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Are the boiling process and hop additions any different than what Im used to? The initial process is no different than for ales. Consult your recipe instructions. Pitching the yeast starter Once youve boiled, chilled, and aerated your wort, youd think it would be time to pitch that big yeast starter you made, but hold on! There are a few schools of thought about this step; well share these three methods along with our recommendation as to which method we feel works best. Method one: Room temperature until you start seeing bubbles You can pitch the yeast starter into the primary and leave it at room temperature until you see signs of fermentation, then remove it to the controlled environment. However, you are pitching a temperature stabilized, actively fermenting yeast culture into a considerably warmer environment. This can shock the yeast, which results in an extended lag time. After the yeast recovers from this and begins fermenting at the warmer temperature, you place it back into the controlled environment, and the yeast gets shocked again. This can result in more lag time and worse, peculiar and unintended flavors turning up in the finished product. Method two: Stick it in the fridge You can pitch the yeast into the primary and then immediately put it into the controlled environment. As with method one, a similarly adverse effect can occur. With most tap water driven chillers, the wort is chilled to roughly 65-75F, depending on the season and the current groundwater temperature. This is quite a bit higher than the temperature the yeast starter had been stabilized at, and shock can come into play along with off flavors. Method three: Just chill, baby! You can place the primary into the controlled environment and let it stabilize for 24 hours before pitching the yeast. This is the method Midwest recommends, for a few reasons: The yeast is pitched into the environment it has already been fermenting in Shock is eliminated and, if properly executed, very little to no lag time will be experienced You should observe decreased lag time and decreased production of undesirable flavors Leaving unfermented wort chilling overnight without yeast in it tends to make some brewers nervous. But if your sanitization techniques are up-to-par and you are normally not plagued with infected batches of beer, this method should prove quite effective when an adequate quantity of actively fermenting yeast is added. Primary fermentation Alternately, some brewers will pitch their yeast when the wort is warmer and slowly lower the temperature of the fermenter gradually over the course of several days until they have reached the optimum temperature for their yeast strain. This method works, but tends to produce more diacetyl (a buttery-flavored ketone) than method three. As the temperature drops, the yeast become less active and are less inclined to consume the diacetyl that was initially produced. The result is a buttery/butterscotch flavor in the lager, which is completely out of style. Some amount of diacetyl is considered good in other styles, such as dark ales and stouts, but is considered a flaw in lagers. The diacetyl rest To remove any diacetyl that may be present after primary fermentation, a diacetyl rest may be used. This rest, at the end of primary fermentation (when your gravity is 10-15 points away from your target final gravity), consists of raising the temperature of the beer to 55-60F for 24-48 hours (some brewers will simply put their fermenter at room temperature, which will work) before racking it and then cooling it down for the lagering period. This makes the yeast more active and allows them to eat up the diacetyl before downshifting into lagering mode. Some yeast strains produce less diacetyl than others. Secondary fermentation Pitching sufficient quantities of yeast under the correct conditions should allow you to wrap up the primary fermentation in 10-21 days, depending on the style beer being brewed and/or the yeast that was pitched. The beer can then be transferred to the secondary and allowed to finish up for another 7-14 days. When the beer is entirely finished fermenting it may be racked again (optional) and the temperature dropped to 33F. The lagering process has begun and can continue anywhere from two to six months.
If youre bottling and not kegging... If you want to bottle the beer before beginning the lagering process, you can do so out of the secondary after a few weeks has passed and much of the yeast has settled to the bottom. Bottle as you normally do, then return the bottles to the controlled environment (at the temperature you performed the primary fermentation at) until properly carbonated. This should take roughly two weeks but may take longer, depending on the style. Lagering Removed from the primary yeast sediment and allowed to chill and age, the beer should clear quite well. Sulfur and other various extraneous aromas and flavors dissipate until it achieves that clean character for which lagers are known. As the saying goes, time heals many wounds. A number of the haze problems sometimes associated with ales are conspicuously absent from most lagers, mainly due to the time spent lagering. Some brewing texts recommend slowly reducing the temperature by no more than 5F per day until the temperature is at the desired setting for lagering. However, many homebrewers ignore this advice and achieve excellent results. There is agreement that in order to achieve the maximum effect the lagering needs to be done cold, with the temperature no more than 40F. Many commercial breweries lager at nearly freezing temperatures, in the 3234F range. How long to lager is a matter of some discussion. Light American lagers are typically held near freezing for 1020 days, while some strong German doppelbocks are lagered as long as six months. For medium to highgravity beers, Greg Noonan brewpub owner and author of New Brewing Lager Beer recommends 712 days per each 2Plato of original gravity. (One degree Plato is roughly equal to 4 specific gravity points.). For lower gravity lagers the time is reduced to 37 days. According to those guidelines, a 1.064 O.G. German bock should be lagered for 112192 days, while a 1.040 American lager would be lagered 1535 days. Try one of these great lager recipe kits
Bavarian Doppelbock
European Pilsner
Oktoberfest Lager