Pitching Onto a Lager Yeast After Using It at Ale Temps

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theDeutscher

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I've got a couple recipes formulated here and I'm in need of some much appreciated help. The first one is an Americanized play off of New Belgium's 1554, Jamil's Schwarzbier and Sam Adams' Black Lager. I'm using WLP830 German Lager yeast at ale temperatures as suggested from the 1554. The second recipe is a "bigger" Vienna Lager inspired by Great Lakes Eliot Ness and Jamil's Vienna Lager. What I'll be doing is brewing the Schwarzbier first, letting it ferment out as an ale, decanting it for bottling, and then pitching the newly brewed Vienna lager onto the yeast cake. I will then ferment that as a lager. My questions are: 1. Will fermenting a lager yeast at ale temps and the fermenting the same yeast at lager temps cause any wanted esters in my lager? 2. Is pitching onto this amount of yeast still too much, even for a lager?

My recipes are:

DEUTSCHER'S BLACK SWAMP LAGERALE
Beer Style: Schwarzbier (Black Beer)
Recipe Type: All-Grain
Batch Size: 5 gallons
Boil Size: 6.125 gallons
Boil Time: 90 minutes
Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.013
Color: 36 SRM (Black)
Mash Efficiency: 75%
Bitterness: 23.3 IBU
Alcohol: 6.0 ABV
Calories: 190

48% (5 lb. 4 oz.) Briess Organic Munich 10
37% (4 lb. 0 oz.) Briess Pilsen Malt
6% (0 lb. 10 oz.) Weyermann Dehusked Carafa III Special
5% (0 lb. 8 oz.) Weyermann Chocolate Rye
5% (0 lb. 8 oz.) Briess Carapils
(2.0 oz.) Liberty hops (3.0 AA) @ 60 mins
Yeast: White Labs WLP830 German Lager

Mash @ 154 for 60 mins
Ferment at 65 F


DEUTSCHER'S JAEGER VIENNA LAGER
Beer Style: Vienna Lager
Recipe Type: All-Grain
Batch Size: 5 gallons
Boil Size: 6.125 gallons
Boil Time: 90 minutes
Original Gravity: 1.061
Final Gravity: 1.014
Color: 12 SRM (Copper to Red/Lt. Brown)
Mash Efficiency: 75%
Bitterness: 27.7 IBU
Alcohol: 6.3 ABV
Calories: 200

43% (4 lb. 12 oz.) Weyermann Vienna Malt
29% (3 lb. 4 oz.) Weyermann Pilsner Malt
27% (3 lb. 0 oz.) Weyermann Munich Type II
1% (0 lb. 2 oz.) Weyermann Dehusked Carafa II Special
(1.5 oz.) Hallertau hops (4.3 AA) @ 60 mins
(0.5 oz.) Hallertau hops (4.3 AA) @ 10 mins
Yeast: White Labs WLP830 German Lager

Mash @ 154 for 60 mins
Ferment at 50 F
 
Any feedback on the warmer ferment? I'm using 34/70 which is purportedly the same strain in a california commons.
 
Not sure, I just did the same thing so time will tell.

I brewed a Bo-Pils with 2 packs of w34/70, and then racked a Schwarzbier onto the cake, it took off like lightening!
 
Sorry for losing this thread. I'm done fermenting the first beer, the Schwarzbier at ale temps. I pitched a slurry from a gallon starter of the WLP830 at 60°F. I had airlock activity within 6 hours. I slowly let the temperature rise up to 65°F in the first 36 hours and held it there. By that time, fermentation was almost done, seriously. It went from 1.058 to 1.015 in less than 2 days. I let it clean up for a few more days and had no change in final gravity. Fermentation was done and the gravity sample tastes awesome. There's a little more roastiness than I wanted recipe-wise, but the ferment was surprisingly clean, even more than I thought it would be. Right now I have it cold-crashing in my fermentation fridge. I'm going to brew the Vienna lager this week and let it sit in my garage fridge overnight. The next day, I'm going to rack the Schwarzbier for bottling, let the yeast and Vienna warm up to 45°F and combine them. I'm not going to lager the Schwarzbier since I want it to be ale-ish but it's pretty clean already. I will lager the Vienna, though. So far, it's seems as though there isn't any ill affects I can tell of.
 
Sounds good, hopefully the dry version of the strain behaves similarly. Brewing TV on Northern Brewer did a pseudo-lager episode a while back that had good results with the Wyeast version of the strain at ale temps.
 

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