spittybug
Well-Known Member
After plenty of ales under my belt, I'm trying my first lager. I built an icebox out of a nice 3/4" plywood, wheeled cabinet I found at the Habitat resale shop and lined it with 1" of polystyrene sheet from HD. I got it nice and sealed up. My conical fits nicely, or two stacked buckets. I'm making a German Pilsner using White Labs WLP800. Cabinet is holding the temps in the 55* range by using frozen bottles of water and changing them out every 24 - 36 hours.
I'm now into the 5th day and have seen no visible airlock activity. I popped the top off the conical and I have a foamy krausen, just not as "wild" as with my ales. I checked the gravity and I'm at ~1.040 having started at ~1.053. I can see little tiny streaming bubbles in the thief. Am I on track? Is it normal for the fermentation to be this "low and slow"? If so, at what gravity should I warm the beer up a bit to clean up any acetyls? At what temp? FG target is 1.012.
I plan to go into a corny when he's done and leave it in the kegerator for a month, then filter. My fridge is at about 40*. I have a corny lid which I have modified to accept a bubbler, but I'm thinking I'll just let it build pressure instead. The safety is always there if it gets too high.....
As an aside, I had FANTASTIC results with a Munich Helles that was supposed to be lagered but instead I used WLP029 ale yeast. I've also found that when I keg, pushing CO2 into the bottom (liquid) port to purge any O2 from the head space is quick and easy and gives a jump start to carbonating.
Thanks.
I'm now into the 5th day and have seen no visible airlock activity. I popped the top off the conical and I have a foamy krausen, just not as "wild" as with my ales. I checked the gravity and I'm at ~1.040 having started at ~1.053. I can see little tiny streaming bubbles in the thief. Am I on track? Is it normal for the fermentation to be this "low and slow"? If so, at what gravity should I warm the beer up a bit to clean up any acetyls? At what temp? FG target is 1.012.
I plan to go into a corny when he's done and leave it in the kegerator for a month, then filter. My fridge is at about 40*. I have a corny lid which I have modified to accept a bubbler, but I'm thinking I'll just let it build pressure instead. The safety is always there if it gets too high.....
As an aside, I had FANTASTIC results with a Munich Helles that was supposed to be lagered but instead I used WLP029 ale yeast. I've also found that when I keg, pushing CO2 into the bottom (liquid) port to purge any O2 from the head space is quick and easy and gives a jump start to carbonating.
Thanks.