How tough are lagers to brew?

[pretzelb]

I am debating a chest freezer and temp controller to serve as a fermentation chamber. I think it will help with my ales but I after a few years without I don't really NEED it. I would need it for lagers which I have never done. I read up a bit on the topic and even though I've been doing this for years I'm a bit concerned about the complexity of lagers. I had assumed it was just the same as an ale but with a different fermentation temp but seems like you have to be more concerned about oxygenation and you also need to alter the temp at different stages (which means I can't have 2 different batches going at the same time).

Am I reading too much into the lager steps or does it really require this much more attention?

 

[brettg20]

Ideally you want to control ferm temps on ALL beers, not just lagers. They are not tough to execute but they need a little more TLC


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[govner1]

I've just set up my lager ferm chamber (7 cf chest freezer) and lagering/cold crash chamber (15 cf upright). I plan on using the first for managing the ferm steps on lagers & the later for lagering & cold storage of completed/kegged ales. Also it has plenty of room for storing hops, etc.
I went this route after 3+ years of ales only. Lagers appear to take more attention initially then even more patience.
Fortunately, I obtained both for free!
My ale ferm chamber holds 5-6 carboys plus works well for wines, too. A $200 investment total.


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[hunter_le five]

Nah, it's easy. It sounds a little intimidating until you actually do it, but as long as you have a means of controlling the temperature, it's easy to do. Start at your yeast strains ferm temp, ramp up towards the end of fermentation for the d-rest, and bring it back down to near freezing for the lagering stage. Simple as that. All you need is a but more patience/time.

It will also improve your ales.

But you are correct, trying to deal with brews at different stages can be tricky...


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[Cyclman]

DO IT.

You'll never regret temp controlled fermentation. A stir plate, O2 injection, and temp controlled fermentation will make for unbelievably wonderful lagers.

You'd be surprised how much it can improve your ales, too. Especially big beers, when you can raise temp at the end of fermentation to fully attenuate them.

It isn't difficult at all, just more equipment intensive.

 

[acidrain]

Lagers require WAY more yeast.. multi-stepped starters etc. to get the cell count needed.
Here is a really good read on speed lagering: http://brulosophy.com/lager-method/

 

[how1]

Do not fear the lager, Grasshopper!

 

[kaconga]

Lagers require WAY more yeast.. multi-stepped starters etc. to get the cell count needed.
Here is a really good read on speed lagering: http://brulosophy.com/lager-method/

While this is true it is often very very easy to brew up a one gallon lager and then pitch the cake from that into a two gallon batch of lager and finally pitch that cake into a five gallon batch. This ultimately gives you eight gallons of delicious lager and lots of great practice on when the beer is ready for a d-rest or the lagering phase. I find timing the transfers for lagers to be the trickiest part.

 

[pretzelb]

DO IT.

You'll never regret temp controlled fermentation. A stir plate, O2 injection, and temp controlled fermentation will make for unbelievably wonderful lagers.

You'd be surprised how much it can improve your ales, too. Especially big beers, when you can raise temp at the end of fermentation to fully attenuate them.

It isn't difficult at all, just more equipment intensive.

This is what concerns me. I had thought it would end with just the fermentation freezer but it sounds like you also need O2 injection and maybe more than just one fermentation chamber.

I know it would help to have my safale us-05 ales at a constant 65 but since I'm happy with the results thus far it hardly seems wise to go and get something like a 7 cubic foot freezer.

I had assumed that lagers were the same as ales just with a different temp range but from what I read lagers have two ranges - one for fermentation and another for lagering or cold crashing. If that is true for all lagers then buying a freezer that could hold more than one carboy is a waste since I'd only be able to have one batch working at the same time. I think that is the part that bothers me the most.

 

[acidrain]

Why do you need a 7 cu ft. freezer? This isn't anything that a standard small fridge set up with temp control can't handle. There really is no difference between ales and lagers... both need temp control with the ability to cold crash.
FWIW, my fermentation chamber is small... only holds one carboy at a time because I would never assume that because two or more carboys are sitting in the same temperature air, that they are fermenting at the same temperature. I precisely control the temp of a beer, not the air.
Same with the O2... you still need that for your ales.
The only difference is the actual temps, and the amount of yeast. If you don't have the ability to control the temp (including down to 32F) or the ability to grow and pitch healthy yeast, then those are things you need to work on if you want to produce really good beer.

 

[Beernik]

I did two different beers with the same yeast and fermented them side-by-side. One Vienna, one Dort, both Danish lager yeast.

 

[jrgtr42]

As others said, the actual brewing is exactly the same as ales.
The difference lies in the temperature of the fermentation, and the need to let it cold age for a while afterwards.
Of course, colder fermentation temps do need a higher pitch rate than ales.
I wouldn't say lagers are HARDER to brew than ales, but they do take longer and take a bit more attention to temps.
When I have my dedicated brew space and cooling equipment I want to brew the same recipe, one with ale yeast (1056/001/s04) and the other with lager (the equivalent) and find out the differences. Just in the interest of science, you see...

 

[acidrain]

I did two different beers with the same yeast and fermented them side-by-side. One Vienna, one Dort, both Danish lager yeast.

What does this mean?

 

[Beernik]

I made the lagers back in January. I made a Danish Lager (Wyeast 2042) starter big enough for 10 gallons of beer. On Saturday, brewed the Dort and pitched half the starter. On Sunday I brewed the Vienna and pitched the other half of the starter.

They sat side-by-side in my ferm chamber fermenting, lagering, and carbonating.

I did it again two weeks ago but with a roggen and a dampfbier.

 

[RoughandReadyRanch]

I made the lagers back in January. I made a Danish Lager (Wyeast 2042) starter big enough for 10 gallons of beer. On Saturday, brewed the Dort and pitched half the starter. On Sunday I brewed the Vienna and pitched the other half of the starter.

They sat side-by-side in my ferm chamber fermenting, lagering, and carbonating.

I did it again two weeks ago but with a roggen and a dampfbier.

And this adds to the conversation..... how????? Are you trying to say it was easy? Are you trying to say that you lager based on ambient temp as opposed to the previous poster saying they only do one beer at a time in order to assure the wort is at temp and not ambient air? You two posts are virtually context free aside from the fact that you used the word lager they serve no purpose in this thread. Sorry, I need a beer I guess. But still, WTF are you talking about man!

 

[Beernik]

In the original post:

I am debating a chest freezer and temp controller to serve as a fermentation chamber...(which means I can't have 2 different batches going at the same time).

You can have different styles of beer in the same fermentation chamber at the same time. It just takes more planning.


And next time try reading the original post before flaming someone.

 

[ajdelange]

Get a copy of Noonan's Brewing Lager Beer and read it. He goes into all aspects of the materials and process and so that after reading you will know exactly what you will have to change to switch over. You will use different water, different yeast in greater pitches, different hops varieties, different malts, different mashing techniques and different fermentation temperature profiles. A lager brewing day can be a long day (11 hr my last go - including cleanup). Then, of course, there is lagering itself.

 

[BigFloyd]

I had assumed that lagers were the same as ales just with a different temp range but from what I read lagers have two ranges - one for fermentation and another for lagering or cold crashing. If that is true for all lagers then buying a freezer that could hold more than one carboy is a waste since I'd only be able to have one batch working at the same time. I think that is the part that bothers me the most.

I ran into this when I first started doing lagers. It caused me to buy an upright lagering freezer from Craigslist and rig an STC-1000 on it to go along with my fermenter fridge.

You'll have to be willing to take some extra steps to brew lagers well, both in equipment and effort. Can you-

chill wort to 45*F before pitching?

aerate it really well or bubble O2 if using liquid yeast?

pitch twice the yeast that you would in an ale?

Ferment at 48-50*F?

Bring it up to about 64*F for a d-rest when it gets 75-80% of the way to FG?

Lager it in the mid-30's for weeks?

2 of the 3 beers I have on tap currently are lagers. I like having them, but they're a bit of a PITA.

 

[FatDragon]

In the original post:



You can have different styles of beer in the same fermentation chamber at the same time. It just takes more planning.


And next time try reading the original post before flaming someone.

In other words, yes, you can lager multiple batches in the same fermentation chamber at the same time, you just have to brew them within a couple days of each other so they hit the same stages at the same time.

 

[RoughandReadyRanch]

In the original post:



You can have different styles of beer in the same fermentation chamber at the same time. It just takes more planning.


And next time try reading the original post before flaming someone.

Read all the posts. Yours is without any context aside from you made two beers of said style. Were they crap? Good? In a chest freezer? In your closet? In a basement? Don't get defensive about your post when the simple fact is you really didn't tell us $hit. The header is "how tough are lagers to brew" and the last line was having two beers going at the same time. What if he doesn't want to do two beers with the same yeast? Two lagers even? Again your post adds little and aside from stating you brewed two beers that happened to be lagers you again failed to say anything. Don't get mad. Just learn how to better express yourself in order to help further this conversation.

 

[FatDragon]

Read all the posts. Yours is without any context aside from you made two beers of said style. Were they crap? Good? In a chest freezer? In your closet? In a basement? Don't get defensive about your post when the simple fact is you really didn't tell us $hit. The header is "how tough are lagers to brew" and the last line was having two beers going at the same time. What if he doesn't want to do two beers with the same yeast? Two lagers even? Again your post adds little and aside from stating you brewed two beers that happened to be lagers you again failed to say anything. Don't get mad. Just learn how to better express yourself in order to help further this conversation.

The OP worried that he couldn't do two lagers at the same time in a fermentation chamber because they would require different temperatures at the same time (because they would be at different stages of the fermentation/lagering process). Beernik said that you can do two lagers in one ferm chamber at the same time by brewing them close enough that they go through the stages of fermentation at the same time. T

he OP presented a problem, Beernik presented a solution to that problem. Helpful, informative, on-topic, and interesting as he gives details on his own application of the technique.

You, on the other hand, are going out of your way to flame him for off-topic posting when in fact he's perfectly on-topic. Unhelpful, distracting, off-topic, and off-putting.

Then again, shame on me too for not contributing to the positive discussion going on here.

 

[quaboagbrewing]

I have 2 lagers going right now........Oktoberfest is conditioning in the keezer at 36 degrees, Vienna is sitting on the basement floor in primary at constant 54 degrees and will be joining the Oktoberfest in the keezer in a few weeks. Brewing lagers is really no more difficult then other styles. You do need make sure you have a way to control temperatures. I have a Johnson a419 hooked up to a converted chest freezer. Other thing of note is that you need a lot of yeast. And finally patience to allow the lagers to sit in the cold for a few months (although time varies depending on the lager you are brewing). Cheers.

 

[acidrain]

Careful temperature sampling by others has proven that ambient air temperature has little to do with actual fermenting beer temperatures.
Seems we have two schools of thought here... those that ferment/lager exact temperatures, and those that wing it.
Both will produce beer. 100 years ago nobody was doing controlled temp lagering, but they still made beer.
Do what you want, but if you want repeatable results, temp control the beer, not the air.

 

[pretzelb]

Why do you need a 7 cu ft. freezer? This isn't anything that a standard small fridge set up with temp control can't handle. There really is no difference between ales and lagers... both need temp control with the ability to cold crash.
FWIW, my fermentation chamber is small... only holds one carboy at a time because I would never assume that because two or more carboys are sitting in the same temperature air, that they are fermenting at the same temperature. I precisely control the temp of a beer, not the air.
Same with the O2... you still need that for your ales.
The only difference is the actual temps, and the amount of yeast. If you don't have the ability to control the temp (including down to 32F) or the ability to grow and pitch healthy yeast, then those are things you need to work on if you want to produce really good beer.

The freezer would be so I could hold more than one carboy at a time. If I ever upgrade to 10g batches it is a must but even now I have time when two carboys are going at once which happens if I can brew two weekends in a row.

The o2 and temp control may be needed for ales as well but it hadn't been an issue for me that required extra equipment in all the years I've been brewing. So that is why I'm asking about lagers now. I have never cold crashed an ale nor read a recipe that recommend it.

 

[opiate82]

When you are making and building up lager yeast starters do you need to keep those at lower temps or is room temp (or ale yeast temp) fine for the starters?

 

[hunter_le five]

When you are making and building up lager yeast starters do you need to keep those at lower temps or is room temp (or ale yeast temp) fine for the starters?

I do my lager yeast starters at room temp. Never been an issue, and everything I've read seems to indicate that it's ok.

Just make sure you bring the starter temp to an approximation of the wort temp before pitching, to avoid shocking the yeast.

 

[Yooper]

When you are making and building up lager yeast starters do you need to keep those at lower temps or is room temp (or ale yeast temp) fine for the starters?

Room temperature is fine; after all, you are growing yeast and not making beer, and yeast love warmer temperatures.

Once the starter is done, I stick it in the fridge and decant the spent wort on brewday before pitching.

Yeast like to be warmed, but not cooled, so it's good practice to chill your wort to just under fermentation temperature and pitch the cooler yeast into it. For example, if I'm fermenting at 50 degrees, I'll chill my wort to 46 degrees and add my yeast (straight out of the fridge is fine- it's fine to pitch into warmer wort and yeast do well with that) to that and allow it to warm up to the desired fermentation temperature.

 

[SpeedYellow]

What makes lager brewing hard is like singing acapella -- there's not much to hide your errors. Yeast profile is typically clean, and hops are typically low to moderate. So you have to nail your process and your recipe. After you focus on lagers then ales become softballs.

 

[Spartan1979]

Get a copy of Noonan's Brewing Lager Beer and read it. He goes into all aspects of the materials and process and so that after reading you will know exactly what you will have to change to switch over. You will use different water, different yeast in greater pitches, different hops varieties, different malts, different mashing techniques and different fermentation temperature profiles. A lager brewing day can be a long day (11 hr my last go - including cleanup). Then, of course, there is lagering itself.

Except for the different mashing techniques, none of these items require more time on brewday than when brewing ales. I assume you are doing multi-step decoctions but good lagers can be made with single infusion mashes. I don't want to discuss infusion vs. decoction mashing here, I simply want to point that lagers don't have to require any more time on brewday than ales, unless you don't usually do 90 minute boils.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Except for the different mashing techniques, none of these items require more time on brewday than when brewing ales. I assume you are doing multi-step decoctions but good lagers can be made with single infusion mashes. I don't want to discuss infusion vs. decoction mashing here, I simply want to point that lagers don't have to require any more time on brewday than ales, unless you don't usually do 90 minute boils.

+1. But two things do take more time: (1) building the huge starter(s) and (2) waiting on brew day for your ferm chamber to cool the wort down to 48-50F pitching temp (takes mine about 4 hours). Otherwise lagers don't have to take any longer.

 

[ajdelange]

Except for the different mashing techniques, none of these items require more time on brewday than when brewing ales.

But the mashing steps are hardly trivial in toting up the differences between between lager and ale brewing.

I assume you are doing multi-step decoctions but good lagers can be made with single infusion mashes.

We could argue that. Good, yes, but excellent? That is a question for debate over beers but some feel that best results require decoction mashing - that just throwing in a handfull of mellanoidin malt doesn't give the same result. It is cetainly a major distinction between ale and lager brewing (tho some ales benefit from it too). And in cases where the mash tun isn't large enough to hold the huge volume of water that would be required for infusion from cold dough-in, beta glucan rest, protein rest, saccharification rest(s), mashout rest and where heat cannot be applied directly there really isn't much choice except decoction. So you would argue you don't need those rests. Others would argue that you do.

I don't want to discuss infusion vs. decoction mashing here,

But perhaps others do and certainly anyone asking the question 'Are lagers tough to brew' should be told about it. If he reads Brewing Lager Beer he will be and that's really what I recommend. Anyone really interested in brewing lager beer should read that book and make up his own mind or, barring reading the book, visit with an experienced lager brewer or snuggle up to the brewer at a Gordon Biersch (they seem to be everywhere).

I simply want to point that lagers don't have to require any more time on brewday than ales, unless you don't usually do 90 minute boils.

Forgot to mention the two hour boils plus boils. Good lagers are about mellanoidins and noble hops. It takes heat to get them. That's what the long boils and decoctions are for.

Lagers don't really require any more time than it takes to pour water into the Beer in a Bag kit. The result isn't the best lager, however.

Perhaps the best answer to the question as to whether lagers are tougher to brew is that if you want to experience what a traditional lager is about in all its glory then yes, considerably more effort is required. If you are satisfied with something less (and many of the differences are subtle) then it doesn't have to be.

 

[VladOfTrub]

Everyone has the brew in the fermenter. Lager has to be stable to be aged out. Decoction improves stability and quality. It is enzymatically impossible using the English method to produce a beer that Decoction produces. As the other brewer mentioned, Noonan's book is a good primer on producing Lager. There are malting companies producing malt, easily procured, for Decoction method.

 

[Agtronic]

Even though you have had plenty of responses in here. I just thought I'd let you know that I made my first lager about 3 weeks ago (it is still lagering) after I found a cheap fridge and made a temp controller. I too had concerns about it being more complicated. The "door to lagers" opened for me when I realized that yeast pitching rates, good oxygenation and temp control are the three most important components to making good beer.

When I finally put together my O2 injection setup, my ales went from mediocre to excellent on the first batch. It changed everything for me. The single problem I always struggled with was attenuation. Now, I always end up lower than all my calculations predicted. That's when I decided I was ready to lager.

If you have a good grasp on the above points, you will have no trouble moving to lagers. All the stuff about decoction mashing and meladoinins is something to look forward to when you get good at the simple processes. That's how I see it.

I just tasted my German pils (first lager) before cold crashing it, and I was actually surprised how good it came out, and it hasn't even lagered yet. I can't wait to taste the final product. Getting better at brewing is the best part of brewing.

Hope that helps!

 

[wanders]

The only tough thing about lager brewing is how much longer you have to wait before they are ready to drink

 

[pjj2ba]

Are lagers much more difficult to brew - that depends on what you are doing now. You certainly do need to pay good attention to what you are doing. If you are already doing that with your ales, it will be a smooth change. If you are a little lazy and sloppy, well, lagers are less forgiving. The only equipment you do need is a well regulated fermentation chamber - which is good for ales too!

Making an OK lager is not to difficult. Make a great lager requires some attention and possibly some extra steps. One does not have to be anal retentive about everything in the process though. At certain times yes, but not always. I'm a pretty laid back brewer, and have a pretty streamlined, and relaxed process. Attention to sanitation goes without saying.
I am particular about pitch temp, and never pitch above 50 F. I currently do not use 02. I use a homemade venturi and shake. I also always minimize any kind of foaming. The protein that makes foam, also provides body - in my eye, a very important feature of lagers. I use anti foam agents when I'm shaking after cooling.

Speaking of cooling, I also like to cool the whole wort at once and quickly. I recirculate until all the wort is cool enough and then drain to a carboy.

I'm actually a bit lazy when it comes to yeast. I often reuse yeast as I brew a constant stream of lagers and will simply use approx 1/3 of a yeast cake. When I start a new culture, I pitch two 500 ml starters.

I do not do decoctions, BUT I do use a multistep mash regime with a direct fired mash tun, so I believe I get some melanodins during the process.

I'm lucky that for ~3 months of the year, my basement is at 50F. After that, I have a fermentation chamber that will hold two carboys, and then often will brew a batch on a Sat, and then on Sun. This minimizes the amount of time the chamber is occupied - and maximizes beer output. In the Summer I need the chamber for my ales too. I'll do the two lagers and when they ferment out, I'll do several ales while the lagers, lager. It does take a little more advanced planning. I used to get by without a dedicated lagering fridge. The lagers would just sit in kegs at room temp. (72F max) for a couple months, and then as space opened in the kegerator, I would give them two weeks in there before tapping. I now have a lagering fridge that will hold 4 kegs, but somehow still manage to have lagers sitting at room temp......

This is what works for me. Everyone is different though. Use a process YOU are comfortable with and you will make better beer