How many days do you take to drop down to lagering temperature in order to avoid shocking the yeast? I have a chest freezer, a Johnson controller, thermowell, and the beer is in a better bottle. With a 1 degree change on the controller it will decrease by 2-4 degrees.
If the beer has reached terminal gravity, I then begin the lagering stage by placing the fermenter in a lagering chamber set at 34F. My experience has shown that the beer will chill down to the ambient temp (of the chamber) on it’s own accord without any ill effects to the beer flavor/yeast.
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The traditional method would be to reduce by no more than 2F per day from the fermentation temp, so that the yeast will remain active to clean up the VDKs.
If you do a D- rest and the increased temp results in the yeast cleaning up the VDKs over 2 or 3 days, no reason to keep them dative, so you can crash it down. This is how I do it(+3).
It depends on how you want to do it. There are several fermentation temp-time profiles on Braukaiser.com if you are interested.
Agree with Ron. I would advise you to use an “S” bubble airlock or make sure you don’t overfill the two-piece style with sanitizer when you crash cool from fermenting temps down to near freezing. The beer condenses as it cools rapidly and will draw air in through your airlock. I had a two piece airlock allow the sanitizer to be drawn into a batch once. Haven’t had that issue with the “S” shaped one-piece airlocks when crash cooling. You could pull the airlock and use a bung too, but it’s still going to balance the pressure at some point.
I don’t use an airlock at all. Fermentation is over so you don’t really need one. I either use a corny, or seal the fermenter.
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Crash in the corny here too. No airlock needed.
I prefer to crash the yeast out before I transfer to a corny and per the OP, his beer is in a Better Bottle. But yes, of course lager in a corny if you have them available.
I use better bottles with solid or “breathable” stoppers. The bottle dot get a bit crushed by the pressure difference, but I haven’t busted on yet.
You could put some foil over the fermenter opening. If that’s good enough for starters it should be good enough for beer that is done fermenting.
I empty the airlock and stick a cotten ball in it to act as a filter.
When terminal gravity is reached, I set the fermenter into the garage, in winter, when the temperatures are anywhere from 20s to 30s. If it gets colder than 20s then I bring into the house at about 55 F. Either way works fine.
I think people are too obsessed with post-fermentation temperatures, cold crashing and all that. The fermentation is done! The beer is merely mellowing at that point, and can do so at any temperature, cold or warm. Sometimes I just do an extended diacetyl rest for a whole week or even two at 68 F. It’s fine. You’ll still make a delicious lager. No worries.
Once the beer is done fermenting and you are cold lagering, you want to keep O2 out to avoid stale tasting beers.
As far as lagering temperatures goes, Stokes law says that colder is better, as colder causes bigger particles to form, which fall out faster. Now I am setting at 32F, might even go lot 30F this year.
I shoot some co2 into the carboy then bung it and put it on the compressor hump of my kegerator after primary. I’ll let it sit in there anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Then keg it and let it sit another 2-4 weeks while it carbonates.
No, it’s not. Starters are not making beer, they are growing yeast. Foil won’t keep out o2 and you will ruin the beer with oxidation if you don’t seal the beer under a blanket of co2.
If I’m using a carboy, I put fpoil over the opening and secure it with a rubber band. How will that let in more O2 than an airlock?
sealing with a rubber band is different than putting foil over a starter where it is lose specifically to allow o2 interchange.
Put a rubber band over foil and over the end of a piece of PVC and see if you can breath in.
That’s not exactly an equivalent, Keith. The beer isn’t generating significant back pressure. Not to mention that I’ve done it many times and it works! 