Bottling pilsner, need help before I screw it up

Did you use a lager yeast strain to ferment this beer? Which specific yeast strain did you use?

Cheers!

 

I am unfamiliar with Coopers Pilsner yeast.

So, the motivation for fermenting lager yeast cool (e.g., 50 degrees F) is to minimize the production of esters. By fermenting warm (67) your beer will have more esters (fruity type flavors) than it would have otherwise. OK, that is where we are.

Given that you are done fermenting you can bottle, let the bottles condition at room temperature for a couple of weeks and then decide from there. You can drink 1 bottle to ‘check it out’ and then cold condition (lager) the bottles for a period of time (e.g., several weeks). This cold conditioning process will encourage larger proteins and polyphenols to settle out which will result in a cleaner/crisper beer than if you didn’t lager. The beer will have increased esters even if you do lager; those esters are a result of the warm ferment.

Cheers!

 

The sachet should have an ink-jetted code on them detailing the package date and strain. The package date is formatted dddyy, where ddd is the day number of the year (e.g. 12214 = 122nd day of 2014 = 2nd May 2014)

The Cooper's Pilsner yeast should be labeled as above with the letter "P" on the end. This signifies that it is a commercially available Lager strain (L).

If the sachet has a date code (five numbers) with either "IPA" or no letters at all, then it is the house-strain Coopers Ale yeast (Ac). If the date code is followed by “W” or "IS", then it contains a commercial ale yeast (A). If the date code is followed by “INT”, then it contains a blend of (Ac) and the lager yeast (L).



btw, Coopers recommend ~13-15C (55-60F) for the Lager strain

 

Do you have any experience fermenting the Coopers Pilsner yeast strain warm (e.g., 19 degrees C/67 degrees F)? If so, how did the beer turn out?

Cheers!

 

Unfortunately no I dont. From what I have read about other people's experiences, however, I think that 19C / 67F is borderline. If everything else in your process is good, then it'll probably be fine (although obviously not as good as it could be). I would prime, condition, and then lager the bottles. I'm not 100% over the lagering process, and whether or not it could help, but I'm sure it won't hurt!

 

Considering I'm only just nearing the end of my first proper lagering, I'm the wrong person to talk to

From what I have read, the rule of thumb is: temperature <5C (40F) for about ~1 week per 8 gravity points of OG.

So, for example, a beer with a OG of 1.050 would be lagered for 6-7 weeks.

 

A BIG +1 to what @machalel posted. Lager at 40 degrees F (or lower) for a timeframe of 6-7 weeks for a moderate gravity (e.g., OG = 1.050) gravity lager. I have homebrewed many lagers using this process (albeit with bulk cold conditioning) and it works well. I am of the opinion that lagering in bottles the same way will 'work' as well.

I will re-iterate that the lagering process will not 'undo' the esters that were formed during the warm primary fermentation. The 'good news' for @will1129 is that he liked "fruity' so the presence of 'excess' esters will apparently not be an issue.

Cheers!

 

I agree with what others have said: you should prime and bottle the beer, and give it two weeks at room temp or close to it to carbonate. After that, it will probably benefit from long storage at lagering temperature, but it's difficult to say whether that will help all that much. This beer won't taste like pilsner, and lagering will not change that. On the plus side, this might turn out to be a perfectly acceptable blond ale-like beer.

 

well, fermenting at 67 won't get you anything resembling a lager. regardless of the yeast strain you used. but what's done is done. you have made an ale like beer with lager yeast. it happens.

go ahead and bottle as usual. feel free to "lager" your beer, though the lagering period is not going to make this beer a lager. you can, in fact, lager any beer you want. lager is just a fancy German word for storage, though in our world it generally describes beer that has been previously fermented with a lager strain at proper temperatures.

you will certainly have beer. it will probably be good to drink.
next time plan to ferment within the proper temperature range. there are a lot of tricks and obstacles to making a proper lager beer. getting the fermentation temps correct is priority #1.
Cheers.

edit-
"Coopers Australian Pilsner", dry yeast, is one of those dry yeasts from years gone by that does not act like a lager yeast. I have heard that there are some modern dry pils yeasts that actually work. but since im of the Papazian generation I am skeptical. never used Coopers Pils yeast, and don't plan to. safe to say that it is not very Pilsner like at all.

 

I fermented my first (and only) lager at 52F for a few weeks, then lagered at 34F for about ten weeks. I probably didn't really need to lager it that long, but it didn't seem to hurt either. Obviously I lagered it in a secondary fermentation in a glass carboy and sealed it up good to keep out oxygen.

Even after all this, it's a bit more ale-like than I expected. It was quite good mind you, but I don't think if I was served it blind I would have exclaimed "lager!"

It had only golden promise malt, cascade hops (a fair amount, about 3oz, most of it at flameout, with only about 30 IBUs of bittering planned) and lager yeast (don't recall the strain*, but it was liquid and stepped up over six days to a proper starter).

I carbonated using priming sugar after the lagering was complete. It took a bit longer than ales usually do, but I was expecting this to be the case. Still, it carbonated quite well after about a month at RT.

If I had to do it again, I'd make sure to NOT make a beer that's due to be ready in October that's not an Octoberfest.

I may well remedy this faux-pas by making a munich/willamette smash and using lager yeast, following a similar procedure. Not sure how Octoberfesty it will be, but it will at least have a somewhat orange color.

*details are in my blog, I'm too lazy to look it up right now

 

Lagering the bottles will help clear the beer up, which is something you want with lager yeast. It doesn't floc out easily but lagering will help significantly. You want to floc out the yeast for a cleaner taste. You'll get quite a bit of yeast bite in the flavor until the yeast drop out.

 

Good to hear that I'm on the right track!