First lager

[pavs]

Hey all, going to be doing my first lager this weekend and I have a few questions.
1. When you pitch the yeast, do you primary at room temperature or lower?

2. When lager is it best to go secondary to get it off the yeast cake?

3. When lagering, do you gradually bring the temperature down to a certain temp? What should that temp be?

4. Finally, and sorry for so many questions, when I bottle can I store at room temp after it has been at such cold temps for that long, or does it not matter?

Thanks to everyone who will respond to this for me!

 

[Yooper]

Hey all, going to be doing my first lager this weekend and I have a few questions.
1. When you pitch the yeast, do you primary at room temperature or lower?

2. When lager is it best to go secondary to get it off the yeast cake?

3. When lagering, do you gradually bring the temperature down to a certain temp? What should that temp be?

4. Finally, and sorry for so many questions, when I bottle can I store at room temp after it has been at such cold temps for that long, or does it not matter?

Thanks to everyone who will respond to this for me!

First, make a BIG starter. Big. Check mrmalty.com's yeast pitching calculator here: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html If you're using liquid yeast, start the starter yesterday!

Primary at or just under optimum fermentation temperatures for your yeast strain. I do most of my lagers at 48-50 degrees. Chill your yeast starter in the fridge for a few days first, so you can decant your spent wort and then it's great to pitch fridge temp. yeast into 48 degree wort. The yeast like it!

You'll want to do the diacetyl rest still in primary, but after that it's best to rack and lager in the secondary.

I lager at 34 degrees for each 8-10 points of OG. That means for a 1.060 OG lager, I'll lager at 6-8 weeks.

Storing them at room temperature is fine- otherwise they'll never carb up!