Blue Cubes

[Lance]

Could someone please tell me what to do when using a blue cube (clearing cube). I have heard somewhere that after fermentation finishes you dispense the beer from the fermenter into the cube for a further 2-3 days, chill it in the fridge for another day, and then transfer the beer into the keg and carbonate. This is supposed to get clearer beer??? Is this correct or am I missing something. Thanks Lance

[rwh]

This is cold conditioning. You've got the method essentially right. You finish primary "rack" the beer (racking is the word for transferring from one vessel to another), and chill it to just above freezing. This helps proteins, tannins and yeast to flocculate (clump together and fall out of suspension), which improves the flavour of your beer. After a few days, your beer can be bottled and primed using your usual method, and left at room temperature to carbonate. The cold conditioning won't remove all the yeast from suspension, so your bottles will still carbonate though it make take a bit longer.

Having said all that, if you're kegging, you can just rack your beer into the keg, put it in the fridge, attach the gas at dispense pressure, and wait for a few days. This is effectively cold conditioning in the keg (at the same time as the beer is carbonating); the only drawback is that the first little bit of beer you pour will have sediment in it. This is my normal technique because I'm lazy and I think the additional racking brings along with it an additional risk of infection.

[Lance]

Thanks for that. The last thing I need is to tip out beer because of infection. Besides a little cloudiness never hurt anyone.

[Neil]

This is cold conditioning. You've got the method essentially right. You finish primary "rack" the beer (racking is the word for transferring from one vessel to another), and chill it to just above freezing. This helps proteins, tannins and yeast to flocculate (clump together and fall out of suspension), which improves the flavour of your beer. After a few days, your beer can be bottled and primed using your usual method, and left at room temperature to carbonate. The cold conditioning won't remove all the yeast from suspension, so your bottles will still carbonate though it make take a bit longer

This is probably 2 daft questions, but: 1) am I right in thinking that a 'cube' is just a c. 23 litre container to rack into for lagering, etc.?
My local HBS has a 'cube' which is 23 litres (that's what he called it). I have an Oktoberfest type lager I want to lager for a good few weeks and the idea of racking into a cube which has less headspace sounds sensible to me. So, here's the 2nd question: that Oktoberfest is currently on a diacetlyl rest for a couple of days and the yeast will just about have run out of puff by then I would imagine. Should I therefore pitch a small amount of lager yeast into the cube with the Oktoberfest to ensure it produces a nice CO2 pillow between it and the container?

Any advice greatly appreciated though I accept full responsibility for what i eventually do with the beer....

Cheers

Neil