First lager... Bottling Temps?

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PeteOz77

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I have my first lager still in the lagerator, but want to bottle it soon.

Pitched yeast march 19th
Into Lagertaor at 50°F for 23 days
Out of lagerator for Diacetyl rest on April 11th
Racked into secondary and back into lagerator on April 19th
Lagered @ 37°F for 4 weeks.

It should be ready to bottle now eh?

SO a few questions....

Should I bring it back up to room temp before bulk priming and bottling?

Should I add more yeast?

As always, any help is most appreciated.
 
I did a similar lagering schedule recently, and I did not add more yeast. The result is that the lager has some carbonation but not really enough.

I did bring the fermenter up to the primary fermentation temp before bottling, but as long as the bottles goes somewhere warm I don't think it matters much - the yeast will become active when the beer reaches the right temp.

In future I'm going to add some rehydrated yeast to the bottling bucket when doing lagers - and you don't need much. Just a couple of grams in say 50mls of water.
 
WOW! 62 views and only one reply!

Thanks Ashby, your input is most appreciated. Based on no other replies, I am slowly bringing the temp back up to room temp and will bulk prime and bottle condition as normal.
 
I would bottle it as is, and leave the bottles at room temperature to carb. Then back to the lagerator for them while they wait to be drunken :D
 
Well, I left it at room temp for about 22 hours and got it back up to around 65°F. chucked in about 2gm fresh yeast in the conday, then racked into bottling bucket with bulk priming sugar, Bottled it all tonight. I hope it turns out nice after all this time...
 
Sorry I caught this too late! I'd say it's a gray area on adding yeast. I ferment for 2 weeks, lager for 4 weeks and don't add yeast. They carb fine. But if I were going anything over 8 weeks from pitching to bottling, I would probably add some dry lager yeast at bottling just to be safe.

Lagers can carbonate at room temp if you're using dextrose for the priming sugar. If you use a malt-based priming solution (saved wort, dme, lme), they need to carbonate at primary fermentation temps.

One thing to note... did it really take 23 days to reach a diacetyl rest point? Most of my lagers (OGs around 1.050), reach that point in about 10-12 days at 50dF. D-rests should be done about 6 points shy of terminal gravity. This is usually when the krausen is about half-fallen.
 
Yup, adding yeast is a grey area. Adding more before bottling is more of an insurance policy than anything else, and normally only needed after long lagering times. I think your beer falls into that category, since you pitched the original yeast 3months ago.

Good luck with it!.
 
Sorry I caught this too late! I'd say it's a gray area on adding yeast. I ferment for 2 weeks, lager for 4 weeks and don't add yeast. They carb fine. But if I were going anything over 8 weeks from pitching to bottling, I would probably add some dry lager yeast at bottling just to be safe.

Lagers can carbonate at room temp if you're using dextrose for the priming sugar. If you use a malt-based priming solution (saved wort, dme, lme), they need to carbonate at primary fermentation temps.

One thing to note... did it really take 23 days to reach a diacetyl rest point? Most of my lagers (OGs around 1.050), reach that point in about 10-12 days at 50dF. D-rests should be done about 6 points shy of terminal gravity. This is usually when the krausen is about half-fallen.

Thanks for the input, be it too late for this batch or not, the information is always good to have for future batches.

As for the diacetyl rest point, I have no idea if I did it at the right time, or even if it was required. I did it just to be safe, and to be honest, I didn't even take a gravity reading. I was under the impression that the rest was to be done around 2 points from FG.... but again, I didn't test it. I brought it in from the lagerator and it started bubbling (probably mostly due to the temp change) and bubbles for 3-4 days.

I can't wait to sample this, as if it's nice, I am doing a double batch this weekend.
 
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