I am about to brew a lager for a competition, and I am not sure if I do lagering to this beer on bottles or a secondary fermenter. What is the consensus of those who lagers beers? Is there any difference in flavor if I bottle lager or bulk lager? Thanks!
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In short and IME having lagered in keg, bulk and bottles I personally have noticed any discernable difference. The only thing is if you elect to bottle you will need to begin lagering after they fully carbonate.
Also, for a comp, you would want the beer to be nice and clear, if your beers aren’t poured well and sediment in the bottle clouds up the pour you might lose points-maybe an actual judge could chime in on that?
What style is is? Are you bottle conditioning? If bottle conditioning the yeast will get roused back into suspension during shipping and may give a different taste to the beer than you intend.
IMO most light lagers only need a couple of weeks lagering with the addition of a fining agent to drop the beer clear. This can be done in the primary fermentor if you want. Best to purge any secondary vessel with co2 if you plan on racking.
I will brew a Vienna lager with WLP833 or maybe Wyeast 2206, maybe i will also compete with a Munich Helles using WLP833. I do bottle conditioning and that is a really good point of the yeast rousing back during shipping. I can get Biofine Clear and bottle condition with new yeast, do you recommend lagering or just using a fining agent right away and bottle with new yeast?
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If you are bottle conditioning probably best to fine first, get the beer as clear as possible and then add a little back (rehydrated quarter of a packet of us-05) so that you have as little yeast in the bottle as possible.
There’s also a neutral flavor yeast meant for cask and bottle conditioning, CBC-1. Works nicely too.
If you were to gel fine your beer first, you should have more than enough yeast remaining to properly bottle condition your beers without adding any extra yeast. Or if you just plan on bulk lagering (without gelatin), then you also will still have enough yeast in suspension to properly carbonate your beers.
I think your best bet is bulk lager if possible. Get the beer nice and clear prior to packaging.
EC-1118 works well for this purpose, too. It’s a dry sparkling wine yeast that operates in a huge range of temps and imparts no flavor to beers I’ve added it to for bottle conditioning.