Best way to lager a bottle conditioned pils

[Simon David kelly]

Hi All,

I've got my pilsner all planned out but I have a lagering question.

Do I lager the beer ...
1. in the fermenter before bottling.
2. in a secondary before bottling.
3. in the bottle, starting on the bottling day.
4. in the bottle, after giving it a few weeks to carbonate.

Cheers

Si

[JackoNZ]

I've just gone through this with my Bo Pils, 2 and a half weeks in the bath with ice water once transferred to secondary. Looked pretty clear on bottling last night.

[James P]

I agree read Noonan's New Brewing Lager Beer, and as crabbey says, all down to your lagering period.

1. I believe you can as long as you are not leaving it for months on end (autolysis etc). JZ's lagers are three weeks in primary then keg or bottle. Theoretically lagering is 5 - 8 weeks after primary yet JZ believes it can be done in less time. I'm pretty sure he talks about it in this podcast about vienna lager. (maybe this one..)
2. This is my prefered method, but I keg, so carbing up is not an issue (especially if you are planning your brewing and consumption, just sucks for variety!) Even when bottling, I was patient enough to wait for two or three months for the carb up to occur!
3. Yep.
4. Most convenient method if bottling as crabbey says. However this is were there may be differences of opinion, if you were carbing up your lager, at what temperature will you leave it for the carbing stage? Will you ferment @ 12C, bottle and condition @ 12C then lager @ 5C? Not sure if this will have an affect on the beers conditioning..