Looking for my next beer to brew. Thinking about a Pilsner.
The instructions call for lagering during the secondary.
My question is whether skipping the lagering and allow the primary and secondary phase take place at 65* would ruin the brew?
How much does lagering influence the product outcome?
Oh boy. Youāll likely open a can of worms on this. Iām a traditionalist so I feel your primary on lagers should fall at 50Ā°-52Ā°. I start there for 5 days then allow the temps to rise 2Ā° per day until I reach 64Ā°-65Ā° where I allow it to sit for 3 days on a diacetyl rest. Then, Iāll take a small sample and do a forced diacetyl test in the microwave. If itās diacetyl free I cold crash it.
I believe you bottle. You can bottle AFTER your d-rest, allow the bottles to condition, then pop them in the fridge for your lagering period.
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Iām by no means a āknows alot about lagersā home brewer, BUTā¦ I do not rack into a secondary.
Ferment coldā¦ since I have a tilt, which will show me the gravity while fermenting, Iāll leave it alone until its close to final gravity (guesstimate)ā¦ Then unplug my freeze-mentorā¦ there it sitsā¦ a weekā¦ perhaps a bit moreā¦ (my diacetyl rest)ā¦ Once its in the serving kegā¦ Iāll leave it on the gas and cold as long as I canā¦ Iāll even go as far as to get it where its fully carbed and drinks good, then pull the liquid line and forget about it for a whileā¦
Talk about chattering alotā¦ 
ā¦ Loopie has you covered very nicelyā¦
Sneezles61
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Since you guys go to the effort of lagering, I take it not lagering would spoil the brew, or at least cause an undesirable change in taste.
Noā¦ After youāve been brewing and sampling yer brewsā¦ Youāll find that most brews do benefit from some ātime outā in the darkā¦ cold boxā¦ close to freezing (think over in the UK its more like 45*F). It should be carbonated BEFOREā¦
Most of the kegging community will swear by the last 1/4 of a keg being like the best brew you can drink (Except for IPAās)ā¦
The early brews are also referred to as green beerā¦
Sneezles61
EDIT: We need Brew Cat and Dannyboy to give us their knowledgable lagering inputā¦ They are the ones to get me startedā¦ Then Voodoo helped coax me into doing moreā¦ My hat off to them on Lagersā¦
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It wonāt āspoilā the beer if you donāt lager. Lagering means to āstoreā and by doing it in a near freezing environment youāll get the yeast to settle out, tannins to settle out, acids will convert to esters, and youāll get better clarity as well as more āstabilityā of the beer. It will also allow time for the sulfur to leave the beer. Lager yeast is notorious for throwing sulfur. Take a big whiff of the CO2 coming off during fermentation if you donāt believe me!
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If you can only manage 65Ā° Iād go with a Kolsch yeast. Use the same recipe and the same timeline as your pilsner. As far as lagers go using lager yeast the only thing i can add to the above advice is healthy pitch and aeration. Also patience
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On hiatusā¦
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^^^^^ Whew ^^^^
Sneezles61
Looking at a Pilsner instruction, they call for 58* when pitching the yeast, then dropping the temp for the secondary to 35* - 40*.
My thinking is using 2 mini wide mouth carboys (2.5 g each) for the secondary that could be stored, one in the basement fridge, and one in the kitchen fridge.
Should be workable.
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Last time i did lager. My pilsner at a temp 32 to 35 fh. 0 to 2 cel. Dont forget to set your fridge bit colder in your kitchen. It came out nice. Droped all the unwanted particals. And yeast. Mmm wife not happy taking over the fridge. So buy small fridge and build a fermenting chamber
I do not agree that not lagering would give bad results. It might just not be as ācleanāā¦
But then again if you plan on brewing at say 65 degrees or so why not just use some Saflager S23? It does well at a bit higher than normal tempertaures. I have used it to brew some wonderful beers that were technically not lagered. I did turn the thermostat down in the apartment for a bit while it was fermenting. I say give it a try and you will not be disappointed at all.
Saflager S-23 does not exhibit any of those sulphur notes that you talk about. Other lager yeasts do. I donāt even know if the S-23 is a true lager yeast or not but I do not that it makes very good and clean beer.
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That is encouraging. May try that.
Thanks for everybodyās inputs.
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I used S23 and fermented at 52F. I let it come up to about 65F for 3 or 4 days then Kegged it, hit it with 45 psi of CO2 and lagered it at 34F for 6 weeks. I moved it to the keezer and immediately tried it and found it a bit watery. I left it alone for another week and when it got fully carbed it was almost a different beer. Very quaffable with nice body and a great finish. I think Iām going to try and repeat it tomorrow.
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Still?
Heās elusiveā¦ Is he hanging with Bigfoot?
Sneezles61
Looks like he is stealing your ride
