Seeking advice on first lager

Hey all, I've been brewing with a friend at his place and using his equipment, for several months now. And I've decided it's about time to start doing some of my own brewing.

My in-laws gave me, among other things, a recipe kit for an Oktoberfest. While a lager wouldn't have been my first choice for the first thing to brew at my place, I'm fairly certain I can handle it - but I need a little advice before I get going.

My main concern, obviously enough, is temperature control for fermentation. I've been monitoring the temperature in the spot in my basement where I plan to set up my carboy, and over the past couple of days its temperature has varied between 55 and 57 degrees F - actually a bit more stable than I expected!

The kit I'm going to use came with a packet of Saflager s-23 dry yeast. According to the packet, the yeast will work at 51-75F, but 51-59F is ideal. So, it looks like my ambient basement temperature is on the high side of ideal, so I think I'm good for fermentation. Heck, I can always put a bottle of ice or two near the carboy to try to bring things down another degree or two, right? I don't think I'd need a full on water bath for the carboy, as the temp's already pretty stable and I really probably only want to drop the temp by another 3 or 4 degrees, if at all...

My real question is twofold: First off, what temp do I pitch the yeast at? Should I chill the wort as close as I can get to 55F, then rehydrate the yeast in similarly cool water and pitch it? Do I chill the wort and the yeast water to 60 or 70F, pitch, then let it continue to cool in the basement from there? Is there a significant difference either way?

Then there's diacetyl rest... I keep reading references to diacetyl rest, though everything I've found so far is somewhat vague. What I'm getting is that I want to wait for my fermentation to get about 3/4 done (I assume this means SG is 3/4 of the way from OG to the expected FG), then raise up the temperature to 60 or 65 F. I think I can do this by just moving the beer upstairs into a closet, but I'm not sure how long to leave it there. 1 day? 2? A week? Until it reaches FG?

And when do I transfer to a secondary carboy? Before diacetyl rest? Before lagering?

Lagering, believe it or not, I think I've got covered. Unless the fermentation and diacetyl rest goes way too quickly, I'll have a fridge available for lagering about a week or two before I actually need it, so I should be in good shape there.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice!

Take this with a grain of salt as I have never done a true lager - closest has been an kolch/altbier. My understanding of the diacytl rest is to give it 4 or 5 days at the warmer temp for the yeast to clean up. Then you can rack to secondary for lagering. I think it would be ok to wait on the diacetyl rest until you hit your FG if time/space is a concern.

It is also my understanding that you should chill as close to fermentation temp and then pitch - even leave the wort in the basement overnight before pitching.

Good luck.

Pitch at fermentation temperature, or even a bit below if you can. If you can chill the wort to 48 degrees, for example, you can pitch the yeast and allow it to come up to room temperature. I'd definitely recommend insulating the fermenter, even with a water bath if you could, to have more control over the fermentation temperature. That way, if the beer temperature rises to 58, for example, you can add a frozen water bottle to the water bath to bring it down a bit without big swings in temperature. I have a picture in my gallery (near the beginning, if you want to wade through all my photos!) of the Yooper Lagerator- an igloo cooler with a foam lid- that I use to maintain stable temperatures in my basement. A water bath is a great insulator, and can give you better temperature control than relying strictly on ambient temperatures.

I'd recommend pitching two packages of yeast, since a colder fermentation might give you a longer lag time and cause some stressed yeast.

A diacetyl rest is generally done near the very end of fermentation, for about 24-48 hours, to encourage the slowing but still active yeast to "clean up" any diacetyl that may have been created during fermentation.

After the diacetyl rest, and the beer is at FG, it can be racked and lagering started. I like to lager at 34 degrees one week for every 8-10 points of OG. So, for a 1.060 lager, I'd lager for 6-8 weeks at that 34 degrees.

One other basic question occurs to me: will a lager ferment vigorously enough to need a blow off tube, or would a basic airlock suffice?

stratslinger said:

One other basic question occurs to me: will a lager ferment vigorously enough to need a blow off tube, or would a basic airlock suffice?

Click to expand...

It will probably go slow and steady- an airlock is fine.