Lager (Crash Cooling) ?

[D C]

Hi all, I have just recently brewed AG No 4 Lager (Horden Hillbilly's Recipe) and was wondering what the crack is regarding crash cooling and is it really required when brewing an AG Lager My Lager has been in the FV for 10 days now and its currently sitting at 1010 gravity on the hydrometer and the brewing fridge is holding steady at 11.1C So my question is do I need to crash cool and if so to what temprature and for how long And do I syphon the beer to a 2nd FV and add finnings before crash cooling or after

Cheers DC

 

[Aleman]

Do you need to crash cool . . . No, but you will need to reduce the temperature down to lagering temperatures (around 2C) . . . I normally do this over a period of 3 or 4 days droping it by 2C every 12 hours or so.

My fermentation schedule is ferment at 10C for 7 Days . . . At which point I should have almost finished fermenting . . .allow the temp to rise to 16C over 24 hours, leave it there for 12 hours to eliminate diacetyl and get the yeast to tidy up after themselves . . . Add aux finings . . .then drop the temperature to 2C by 2C every 12 hours . .

This is all carried out in the primary . . . so after about 14 days I've got my lager sat in the Primary FV at 2C . . . transfer to a Secondary at this point . . . and start the lager process1 week for each degree of gravity . . . although this can be reduced if you can get the temperature down to about -1C to a couple of weeks . . . .

After the lagering period allow the beer to warm up ( a couple of degrees every 12 hours) to 8-10C and as you do so add isinglass . . . . once you are at 8C rack your crystal lager into keg/ bottling bucket/ or bottle. . . .

shimples . . . Tchkk

 

[MEB]

Do you need to crash cool . . . No, but you will need to reduce the temperature down to lagering temperatures (around 2C) . . . I normally do this over a period of 3 or 4 days droping it by 2C every 12 hours or so.

My fermentation schedule is ferment at 10C for 7 Days . . . At which point I should have almost finished fermenting . . .allow the temp to rise to 16C over 24 hours, leave it there for 12 hours to eliminate diacetyl and get the yeast to tidy up after themselves . . . Add aux finings . . .then drop the temperature to 2C by 2C every 12 hours . .

This is all carried out in the primary . . . so after about 14 days I've got my lager sat in the Primary FV at 2C . . . transfer to a Secondary at this point . . . and start the lager process1 week for each degree of gravity . . . although this can be reduced if you can get the temperature down to about -1C to a couple of weeks . . . .

After the lagering period allow the beer to warm up ( a couple of degrees every 12 hours) to 8-10C and as you do so add isinglass . . . . once you are at 8C rack your crystal lager into keg/ bottling bucket/ or bottle. . . .

shimples . . . Tchkk

Crikey that's long winded Aleman. But I'm not going to argue.. Not how we do it but that's not to say it isn't an effective way for the homebrewer to 'Lager' a brew. Bet that's bright as though isn't it Aleman?
We brew at 16C for 3-4 days, by which time the fermenting has more or less finished. It then gets crash cooled to 1C as quick as can be done. We don't use finings at all. The Lager is filtered then 'lagered'. But it's hard to do this at home or without a great deal of expense for the home brewer.

 

[Aleman]

Crikey that's long winded Aleman. But I'm not going to argue.. Not how we do it but that's not to say it isn't an effective way for the homebrewer to 'Lager' a brew. Bet that's bright as though isn't it Aleman?

Yeah never been known to keep things short.

Commercial brewing practice does not necessarily translate into home brewing . . . For example the Czech brewers chill the wort to around 5C, pitch a bucketful of yeast, and then wait for it to start fermenting . . . which can be 4 days . . . In open fermenters FFS . . . once its fermenting they let the heat of fermentation take it to 12C before switching on the attemperators to keep it from getting too warm . . . they also don't do a diacetyl rest . . . no need to pitching that cold.

If you pitch massive amounts of yeast then you have no worries about esters etc being formed at the beginning of fermentation so you can 'get away' with fermenting warmer and still get a clean beer . . . As you so rightly state home brewers rarely pitch a correct amount of yeast. . .. I suspect that we are usually a couple of orders of magnitude out . . . I think even pitching 80g of yeast into 70L of wort was under pitching and I should have gone as high as 120g . . . repitching onto a yeast cake is one way of pitching enough though . . . and I've had explosive ferments when I do so.

Filtering is cheating :lol: but it is one way to get bright beer out to the masses without tying up expensive plant for extended periods of time . . . I cheat using finings though, and yes the beer is bright when its kegged and bottled.

 

[MEB]

You are one of the very few homebrewers who's lager I would really love to try. What you do takes a high degree of skill and, I bet, a lot of failures, to get it to a routine you are happy with. Especially as your a picky *******. :lol:

For homebrewers yeast is an expensive commodity really. A wyeast pack is about a 100th the amount I'd now pitch into a 40L brew in my brewery. But if you spend some time growing your yeasts on then you can easily accumilate a good head of yeast. For the 1100L conicals I'd say there is 50L of pure yeast when the wort goes in. Which equates to 5L for a 110L brew. Well OTT for the homebrewer but in reality is it? Depends how much time you want to subject your brew to potential pathogens. The yeast has dropped after day 4-it's done and from then we crash it. Which then means we can filter it straight away and have a brew that's done and dusted in 10 days. Leaving you with a vast amount of hungry yeasties for the next brew which goes in, more on less, straight on top.

Yes I know filtering IS cheating. It sure as hell beats throwing fish guts in your beer IMO. But commercially it's about productivity and turn over. I've been taught/told/beaten to only put into your brew what you can eat raw. If it tastes ***** it'll taste ***** in your beer. I'm trying my hardest to get Dennis to invest in a new filtration module so I can have the old one. You can seriously **** a brew up with them but get them to work well, keep them spotless and time it to the second and the results are astonishing. :geek:

I'd love to get you a few sacks of the latest malt we have. Winter grown NZ malt-astonishingly fantastic malt. Grab a handfull of it milled and you can eat it raw. It tastes like ovaltine.

 

[Varnish]

..and start the lager process 1 week for each degree of gravity . . . although this can be reduced if you can get the temperature down to about -1C to a couple of weeks . . .

:shock: :shock: :shock:

So that would mean almost a year of Lagering!!

 

[tubby_shaw]

I think that the word "Final" may be missing before the word "Gravity" Varnish

 

[Varnish]

I did think that.
:wha: After I posted.

 

[Aleman]

Took a long time for someone to spot that deliberate mistake :lol:

That should have been . . . and indeed whas what my brain told my fingers to type

"one week for every degree Plato " (1 PLato is appoximately 4 Gravity points) so a 1.048 beer would have 12 weeks of lagering, 1.040 10 Weeks . . . etc

:rofl:

 

[D C]

Hi all, @ Aleman, when you said begin the Lager process ! Does that just keeping the Lager at 2C for a week for each point on the final gravity on my hydrometer ? So if my Lager stopped at 1010 final gravity I would need to keep it at 2C for 10 weeks? But If I can get my fridge down to say -1C I would only need to leave if for a fortnight :wha: The temp in my brew fridge is steady at 11.4C so if i up the temp to say 16C gradually of the next day or so then leave it at 16C to eliminate diacetyl then drop the temp down by 2C every 12 hours until I reach 2C then leave it for 10 weeks :shock: Or would I be okay to just crash it down from 16C to say -1C and then leave it for 2 weeks?

Hoping some one replies to this soon so I can start upping the temp towards 16C.

Never realised Lager was this complicated :shock:

PS ! If I keep the beer at -1C for 2 weeks what effect will that have on the Lager ? I left about 8 cans of lager in my brewing fridge and it got down to -2 and the cans had nearly frozen solid ! Surely 5 gallons of beer wont freeze in a fridge set at -1C

: DC

 

[Aleman]

Its one week per 4 degrees of OG Some F*ckwit got it wrong earlier :lol:

Just crash cool it and don't worry about it, . . . If your fridge will go cold enough to get it to -1C then do the following

Crash it to 2C and leave it for a week
Drop it to -1C and leave it for a week
Allow it to rise to 2c for a week
Add Isinglass allow to warm to 8-10C

Rack Bright beer.

 

[Varnish]

Its one week per 4 degrees of OG Some F*ckwit got it wrong earlier :lol:

Just crash cool it and don't worry about it, . . . If your fridge will go cold enough to get it to -1C then do the following

Crash it to 2C and leave it for a week
Drop it to -1C and leave it for a week
Allow it to rise to 2c for a week
Add Isinglass allow to warm to 8-10C

Rack Bright beer.

Yeah.
When I make my lager I'm just gonna rack it from primary into a corny and leave it in the shed over the winter.

 

[D C]

@ Aleman, Seeing as you are a Master lager Brewer :clap: can you explain what difference would be in Lagers if I were to just ferment mine at 12C for 7 to 10 days then rack into a 2ndry FV and add finnings then rack into Cornie after another week :hmm: then drink.

Compared to brewing it as you do and brew it at say 10C the up the temp to 16C then drop temp by 2C etc and then crash cool and then up temp to 8C before kegging etc ?

Is it worth brewing one as straight forward as I have mentioned above, then brewing one as you do to see what the difference is ? Is there a great deal of difference

: DC

 

[Aleman]

@ Aleman, Seeing as you are a Master lager Brewer

I've just snorted coffee through my nose . . . you owe me a new keyboard!!!

Can you explain what difference would be in Lagers if I were to just ferment mine at 12C for 7 to 10 days then rack into a 2ndry FV and add finnings then rack into Cornie after another week :hmm: then drink.

Stability . . . you would significantly have increased the risk of a chill haze, the lagering period encourages the Tannins, proto-tannoids and polyphenols to drop out of suspension all of which contribute to haze formation. This actually makes the lager taste cleaner, as these components also contribute to a bitter astringent taste . . .There is also a smoothing of the hop bitterness . . . a sort of rounding out of the flavours.

Compared to brewing it as you do and brew it at say 10C the up the temp to 16C then drop temp by 2C etc and then crash cool and then up temp to 8C before kegging etc ?

The diacetyl rest is not required if you use a yeast that does not produce diacetyl (like W34/70) and pitching a large amount of it in the first place. Pitching an adequat amount of yeast at the fermentation temp and fermenting cool (at the low end of the yeast range) ensures that it is very clean anyway.

Is it worth brewing one as straight forward as I have mentioned above, then brewing one as you do to see what the difference is ? Is there a great deal of difference

Its probably a worthwhile exercise . . . and only you can determine if there is a significant impact to make it worth while.

 

[D C]

Hi Aleman, Thanks for the lesson in Lagering :clap: Sorry about your keyboard :rofl: I have used the Lager yeast I got with my ingredients from BB and after checking their website I believe the yeast might have been Saflager W34/70 Yeast which you said (does not produce diacetyl). I have already set my TC10 to go up to 16C for 24 hours before I crash it to 2C for a week ! But I dont suppose it will do any harm I will then transfer it to a 2ndry FV and add finnings (gelatine) and then crash it to -1C for a week and then rasie the temp up to about 8C and then rack into my Cornie ! And then see what it tastes like ! Then I might just brew my next batch of lager as per a regular brew and see what the difference is !
:ugeek:
: DC

 

[Aleman]

Well as I'm giving :ugeek: lessons in lagering, I may as well complete the exercise :lol:

The reason why the -1C rest works to reduce lagering period is quite fun (and also the object of a patent by Labbats). basically what happens is that the proteins, tannins and polyphenols combine to produce the haze forming particles . . . but at that temp they also act as nucleation sites for ice crystals to form . .. the ice forms concentrating the haze particles and so they join together to make bigger particles which fall out of suspension when the ice crystals thaw . . . which happens as not all the liquid in the beer freezes, the continual freeze - thaw - freeze cycle rapidly removes these undesirable components.

in the Labbats process the beer is flash chilled to form micro ice crystals which are injected into a whirlpool . .. the ice falls to the cone where it is removed and the beer is taken off from an outlet near the top of the
Whirlpool chamber. . . . It doesn't count as freeze " the D word" as sterile distilled deoxygenated water is added back to make up the original volume.