Bottle before lagering, or lager before bottling?

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Which order do you think?


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BeeryMcBeerFace

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Afternoon all,

looking for some help clarifying conflicting advice...

I'm making an AG Asahi Clone, brew day went well, pitched wyeast 2007 and it's sat in the FV @ 10 degrees C - all going swimmingly.

This is where I have now hit conflicting sources of info -

  1. Recipe (Clone Brews Book) suggests to lager the beer for 1 month, start @ 7C and drop to 1C over a 2 week period. Then bring beer to 15C for 3 days before bottling, then leave at room temp to carbonate for 2 weeks.
  2. HowtoBrew.com (John Palmer) "The beer will be best if it is fully fermented and maturated before lagering. Therefore, you probably should prime and bottle before lagering."
I'm not really fussed which way round I do things, I would like a nice clear beer at the end of it, don't really want to have to re-introduce yeast specifically for bottling and priming so I'm leaning towards bottle before lagering.

Interested to hear peoples thoughts and experiences.
 
I've made the same Czech Pilsner twice now and done it both ways - to me it didn't make any noticeable difference.

Nowadays I would personally bottle and then lager simply because this is most convenient for me.

When I first did it, exactly as you've done, I found lots of conflicting advice with no definitive answer.

So I suggest you pick a method - flip a coin if necessary - and then Google to find sources that justify your chosen approach 😜 ;) athumb.. acheers.
 
I lager first, mainly because I have a conical fermenter so I’m satisfied the beer isn’t spending prolonged periods on the trub.
 
Extended cold crash for me (2-3 weeks) , then bottle and allow to carbinate, then lager / cold store for a few weeks / as long as I can stand.

Nothing below 4 degrees, though, as that's as low as my fridge goes, unless I am lucky enough to have them in the bottle in my garage during a cold snap!
 
I like to do the Brulosophy quick lager method. It gets the beer nice and clear, although prolonged storage is beneficial.
 
When I brew bock (with lager yeast), I really lager them for a couple of weeks, before bottling. But I always brew them in winter, so that I can lager them in the garage. Because it is lager yeast, the yeast is actually working further, while the beer drops clear.

When bottling, I use 0,1 g of bottling yeast for about 7-8 litre of beer, and this amount would probably also be enough for 20 litre.

One of the things that I read on the Flemish homebrew forum is that lagering or conditioning in a bigger amount leads to a better (tastier) beer.
 
I larger first. But...

1. I'm lazy
2. I heard it somewhere once
3. My lagers aren't great
4. I tend to brew about once a month so there isn't much congestion.

However raking through this I think I will move over to bottle first. It will free up some space and see if it produces anything better.
 
Does anyone on here lager in a Corny?
I was considering this, but not sure if it would work. Idea being:

- Brew
- Ferment at 18C
- Keg
- Lager at near 0c for 4 weeks
- Transfer into another keg (closed transfer to avoid oxidation). I think I’ll bin the initial litre as it’ll be yeast and trub.

Thoughts?
 

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