Black ale question

[chemicalcraig]

I brewed a (kind of) schwarzbier about a week ago. It's not cold enough to lager here yet and I don't have temperature control so I used white labs WLP029 and fermented as usual. Should I let it sit in the primary for a few more weeks as I would with a lager, or do I treat it as an ale, since technically it is? It's still spitting out a bit of sulphur, but has cleared up for the most part.

 

[david_42]

Treat it as an ale. I split a batch of Schwartzbeir a couple years ago. Lagered half, fermented half with an ale yeast. Really couldn't tell any difference and the ale was practically gone before the lager was on tap.

 

[johnnytaco]

I did the same type thing as David. I split a ten gallon batch and did separate boils for each. While the first half was boiling, I steeped 1.5 lbs beechwood smoked malt in a grain bag in the other half. They both turned out delicious. A little lagering of an ale never hurt the final product. If you choose to, remember to pull a little extra yeast when you rack into the bottling bucket or add fresh yeast to the whole batch to make up for the ones you forced to drop out during your lagering.