Fermenting Lager in Plastic

[BenS]

I'm fairly new to making lagers and today while brewing up a cerveza for a buddy, I got to thinking about fermenting in a plastic bucket like ales. I kept wanting to try it but didn't because I know lagers take longer to clean up nasty compounds and I would hate to transfer to secondary or keg to get it out of the plastic and lose all the yeast because they are bottom fermenters. I'm very curious about this, is there enough yeast in suspension for them to finish cleaning things up after you transfer to another vessel? I also wonder if it's more important with lagers than ales to make sure you have very little to no trub going into the fermenter because you're wanting as clean a flavor as possible.....

Thoughts???

 

[dejesus_fc]

whats wrong with leaving a lager in a plastic bucket for a few weeks? just curious as thats what i currently do.

 

[BenS]

My idea is that you wouldn't want any sort of oxidation in a lager and it's not uncommon for lagers to take up to 4 weeks to finish fermentation. My other question was what effect does trub have on the flavor of a lager? If I let it sit at the bottom of the primary for 4-8 weeks, is it going to muddle up the clean lager flavor?

 

[Revvy]

I've lagered for months in plastic with no issues. That whole plastic premeability to oxygen stuff is WAY overrated, and way over blown in light of modern plastic (it was probably mostly generated by the glass carboy industry to scare folks anyway). Don't forget there is a cushion of co2 enveloping your beer. If O2 CAN get in, then CO2 can be pushing it outward and keeping it from getting in. And the cold is going to pull more of that co2 into the beer anyway.

Get yourself a couple plastic better bottles and lager away....

 

[BenS]

Do you filter out the trub before fermentation or let it sit on the bottom of the primary for the duration of fermentation?

 

[Revvy]

Do you filter out the trub before fermentation or let it sit on the bottom of the primary for the duration of fermentation?

???? I think you are confusing some terminology or something.

When you lager you don't lager in you primary vessel, AND fermentation is complete by the point you begin to lager. After fermentation ceases (an usually after you do a diacetyl rest at a warm temp for 2-3 days) you rack it to a secondary vessel, off the tub. And then lower the temperatures so that they cold fermenting yeast can clean up the by products of fermentation, such as sulfur compounds. You do that for a few months, before bottling or serving.

When I lager, I leave the beer in primary for a month, the rack to a secondary and the lager it.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

For lagers, I use a Better Bottle, same as ales. There is nothing magical or that different between the two.

I usually primary a lager for about 12 days at cool (45-50*F) temps, then a couple of days at 60*F or so for a diacetyl rest, then cold crashing. Into the keg, then a month or two of lagering in the kegerator.

It's the long lagering in the 30's that does the smoothing out. At that point, it will be in a keg or bottle, so the type of fermenter is moot.

 

[BenS]

Thanks for the response guys, I guess I was under the assumption that I could lager in the primary fermentation vessel if I wanted with no ill effects from the yeast. I was curious about what effect the trub, sitting on the bottom of the primary vessel through the fermentation process and lagering, would have on the flavor of the beer. Thats why I was curious if everyone filtered the trub out before fermentation or if noone did.

 

[BenS]

Reading over my previous posts on this thread, I realized that I kinda switched topics on everyone. Sorry about that and thanks for the patience.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the response guys, I guess I was under the assumption that I could lager in the primary fermentation vessel if I wanted with no ill effects from the yeast. I was curious about what effect the trub, sitting on the bottom of the primary vessel through the fermentation process and lagering, would have on the flavor of the beer. Thats why I was curious if everyone filtered the trub out before fermentation or if noone did.

I wouldn't recommend lagering on the trub whether you strained the wort going into the fermenter or not. It's true that for ales, many of us are pretty laid back and leave the beer in the primary for 3 weeks or even longer. But I've never attempted that with a lager. Partly because the beer is pretty much finished fermenting in less than two weeks, partly because the idea of a lager is a "clean" flavor, and partly so that I can get on with the lagering phase.

My thought is that leaving the beer on the trub for the entire process (up to 12 weeks lagering) would cause some off flavors from sitting on the yeast cake. I rack off of the yeast cake right after the diacetyl rest to begin the lagering phase, and even at the end of the lagering there is a small yeast cake. That small amount of yeast doesn't cause any off flavor, and there is even some evidence that the lager yeast strains keep working at low temperatures. I think leaving it on the trub for months might cause some off-flavors, even if there isn't any actual autolysis.