with Ales, I usually keg them when they’re done and just sit the kegs in my room that stays a steady 65 degrees. This is my first Lager, and it’s approaching it’s 4 weeks at 40 degrees, and should be ready to keg. Can I keg it and leave it at 65 degrees? Or should I leave it under cold fermentation until ready to keg and serve?
What’s your fermentation setup like? Thay will help decide which way to go.
I have the Brew Jack stick in the fermenter.
What type of fermenter? If it’s pretty much impervious to air, I’d say leave it. If not, keg it.
Fermonster. It’s pretty much impervious. I also only have the one setup for a Lager/Pilsner and would like to move on to my next batch if it’s okay to keg it and leave it at room temperature. Just worried the higher temp might cause off flavors?
If it’s done fermenting it’s best to go ahead and lager the beer. Probably best to do that in the keg.
The higher temp per se won’t hurt the beer but the O2 that gets in the beer during the kegging process will do more damage at the higher temp compared to the cold temp. If it will sit in the keg at 65 for only one or two weeks, it’ll probably be fine. But once you expose the beer to O2, the clock is ticking on freshness. This goes for your ales also but in general O2 damage tends to be more noticeable in lagers. So it kind of depends on how much you can minimize O2 ingress.
I would keg it now but would cellar it at or near 35* instead of room temp/65*
I treat all beers the same Ale or Lager: once fermentation is complete i keg and move to cold conditioning/lagering/maturing/clearing/carbonating.
unfortunately I don’t have the ability to cold storage my kegs. Not enough room for the extra refigeration…
I just purchased a 5 cu. ft. chest freezer to replace my Immersion Pro setup because I want to continue ferment in my garage instead of moving things to the unfinished part of my basement like I used to. I chose a 5 cu. ft. freezer because it does not take up much more floor space than the Immersion Pro setup with the brew jacket. Plus, it will hold two additional kegs when not in use as a fermentation chamber.
Ah, I see. You will want to get it off the yeast pretty soon rather that risk autolysis. So I’d say keg it and drink it when you are ready.
How much kegerator space do you have? I just keg my lagers after fermentation and put them on tap. It’s not like they’re undrinkable up until some magic point when they become ok. If you have enough taps and a modicum of self-control then it can just hang out for a bit. Taste it once or twice a week until it hits its prime, then you’re good to go.