rwh wrote: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