aaronbeach
Member
Feedback from experienced lager brewers requested:
I've brewed a few lagers and studied yeast quite a bit. I tend to agree with Chris White that Homebrewers are uncharacteristically timid/traditional when brewing with Lager yeast. I've wondered whether the traditional 2-4 week fermentation plus 1 week per degree plato of lagering is really necessary to make good beer. Ok, maybe not good "lager" - but good beer none the less. I'd like to hear what potential experienced lager brewers see in brewing+lagering beer in short time to free up cooling resources.
I don't really care if the beer is later stored/aged at regular room temperatures say 60-ish for any amount of time, I'm most interested in the possibilities of producing lager-fermented beer with under one-month of temperature control.
To begin - I propose the following and already have a 1.061 Munich/Rye/2-row fermenting with WLP833 that will follow the schedule below:
12-14 days at 50F then 1-2 days at 60F then 12-14 days at <40F then bottle. Obviously the beer could be aged after this, just not cold. I'm doing the temperature changes gradually but quickly and the beer will spend the entire month of ferm/lager on the yeast cake. I will report on the findings, but I'd like to hear your thoughts during the process.
I've brewed a few lagers and studied yeast quite a bit. I tend to agree with Chris White that Homebrewers are uncharacteristically timid/traditional when brewing with Lager yeast. I've wondered whether the traditional 2-4 week fermentation plus 1 week per degree plato of lagering is really necessary to make good beer. Ok, maybe not good "lager" - but good beer none the less. I'd like to hear what potential experienced lager brewers see in brewing+lagering beer in short time to free up cooling resources.
I don't really care if the beer is later stored/aged at regular room temperatures say 60-ish for any amount of time, I'm most interested in the possibilities of producing lager-fermented beer with under one-month of temperature control.
To begin - I propose the following and already have a 1.061 Munich/Rye/2-row fermenting with WLP833 that will follow the schedule below:
12-14 days at 50F then 1-2 days at 60F then 12-14 days at <40F then bottle. Obviously the beer could be aged after this, just not cold. I'm doing the temperature changes gradually but quickly and the beer will spend the entire month of ferm/lager on the yeast cake. I will report on the findings, but I'd like to hear your thoughts during the process.