John's Lagering Method

[George]

I've been listening to the archives and heard the lager show recently. I have a question about John's method of lagering. Listening, it didn't seem to be the conventional 2-3 weeks primary/secondary in the 50's followed by 2-3 months lagering as cold as possible.

Could you go over what you do again, John?

[Chris Vejnovich]

George,

What is your normal proceedure? I am just starting out with lagers and have about 5 under my belt so I am no expert. But so far what I have learned is that a longer than normal primary is good IMHO for cleaning up the beer, then a long cold conditioning phase until the beer tastes good to you are you are ready to drink. Now, if you talk to some other people they will say get the lager off the yeast as soon as possible so I may be wrong on this one but my Pilsner tastes good to me so I'm ok with it. I guess the real test will be if I enter a few bottles in AHA regionals this year as my wife bought me an AHA membership for my B-day.