We’re knocking out a Belgian Tripel today and it needs to be lagered. However, we’ve never lagered a beer before. The recipe, from BCS, reads that you ferment, transfer and carbonate then lager for a month. We intend to bottle this batch and naturally carbonate so heres the question: Should we bulk lager or fill the bottles, let them carbonate and then lager? Seems like if we bulk lager for a month, we may not have enough residual yeast in there to bottle condition correctly. I’d rather not hit the bottles with yeast if we dont have to. Any advice?
I don’t keg or have the capability to lager in bulk, so I have to bottle-carbonate then lager in the bottle. I can’t speak to the bulk lagering side, but it does work perfectly fine if you lager in the bottle. Just let the bottles sit at least 3 weeks at room temp to carbonate before you lager them. Then you’ll be fine.
I’ve never lagered a tripel. Is there a reason you want to do that? I don’t think that’s typical for the style.
I think keeping them at cellar temps after carbonation would be fine as well.
Just following Jamil’s directions in the book. If theres no need to lager this one, I’d prefer not to as it will take up a bunch of space in my beer fridge. Precious space that I need for my kegs!!
I like to “lager” mine for a few (2-4) weeks at 32-28 degrees. Helps clear the beer, mellow out the alcohol character. You can do it in the bottle or in a bright tank/secondary. One thing I would recommend is to purge any secondary/bright tank with Co2 before racking. Or at least purge the head space.
I’ve layered in the primary for over a month and then bottled still enough yeast to do it. You can transfer to a bottling bucket also and bring in a little of the yeast off the bottom and mix well with the priming sugar.
I have a lager in the primary that will soon be four weeks old. I usually leave it for four weeks and then rack to a keg and lager. This beer I want to dry hop. Has anyone just tossed in a couple of ounces of pellets in the primary for a additional week? Then rack to keg and lager?
I like to dry hop warmer, so I combine my dry-hopping with a diacetyl rest at about 66-68F, then lager.