbonate (since you are giong to be aging anyway I highly reccomend the set and forget method. I do not see why you cannot put the keg on serving pressure while it is lagering to carbonate, but once again I haven't done any lagering myself.

I believe the advice is to carbonate then lager is referring to naturally carbonating where you would want to get it carbed before you lager and put the yeast to sleep.

 

[Safa]

You can lager before or after carbonating. (or during when you are kegging)

If you are force carbonating with a co2 tank, just go ahead and throw that bad boy in the fridge and hook up your co2 once the keg is cold.

Personally I wouldn't natural carb in a keg because of the extra traub that will settle, meaning I either have to rack or pull it out in the first few pours. People do this and like it, but its just not for me.

 

[Yourrealdad]

So I guess just throw the keg on co2 and set to serving pressure and wait a month and a half?

 

[DrunkleJon]

Should be carbed properly in about 2 weeks. you could take it off the pressure then, but leaving it on the whole lagering period will not hurt any.