Lagering

[dropkickpat]

Okay so I'm getting close to bottling my first pilsner. It has been lagering for about 8 weeks. I have several questions...
1. Is eight weeks a good amount of time? The weather is starting to warm up...
2. I just noticed that the airlock on the carboy came off. It has probably been off for about a week, the time I checked it last. What are the chances that the beer won’t be screwed up (due to that)?
3. When adding more yeast to help with carbonation do I re-hydrate the yeast? Or do I just add it into the bottling bucket with the sugar water?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Butkus]

I just did my first Pils this year too. I kegged mine. Since no one seems to be saying anything, here's what I'd guess.

1. eight weeks should be plenty of time. The length of time you lager depends on the temperature at which you lager. Warmer temperatures don't require as much time, but they don't produce results that are good as those produced by cooler temperatures. Most recipes I see say to lager for 4 weeks.

2. Taste a sample. If it's bad, you'll know. If you bottle and get gushers, you know. Won't cost you anything but time to find out.

3. I've never heard of anyone adding yeast back to a batch of homebrew unless they had a stuck fermentation or something. Some commercial breweries filter then add back yeast for bottle conditioning, but I would think you would have plenty of yeast in suspension to bottle condtion without adding any, but I've never bottle-conditioned a lager, so maybe I just don't know what the standard practice is. But, I would think that if you wanted higher carbonation, the way to get it would be to add more sugar.