Lager help

[Yooper]

Wow- I'm busy today! I racked my apple wine, racked my maibock, and am brewing my Dead Guy clone. It's a great day!

Anyway, after I racked my maibock, there is about 2 gallons of trub. I'm not planning another lager any time soon, but I've read that I might want to use more yeast to carbonate when I prime and bottle the maibock. The yeast is $8- should I reuse/wash the yeast from this batch for this, or use only "fresh" and clean yeast?

Or do I not need to add yeast anyway, after lagering for 4 weeks? The "maibock-hybrid" recipe I'm following had me primary at 60 for 12 days (closer to 15 days), now secondary for 55 at 12 days, then reduce the temperature 5 degrees per day until I lager it at 35 degrees for 4 weeks- then bottle. My s.g. started at 1.066 and is now 1.020. Tastes good already, BTW.

This is (obviously) my first lager and I don't want to do all this and have problems with carbonation lager. Thanks for your help!

Lorena

 

[John Beere]

I've read this before as well but have never had a problem...

I always let my lagers rest at room temp for 2~3 days after pulling them from cold storage... which always actively kicks the yeast back in (noticed by fresh airlock activity).

I don't know if this is why I haven't had trouble or not, but I've never had to add anything but priming sugar when I bottle and everything has turned out great.

 

[Kaiser]

You can pretty much add any yeast at bottling time, the flavor profile has already been set by the primary fermentation and lagering. I'f you're willing to wait a few weeks I think that you may even be able to get away with just the priming sugar.

Kai

 

[Yooper]

Thanks- that helps.

But then it brings up another question- you bring it up to room temperature for a couple of days, add priming sugar, bottle and then store them- where? Room temperature? Or cooler? Do they take longer to carb up than ales?

Again, thanks.

Lorena

(I did a Diacetyl rest after primary before racking to secondary. I didn't taste any diacetyl but I did it anyway.)

 

[John Beere]

I will eventually have room to store the bottles at my fermentation temperatures until they are carbonated. Today, I store them in the coolest place I can find.

I alway bottle one in a small plastic soda bottle and squeeze out all the air in the headspace. You can tell how carbonated its getting by how firm the soda bottle...

 

[Bobby_M]

I lagered a batch at 36 dF for one month then bottled immediately at that temp (or so). I didn't add yeast at all. I stored at basement temps of 64dF then cracked one at one week and had no noticable carbonation. I moved my bottles to living quarters at 69-70dF and had some carb at week two. I decided it was just going to take some time. Back down to the basement and on week 4, it was beautiful.

So, yes, it takes longer to carb. My ales are usually close to full carb by 1.5 weeks even though it still tastes green.

Someone said they saw yeast activity once they raised the temp but actually what you witnessed was some residual CO2 coming out of solution. At colder temps, some CO2 stays in solution, when it warms up, it simply bubbles out. I don't think yeast had anything to do with it because they've already consumed all the sugars they ever would.

 

[John Beere]

Someone said they saw yeast activity once they raised the temp but actually what you witnessed was some residual CO2 coming out of solution. At colder temps, some CO2 stays in solution, when it warms up, it simply bubbles out. I don't think yeast had anything to do with it because they've already consumed all the sugars they ever would.

Agreed this could be the case...

I began this practice after reading the "New Brewing Lager Beer" by Gregory Noonan. Other than the Diacetyl rest, I swore I read that this also allows the yeast to take care of any left over fermentables as well...

 

[Kaiser]

I began this practice after reading the "New Brewing Lager Beer" by Gregory Noonan. Other than the Diacetyl rest, I swore I read that this also allows the yeast to take care of any left over fermentables as well...

I read the opposite, that after fermentation is complete, the yeast should not be woken up again w/o feeding it new sugar (e.g. priming). This could lead to a quicker autolysis.

The Diacetyl rest is done before lagering, but what you may have read about is Kraeusening, where you add freshly fermenting wort and this fresh and healthy yeast will do a better job in getting closer to the limit of attenuation (-> drier beer) and cleaning up some off flavors.

Kai