Laagering / calendar / bottle conditioning

Hi All

Relatively new home brewer - about a year and a half in or so.  A few months ago, I built a mash tun capable of handling 10 gallons batches, so now I brew 10 gallon batches, kegging 5 gallons, and bottling 5 gallons, as I only have 6.5 & 5 gallon carboys. 

I've brewed ales exclusively until about a couple of weeks ago (brewed an Oktoberfest).

I brewed my Oktoberfest on 3/21/15.

I've got a chest freezer setup with a temp controller to keep fermentation at whatever temp I desire (there happened to be three brewers with three different lager yeasts during this session), so I just followed Beersmith's fermentation profile for a two-stage lager, keeping primary at 54F for 2 weeks, then racking to secondary at 62F (4/5/15) (as life happened, secondary @ 62F proceeded over 6 days, rather than 3).  We've kegged the 5 gallon batches that are to be kegged this evening (4/9/15) , and I bottled my other 5 gallons with 4.18oz corn sugar.  I am now proceeding with laagering of all kegs (3 total, my 5 gallon, plus 2 others) as well as the bottled 5 gallons of mine own.  I'll be dropping the temperature gradually, according the the Beersmith profile.

However, I started googling stuff, and now I'm concerned (not worried, after all, I've still got plenty of ales to drink!)

So, my question is this:

Should I have laagered the 5 gallons I (already) bottled *before* bottling?  The bottles will condition along with the kegs, but I've primed the bottles. As I understand it, the laagering process will partially carbonate the kegs as they're laagering, but will probably need some force-carbing at then end (i think ?).  Will I end up with bottle-bombs with the 5 gallons I bottled?

OG was 1.054.  SG @ secondary was 1.010.  FG @ bottling/kegging was 1.010 (I used a 2 liter starter of White Labs Oktoberfest for each 6.5 gallon carboy).

Going forward, when I next brew a 10 gallon batch of lager (5 keg / 5 bottle) I *think* I should keg the 5 gallons, while keeping the to-be-bottled 5 gallon in the secondary carboy, while laagering both the keg and the carboy... Then bottle the remaining 5 gallons at the end of laagering...

Is this correct?  Or am I being unduly concerned?

Thanks in advance,

Reid.

I'll be following the comments on your conditioning question also, I am curious as to how long the uncarbonated beer can " age" in the carboy before being bottled or kegged
thanks for raising the question

here is some info that might help clear this up for you.

found it here

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fermenting_Lagers


Maturation/Cold Conditioning Vessel

There are 2 kinds of vessels that are commonly used by home brewers for the maturation and cold conditioning (a.k.a. lagering) of lagers: carboys and soda kegs. Because of their oxygen permeability, buckets should not be used for long term storage of any beer (except some wild beers) and are thus not suitable for lagering. When the beer is racked after the fermentation and maturation has been completed, the carboy or keg should be purged with CO2 to minimize the amount of oxygen that is left in there once the beer has been transferred because the inactive yeast will not be able to bind this oxygen. Though more expensive, soda kegs make for the best lagering vessel for the home brewer:
Their narrower shape allows more of them to fit in a freezer chest or fridge thus allowing for a more efficient use of the cold space
The beer can be carbonated (force or natural) during the lagering phase. This may actually be necessary to keep the lid sealed
With a shortened dip tube the sediment can be left behind and the beer can easily be transferred to a serving keg by using pressure or siphon without any contact to the ambient air.
They don't break




Natural carbonation

Unlike commercial German brewers, home brewers are not required to carbonate their beers naturally. But using natural carbonation provides a few benefits that should not be overlooked:
Since the yeast is still fairly active when the beer is racked, most of the oxygen that is picked up during this process (splashing or O2 in the head space) will be taken up by the yeast before it can react with other compounds in the beer. This is beneficial because due to the shortened dip tube the lagering keg cannot be purged with CO2 as efficiently as serving kegs can. To efficiently purge a serving keg (full length dip tube) fill that keg completely with sanitizer solution and push it out with CO2 and don't open the keg after that. Because there was no air in the keg when it was closed off, all the sanitzer has been replaced with CO2. Obviously this doesn't work so well with a shortened dip tube since a considerable amount of sanitizer would remain in the keg. Recent studies have shown that even active yeast may not be active enough to consume all the oxygen from the headspace before it can contribute to oxygenation of the beer [Hermann 2005], because of that the head space should be purged as well. It is sufficient to vent and re-pressurize it for 4-5 times.
When the keg is pressurized by the CO2 from the fermenting beer, there is no connection to a CO2 tank necessary to keep the lid sealed and to take samples with a picnic tap
The beer is already carbonated when the lagering is completed.

To use natural carbonation a soda keg or other pressure resistant vessel needs to be used. Carboys are not designed to withstand pressure. Since CO2 needs to be produced for the natural carbonation a sufficient level of fermentable sugars needs to be present after the beer has been racked. This can be achieved by:
racking the beer when about 1-1.5 % fermentable extract (4 - 6 gravity points) are left. At this time there is also enough yeast in suspension to ensure a good secondary fermentation. This process is called Gruenschlauchen (green racking) in German brewing
adding fermentable sugars in the form of Speise (a.k.a gyle, which is unfermented wort), malt extract or sugar. But if the beer has already fermented too far the amount of yeast that is transferred during racking may not be sufficient for a good secondary fermentation
adding Kraeusen allows the addition of fermentable extract and fresh yeast. This is the preferred method to use when the beer is racked late and the amount of yeast in the racked beer is lower. It also allows topping off the keg with another 2 qts of beer when the primary fermentation was done in a 5 gal carboy and only 4.5 gal beer could be racked to the keg.



soda keg with pressure gauge and bleeder valve

Contrary to priming bottles, the amount of sugar needed for natural carbonation doesn't have to be calculated as precisely since the actual carbonation in the beer can easily be adjusted with Spundung. Spundung is the technical German term for controlled pressure release from a fermenter. For this a pressure gauge needs to be connected to the gas-in connect of the keg. Based on a carbonation table the current CO2 content of the beer can be determined from the current head pressure (measured by the pressure gauge) and the current temperature of the beer. If the carbonation is too high, the excess pressure can be relieved with the bleeder valve. If the bleeder valve is build as an adjustable pressure sensitive blow-off valve the process is even easier since you can set the maximum pressure based on the desired carbonation level for the given beer temperature and let the system vent fermentaion CO2 as needed.

lagering/cold conditioning

Whereas maturation and cold conditioning happen simultaneously with the classic lager fermentation schedule, it is a separate step when accelerated maturation is used. With that the beer has been almost completely fermented before the temperature is lowered to near freezing and no particular care needs to be taken to avoid shocking the yeast since no significant further yeast activity is required. When the beer is conditioned at low temperatures various processes take place that lead to the smooth character which is expected from a lager:
Proteins and polyphenols (tannins) form agglomerations (basically bind with each other to form larger molecules) which become insoluble and precipitate out of solution. [Nguyen 2007]
Hop polyphenols will drop out leading to milder hop bitterness
Yeast sediment which cleans up the beer and removes the yeasty smell and taste associated with young beer
Some of the alcohols and acids form esters in the beer which leads to new flavor compounds. This process is very slow and becomes only significant after more than 12 weeks [Narziss 2005].
Some yeast activity may be present which leads to further clean-up and extract reduction of the beer. I oftentimes see another extract drop of 0.1 - 0.2 Plato over the course of a few weeks.

Depending on the gravity and style of beer, a cold conditioning time of 4 weeks up to 6 months is required. Towards the end of that time, fining agents like gelatin or isinglass might be used to speed up the clarification process, but are generally not necessary. Once the beer has finished cold conditioning, it should be racked to a serving keg to get it off the old yeast and avoid autolysis of this yeast. At this point it is also safe to let the beer warm up again