Lagering/dry hopping in primary fermenter?

[AaronH]

Hi all,

Long time no see! Have been living in Dublin now for the past 8 months or so, so sincere apologies I haven't been able to catch up with ye.

So I'm brewing my first all-grain (okay, some DME...) beer and, because I've got a rake of over-confidence, I'm going to be brewing a lager - a Munich-style Helles to be exact. Myself and my friends have been to Germany on a few occasions and can't get enough of stuff like Augustiner.

The recipe I'm following optionally calls for a transfer to a secondary fermenter after the primary is complete and then dry hopping/lagering for 3-4 weeks.

I'd really like to dry hop and lager, but I don't have a vessel to use as a secondary. I'm wondering is it alright/advisable to just dry hop and lager in the primary fermenter? Are there any adverse effects from leaving the beer in the bucket for a month after fermentation is complete?

Temperature control won't be a problem as I have a suitably-sized fridge at my disposal.

Cheers for your advice!

[Kevco5]

Don't dry hop for that long! 10 day maximum or you could get serious veg/grass flavours.
Not sure about lagering in the primary. It should be fine up to about 6weeks before any autolysis.
What type of yeast are you planning to use?
If you post in the brewing chat sub-forum you'll get better exposure and I'm sure someone will be able to answer you.

[brenmurph]

My approach would to get off the trub within a week leaving significant residual yeast to continue conditioning for more weeks.
leaving on expired yeast and trub for too long may /probably will introduce some off flavour. ost experts recomend racking off to secondary, this just means leave most of the gunk behind and whats left is fairly active healthy yeast most likely.
For longer storage in secondary we use sealed 5- gallon food grade drums, these have worked a treat for us over years. to allow fermentation to continue ( you must release gas about daily or use airlock) on some yeast. these can be stored in your fridge safely and no air contamination.

Re dry hopping, normally its said just a few days but we regularly leave t-balls full of hop flowers or pellets in our kegs and have never seen any off problems even after months in the keg, so research this more and make an informed decision.

summary, definatly rack off after a week, tranfer to a sealed drum ( not leave in bucket for month) and research more about dry hopping.

I find in our numerous lagers late hopping does a fantastic job especially saaz 10 mins from the end 10 grams pellets in 5 gall batch for standard lagers and for bohemian 10 g saaz, 10g hallertauer at 10 mins from end does a wonderful job of adding aroma and flavour. remember dry hopping may result in a hazy lager rather than the typical clear sparkly refreshing looking stereotypical lager
Hope this view helps  Bren

[AaronH]

Excellent, cheers for the advice lads!

Kev - I'm using White Labs German Bock liquid yeast. I actually still have the vial of liquid lager yeast you gave me many moons ago. Unfortunately, the move to Dublin forced me to put off doing a lager until now. That's hardly still good, is it?

[Kevco5]

Only way to find out is to do a starter and make sure there's no funky smells from it!