[Tfwebster]

A biere de garde is currently happily fermenting in my shop. My plan is to put it in a secondary and lager it. I've never used a secondary or lagered. Tips on either? Thoughts on this plan? At what point should it be moved to secondary? Since I rely on bottle carbonation, anything I need to be aware of? Yeast is WLP590. Thank you.

[Andy Farke]

I wouldn't worry about a transfer to secondary, unless you're leaving it on the yeast cake for months--extra transfers would contribute to faster oxidation effects, which will not be great for long-term freshness of the beer.

What is your goal for lagering? If it's to get a clearer beer, I would say lager it for 2 or 3 weeks in the primary fermentation vessle, and then bottle and let it condition the rest of the way in the bottles. With enough time, they'll drop clear. I haven't used that particular yeast strain, though, so others with more direct experience can perhaps chime in.

So to sum up, my opinion would be: 1) no transfer; 2) lager in the primary fermenter for a few weeks; 3) condition the rest of the way in the bottles.

[majorvices]

Agree, unless you can purge a secondary with co2 don't use one for the most part (unless you are actually doing a secondary fermentation, and even then I'd purge before racking). 2-4 weeks lagering should be plenty, if you want clarity you should probably fine with gelatin or biofine or whatever is your preference then just package as normal after lagering.

[ynotbrusum]

Agreed on the advice against transfer.  Many old kit recipes include a transfer to secondary, but that is outmoded thinking these days.  The beer will tell you when it is done - I.e., the fermentation is completed and usually the krausen has fallen out, leaving fairly clear beer.  If you are set on moving the beer at this point, I suggest it go directly to the package.  However, it can stay in primary for a few weeks before you have serious worries.  Many brewers here ferment for as little as 3-5 days for many strains of yeast. Kveik is even shorter, for example.

[RC]

As others have suggested, there's really no need to transfer to secondary.

What do you mean by "lagering", and how do you think the beer will benefit from it? IMO lagering is totally unnecessary, even for lagers. All it does is promote age-related deterioration of the beer. If you're going to do it, you will of course have to re-warm the beer at bottling time. I assume there will be enough yeast still in suspension for carbing, but you may want to add new yeast for this.

But I would treat this beer as any other beer. When it is done fermenting* and the yeast have cleaned up any diacetyl, package it. But yeah if you can't get to that right away, letting it sit in primary for several weeks or even longer won't hurt it.

*590 is a diastaticus strain and so you really want to be sure it's done fermenting before you bottle, otherwise you could get bottle bombs