First Time Brewing A Lager

As the head brewer you can choose to do whatever you want in your brewery.

I would recommend you read the below linked thread on this topic first:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/lagering-in-primary.69373/

Cheers!

 

Check out these carriers if you don't already have something similar:
https://www.morebeer.com/products/carboy-carrier-brew-hauler.html
https://www.amazon.com/Carboy-Carri...keywords=carboy+carrier&qid=1625258711&sr=8-6

 

There are carboys not made out of glass.

One example are Better Bottle carboys:

http://www.better-bottle.com/products_master.html

Cheers!

 

You also have the option to bottle the beer then lager the beer in the bottles if you have room.

@JackHorzempa don't you usually do this?

 

No, not for lager type beers (e.g., Pilsners, etc.)

But I have done this for a hybrid beer (e.g., Kolsch) on occasion and I have been happy with those beers.

Yup, another option for @fritzfield.

Cheers!

 

A problem with lagering (or simply cold crashing) in any primary fermenter is that unless you take steps to prevent entry of oxygen, you will get O2 in the headsapce and thus in the beer, and it will come right through the airlock.

If I were fermenting in a bucket and wanted to cold crash in said bucket, I'd use something like a CO2 collection bladder to return CO2 (rather than O2) to the headspace.

However, I wouldn't leave the beer sitting on the yeast cake for 3-4 months, so I would do the actualy lagering (cold storage) after the cold crash in a keg or (last resort) bottles. You could transfer to a secondary fermenter (before or after cold crashing), but you'd face the same challenges with O2, only moreso because of the extra (open) transfer.

The truth is that if you want/need to avoid cold side oxidation, you need to keep O2 from entering whatever vessel is holding the beer, and do closed/purged transfers.