[spurviance]

Tradition tells us that European lagers, specifically German lagers, benefit from long periods of 'lagering' at cold temps.  Will conditioning the beer at a warmer temp, say 50F, achieve the same benefits in a shorter time?  Then a brief cold crash to encourage any remaining yeast to settle out.

[Thirsty_Monk]

Tradition tells us that European lagers, specifically German lagers, benefit from long periods of 'lagering' at cold temps.  Will conditioning the beer at a warmer temp, say 50F, achieve the same benefits in a shorter time?  Then a brief cold crash to encourage any remaining yeast to settle out.

Before answering your question let’s understand why Germans and Czech Lager their beers.

They do not force carbonate their beers and they do it the way that fermenting beers with 25% of remaining extract is transferred to pressure vessel with spunding valve set to let say 1 bar (depending on temperature of cellar) and finish fermenting and reaching the terminal gravity in the pressure vessel.

There is nothing magical about lagering the beer.

If you are planning to fallow the mention process then yes please lager your beer. If you are planning to reach the terminal gravity and then hold beer cold for extended period of time, you are wasting your time.

[Robert]

Preface -- tradition isn't science.   And it isn't exactly tradition either.

Historically, most lagers -- the ones called "Lager" or "Winter beer" -- were fermented fairly rapidly at moderate temperatures and then held cold for only a week to ten days to clarify.   This was adapted, during the period when brewing from April to September was prohibited in Bavaria, to the process for "Summer" or "March" beer, where temperature was dropped before fermentation was complete, to slow the conditioning process and combine it with the cold clarification period.   This was done to ensure a supply of ripening beer through the warm months, before refrigeration and legal reforms rendered it unnecessary.  But it does not in fact provide the optimal conditions for either conditioning (flavor development by yeast) or physical stabilization (clarification and, to a lesser extent, rounding of flavor by precipitation of certain substances.)

Flavor maturation is best achieved at warm temperatures, up to room temperature, where yeast is most active.  Below 40°F, yeast won't do anything, so conditioning will not really continue.  If you include a "diacetyl rest," raising the temperature of the beer well before terminal gravity is reached to invigorate the yeast, the flavor will be as developed as it is going to get by the time fermentation finishes.  With many yeasts, even this is unnecessary.   Once flavor maturation is achieved -- fermentation byproducts reduced and sulfur scrubbed out by CO2  -- all that really remains is to drop the yeast and form and precipitate chill haze, physical (not fermentation) processes that are best accomplished at cold temperatures.  This may take a long time, or not.  You can accelerate it by fining or filtering.  But when the beer is clear, there's no real benefit to extending cold storage.

So to your question, yes, the beer can be conditioned warm and given a brief cold rest to clarify.  But there's no benefit to extending either rest beyond what's needed to achieve the goal.   A few days warm and cold crash can work.  In any case, whenever the beer seems ready to move on, it is.  Let it guide you.  That's often thought of as a very modern, accelerated process.   But it's also very traditional. 

[spurviance]

Preface -- tradition isn't science.   And it isn't exactly tradition either.

Historically, most lagers -- the ones called "Lager" or "Winter beer" -- were fermented fairly rapidly at moderate temperatures and then held cold for only a week to ten days to clarify.   This was adapted, during the period when brewing from April to September was prohibited in Bavaria, to the process for "Summer" or "March" beer, where temperature was dropped before fermentation was complete, to slow the conditioning process and combine it with the cold clarification period.   This was done to ensure a supply of ripening beer through the warm months, before refrigeration and legal reforms rendered it unnecessary.  But it does not in fact provide the optimal conditions for either conditioning (flavor development by yeast) or physical stabilization (clarification and, to a lesser extent, rounding of flavor by precipitation of certain substances.)

Flavor maturation is best achieved at warm temperatures, up to room temperature, where yeast is most active.  Below 40°F, yeast won't do anything, so conditioning will not really continue.  If you include a "diacetyl rest," raising the temperature of the beer well before terminal gravity is reached to invigorate the yeast, the flavor will be as developed as it is going to get by the time fermentation finishes.  With many yeasts, even this is unnecessary.   Once flavor maturation is achieved -- fermentation byproducts reduced and sulfur scrubbed out by CO2  -- all that really remains is to drop the yeast and form and precipitate chill haze, physical (not fermentation) processes that are best accomplished at cold temperatures.  This may take a long time, or not.  You can accelerate it by fining or filtering.  But when the beer is clear, there's no real benefit to extending cold storage.

So to your question, yes, the beer can be conditioned warm and given a brief cold rest to clarify.  But there's no benefit to extending either rest beyond what's needed to achieve the goal.   A few days warm and cold crash can work.  In any case, whenever the beer seems ready to move on, it is.  Let it guide you.  That's often thought of as a very modern, accelerated process.   But it's also very traditional.

Robert-
I feel like your input matches what I think....I feel that there would be purists out there that would disagree....
I've always found that with every beer I've brewed there's a sweet spot in it's life span.  I'm finding that I don't need to 'lager' my lagers for 6 months before tapping them...

[Robert]

I'm finding that I don't need to 'lager' my lagers for 6 months before tapping them...

Nobody does.  Commercial practice, even in Germany, is usually about 7 days fermentation, cool over a few days and then lager as little as 7 or as much as 21 days.  Storing beer for months only ensures that it will be quite stale before it's even tapped.  Drink fresh!

[BrewBama]

The purists are doing it be cause that’s how the old brewers did it due to constraints they were under. If they had refrigeration (and no legal restrictions) they would have done it differently as well.

A husband and his wife were in their kitchen. The husband was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper while his wife was preparing a ham for dinner. The husband watched the wife cut off about one inch from either end of the ham.

He asked why she cut the end off, proclaiming “that’s a waste of good ham!”

She said “that’s the way my mom prepared the ham.”

The husband asked “why did your mom cut the ends off?”

The wife didn’t know.

Later, the wife called her mom to find out why she cut the ends of the ham off. Her mom said “because that was the way my mom prepared ham.”

The wife’s grandma passed away several years earlier, but her Grandpa was still living. She called her Grandpa and asked “Grandpa, why did Grandma cut the ends off of the ham?” He was silent as he thought for a moment. Then he replied, “so the ham could fit in the baking pan.”


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[tommymorris]

The purists are doing it be cause that’s how the old brewers did it due to constraints they were under. If they had refrigeration (and no legal restrictions) they would have done it differently as well.

A husband and his wife were in their kitchen. The husband was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper while his wife was preparing a ham for dinner. The husband watched the wife cut off about one inch from either end of the ham.

He asked why she cut the end off, proclaiming “that’s a waste of good ham!”

She said “that’s the way my mom prepared the ham.”

The husband asked “why did your mom cut the ends off?”

The wife didn’t know.

Later, the wife called her mom to find out why she cut the ends of the ham off. Her mom said “because that was the way my mom prepared ham.”

The wife’s grandma passed away several years earlier, but her Grandpa was still living. She called her Grandpa and asked “Grandpa, why did Grandma cut the ends off of the ham?” He was silent as he thought for a moment. Then he replied, “so the ham could fit in the baking pan.”


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That’s funny!

[Kevin]

I feel that there would be purists out there that would disagree....

There are plenty of "purists" out there who have a foundation of information on which they base their beliefs that is wrong.

[Robert]

I feel that there would be purists out there that would disagree....

There are plenty of "purists" out there who have a foundation of information on which they base their beliefs that is wrong.

And when those same purists fall ill, I trust that they follow well established medical science and practice, curing all maladies by bloodletting to balance the Humours. 

[kgs]

I'm finding that I don't need to 'lager' my lagers for 6 months before tapping them...

Nobody does.  Commercial practice, even in Germany, is usually about 7 days fermentation, cool over a few days and then lager as little as 7 or as much as 21 days.  Storing beer for months only ensures that it will be quite stale before it's even tapped.  Drink fresh!

Despite having a small fridge for over 5 years that makes lagering possible, I only recently brewed my first lager, because of this idea that lagering took forever. The recent discussions about lagering schedules have been hugely helpful. The lager recipes in Simple Homebrewing have fermentation schedules that reflect this line of thinking (e.g. 50 degrees two weeks, raise temps briefly, 2 weeks at 34 degrees). The more you know...