Lager vs. cold crash

[CartoonCod]

Do you need to "lager" a lager? By "lager" I mean what people usually refer to as once the fermentation is finished you lower the temp down by a degC or so each day until around 4 degC or so, and then you leave it there for months while the yeast slowly do something.

How different is "lagering" to fermenting a beer with properly pitched lager yeast at 10 or so degC, doing the diacetyl rest and then either (a) cold crashing or (b) packaging?

My understanding of the situation is the beer is "cleaned up" after the diacetyl rest and most likely (if not definitely) finished fermenting. So is the only added benefit to cooling the beer down just to help minimize cloudiness? Or are the yeast actually doing something while you are leaving them cold for an extensive period of time during your "lagering" period.

I'm staring to think lagers are just beers made with lager yeast that have a cold initial fermentation.

[Celiacbrew]

I only lager after fermentation is complete. I think the old school temp drop was because they moved to lagering before fermentation was complete.

I think I’ve heard all the same stuff as you. Lagering is just for settling out protein tannin complexes. Charlie Bamforth says getting the beer down to -2c for 48hrs is equivalent to a month at 4c. So if you could filter at -2c you could lager in 48hrs.

[jason.loxton]

Here's a side by side experiment: http://brulosophy.com/2016/09/19/lager- ... t-results/

[wcturnedec]

I've made a couple lagers with the Brulosophy method and both have turned out great! http://brulosophy.com/methods/lager-method/

[CartoonCod]

I only lager after fermentation is complete. I think the old school temp drop was because they moved to lagering before fermentation was complete.

I forgot that the old school way was to lager before the fermentation was complete. This clears things up. Thanks. I bet if you do it this way then you probably draw less oxygen as the beer is cooling because the yeast are still producing CO2.

From what I have been figuring out (and reading from Brülosophy) you can get a beer to turn out pretty well by following some shortcuts by cold crashing. This is cool. But I guess one thing I'm trying to figure out is can you call a beer a lager if it hasn't been cooled down after the diacetyl rest? Lets say you use lager yeast, with a cool initial fermentation, then package right after the diacetyl rest. Is this technically still a (probably cloudy) lager? I guess I'm just stuck on the technical definition of a lager.

[Celiacbrew]

For me it is the yeast that makes a lager same as it is the ale yeast that makes ale. Then again I would think clarity is also important for lagers so I guess you could package right away and call it a lager. Maybe dose it with clarity ferm seeing as that was its original purpose, skipping the cold crash.