Beer Forum

Heyoo, Been looking through the forum search to find a temp. to lager Alt beer at, and have been unsuccessful. Was also wondering if I should also rack my beer into secondary, to get it off the yeast cake while it is lagering. Was getting a mix of awnsers on the net on leaving it in primary and others who racked to secondary. Any help is appreciated from all you awesome here at the BN! Used WLP036 Dusseldorf Alt, and have a gravity down to 1.012 from 1.053, fermenting for 15 days at 59-60 controlled temp.

SAK

I can really only say what I do, which might not be the the best, but I have been happy with the results. I slowly raise the temps for a diacetyl rest (to ~60F) in primary after activity appears to die off (normally starting day 14-15 day, and ending on day 21 +/-3. At that point *almost* all the yeast activity should be complete. I then slowly drop the temperature to 34F or 32F. To minimize suckback from the airlock, I generally transfer to the keg part way through this crashing process. It is best if the cooling is not done quickly, as the yeast still has some things to clean up. Enough yeast should still be in suspension, though, such that there is no issue in pulling the yeast off of the cake at any point after the d-rest. After this point I store the keg in my ~40F basement until ready (1-2 months), though if I had fridge space to store it colder, I certainly would. It just seems to take longer to lager at warmer temperatures.

Differences from my setup to yours:

If you don't keg, you will want to use a secondary instead. In this case, the suck back issue is not avoided by transferring early. If it were me then, I wouldn't transfer until after fully cooling it. Maybe cool a little lower than lager temps such that after warming up in the secondary, some CO2 will be released from the beer to push out some of the O2 from transferring.

I don't make many alts (but quite a few lagers), so the yeast might act slightly differently. The only real issue I would see would be the crash cooling/slow cooling potentials. I would expect that since WLP036 is not highly flocculant, the yeast will still work on cleaning things up while cooling, hence you might benefit from a slow cooling regiment.

Temps: get it as close to freezing as you can without freezing it for the lagering stage. Apart from some small work by the yeast, the main point (in my experience) is to get as much shit as possible to drop out as possible. As long as you let the yeast acclimate to the temperature, any activity they want to perform will still occur at low temps. More stuff will drop at lower temperatures.

At least you have one more data point now. Hopefully not too useless.

adamK wrote: I slowly raise the temps for a diacetyl rest (to ~60F) in primary after activity appears to die off (normally starting day 14-15 day,

The Alt sat at 60 degrees for 2 weeks, and when I took the gravity reading I got myself a taste from that. I didnt get anything that tasted buttery-diacetyl flavored. It tasted really clean already, cant wait to see what it tastes like after lagering for a month or so.

From what you are saying, I think I'll definetly rack this to secondary for lagering. I'll follow your plans for slow cooling the primary first then transfer over to a secondary carboy. I based the recipe off of JZ's on the Kolsch/Alt show. followed his instructions well, and am extremely happy with how it has turned out so far.

I have an Alt in the fermenter right now, and make quite a few of them with the same yeast you use. I find that I do not need a diacetyl rest, as its a very clean fermenter. Once I've hit terminal gravity, I rack to a keg and lager as long as I can stand it. I find that about a month tends to round off the biscuity notes a bit and soften it up. I do use 80% Munich in my grain bill, though, so YMMV.

My Recipe came out to be around 14% Munich, 14% Vienna and 67% pilsner malt. Using Brewmaster's warehouse brew builder. Briess pilsner malt, and everything else Weyermann malts. I'm going to try to lager for a month, but this might get broken into around new years eve.

I lager my alts at as close to freezing as possible. Rack to keg and hold out as long as you can. Alt yeast can really persist in hanging around so if you ae going to tap the keg on new years make sure to add gelatin and put the gas on a week before serving.