Lager fermentation lagging

I kicked a starter off Wednesday night....1 cup of liquid extract in about 900mLs so around 1.045 or so...had it kicking at 52 degrees in fridge with no controller....was bubbling around just fine when I pitched it Saturday morning around 11am.....shook it up for a minute to get oxygen in just like I do with ale....and as of 8am this morning I can't really see significant activity. When I pitched it the lager was only down to about 60 degrees.(was down to 52 by the late afternoon)...did the +8 temp shock them? Or is lager sometimes just real slow to get going? Do I need to start planning a re-pitch? Lager wort is at about 1.050.

Even though your starter conditions aren't what is widely recommended (between 1.030 and 1.040 and room temp - even for a lager yeast), I doubt that's the issue, especially since you saw activity. And even though not ideal, I kind of doubt that an 8F swing would be a killer either. Yes, lagers generally do have longer lag times. I've had some go 48-72 hours. Most of my ales seem to start within 12 hours. Plus many lager fermentations aren't that eventful. Some of mine just get a very small (1/4 inch max) krausen. You, really need to measure gravity to be sure that fermentation hasn't started.

Since you don't really have the time to make a new starter, I'd recommend getting a good general purpose dry lager yeast like S34/70. I like to keep a couple packs on hand just in case. I wouldn't start getting concerned until tomorrow afternoon if you have no signs of fermenting, including gravity readings.

Thanks Hex23, actually I noticed bubbling in the blow off bucket last night, and the rate had increased this morning along with a little foam layer on the top, so it was probably sometime between 48-60 hours out when it kicked in. I'm used to the ale yeast starting up and looking violent and I think the lager process is just different and I'm not used to it. Also I tried to find out about starter temps for lager but I saw conflicting info so I figured better 52-53 with the controller as opposed to the 70 room temps I had going, and I pitched the 8 temp swing because I was leaving for the day and I had read you wanna pitch a colder yeast into a warmer lager wort (but only 3-4 degrees but I figured it wouldn't kill it since I often pitch ale yeast at 68 or so into a 75 degree wort)....

I may keep a couple of dry packs on hand as you suggest for the future though, as I always keep spare ale yeast handy and have had to use it before.

enricocoron said:

Also I tried to find out about starter temps for lager but I saw conflicting info so I figured better 52-53 with the controller as opposed to the 70 room temps I had going, and I pitched the 8 temp swing because I was leaving for the day and I had read you wanna pitch a colder yeast into a warmer lager wort (but only 3-4 degrees but I figured it wouldn't kill it since I often pitch ale yeast at 68 or so into a 75 degree wort)....

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Great to hear your up and running.

I take all my advice about starters from http://www.mrmalty.com/starter_faq.php

The advice about pitching to a warmer lager wort is really a tradeoff that maximizes your chances of getting yeast going (sooner or at all), but really isn't the best idea in terms of making the best tasting lager. There is a lager fermentation scheme called the Narzis method that calls for the opposite - start at like 44F, pitch, then slowly warm up to the lager yeasts favored temp. I realize that getting to 44F is not very easy. Pitching a lager yeast into warmer wort can lead to more diacetyl and very likely necessitates a diacetyl rest. I'd make sure to taste your lager near the end of primary and see if there is any sort of buttery flavor.

Thanks Hex23, I def plan a diacetyl rest on this one...hopefully the temp dropping very quickly down to 51 prevented the buildup of too much diacetyl but in future I'll probably just let the wort drop to low 50's and pitch the yeast from a room temp starter.

thanks for the link!

enricocoron said:

Thanks Hex23, I def plan a diacetyl rest on this one...hopefully the temp dropping very quickly down to 51 prevented the buildup of too much diacetyl but in future I'll probably just let the wort drop to low 50's and pitch the yeast from a room temp starter.

thanks for the link!

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I'd say if there isn't much diacetyl taste then you could skip the d-rest if you wanted. Although, I've learned that some people have a much lower detection threshold for diacetly than I do. One time I asked my wife to taste a lager that just finished primary. Totally unprompted, she asked what's that buttery taste? I didn't detect diacetyl at first, then I tasted again and did catch a faint degree of it. If you plan on having others drink your beer, then it certainly doesn't hurt anything to do the d-rest just in case someone is more sensitive to diacetyl.

Just remember the 5 degree rule about the pitching. Since you'll make your lager yeast starter at room temp, you'll want to chill it down to near 50 before you pitch. One convenient way to do this is to plan on cold crashing the starter and decanting off the spent wort. I say "plan" because it can take 3+ days to get the yeast to fully flocculate. Then you actually have to let the starter warm to 50F before pitching. Decanting is normally a good idea for a lager starter anyway since a right-sized lager starter is usually pretty big and can affect the flavor of the beer if pitched in-whole. My currently lagering Oktoberfest used a 4.75 liter starter - that's over 10% of the volume of a 5 gallon batch.

Good luck! I'm sure your beer will taste great.

I make my lager starters at room temp. On brew day, i pitch in the low 70s and let it sit like I would any ale. At the first signs of fermentation about 4-6 hours later, i throw into 50-52 degree fridge. It takes many hours to cool to lager temps (but quick enough before full blown fermentation starts) so therefore doesnt shock the yeast.

To be honest I think I only prepped a 1 liter starter and at 50 degrees...I calculated that to be a 50% increase from 100 billion to 150 billion cells, it's kicking like crazy right now though and it seems unlikely that it won't finish the job. I guess maybe you don't get full expansion at the lower temps though, but again its hard to envision that it won't get down to where I want to finish.

Next lager I may prep a 2 liter starter at like 62 degrees, and then pitch it when the wort is down to 62 and see how that goes.

Many of the things recommended as ideal are done to minimize the probability of problems. Some of the recommendations come from a commercial setting, where failure is less tolerable and quality/consistency standards are high. They're not all absolutes for home-brewers. E.g. using a 1 liter starter fermented at 50 degrees for a 5 gallon lager is not "ideal", but that does not mean that your beer will certainly taste bad or not finish low enough. The first Oktoberfest lager I made was only a 1 liter starter and it turned out great. There are lots of things recommended as ideal that I'm skeptical make as much difference as people claim. As time goes on you'll begin to learn what you can and can't get away with. If you really want to know, experiment and see what you can figure out.

I've spent my whole life figuring out how to get away with the minimum amount of work. I work in a lab and being efficient at work is knowing which corners you can cut and which you can't.

I fully understand that a lot of these ideal recommendations are based around repeatable protocols in a commercial setting. I mean why a 1 or 2 liter starter? Why not 1.1345 or 1.8976? Cause it's not easy to remember. Why a 60 minute mash and a 60 minute boil? Cause an hour is easy to keep track of rather than a 53 minute mash and a 66 minute boil. Bottom line is it won't matter for most at home, but it won't be uber consistent quality control wise, if that's your thing.

That's an excellent analogy ... you clearly get it. Let us know how your lager turns out.

Looks like fermentation is slowing down....about a bubble every 15-20 seconds now...thinking of kicking a 48 hour Diacetyl rest maybe tomorrow night....then rack it off the yeast cake into a clean carboy for lagering.

Thats the right order right? It's better to do the rest prior to transferring to the lagering vessel?

That's right. You definitely want the primary yeast mass around to do the diacetyl cleanup. The rule or thumb I usually hear for lagering time is 1 week per 8-10 points of gravity. The colder the better (I like 34F), but a gradual cool-down to the lagering temperature so you don't shock the yeast is best. Gradually ramp down 1-2 degrees per day till you reach your target temp.

Is 48-72 hours at 60 degrees adequate for a diacetyl rest? From what I've read I want to do it 3/4 through primary...and they should finish the fermentation during the rest? If I started at 1.053 and want to finish at 1.013 thats 40 points...so start the rest around 1.023 or 3/4 of those 40 points. After 48-72 hours the yeast should drive the gravity down to finishing and you start the cooling process, correct?

Since you're already at day 9 since your beer showed signs of fermentation, it's possible you've already reached your target FG. Frankly, while I've seen that 3/4 rule, I've never followed it. It's not that I disagree with it, but I guess I'm too lazy to be taking gravity readings that often to hit the 3/4 mark. I normally wait 7-10 days, then take a gravity reading. If it's near my target FG and there is no discernible diacetyl, I begin to lager. Otherwise (above target FG or there is diacetyl present), I do a d-rest for 2-3 days at 60F.

It's still kicking pretty strong (bubble every 5 seconds in the bucket), it's 2 weeks since signs of fermentation started, is this normal...I know lagers can take longer but this is starting to get a little ridiculous. Should I risk it and take a gravity reading?

Did you do the d-rest? That alone could cause fermentation to appear to restart. Of all the lagers I've done, none have taken longer than 14 days, but I've seen accounts of them going longer. I've had ales that seemed to go on-and-on. It's possible that due to the underpitch and longer lag time in this case that 14 days is not unexpected.

If you have a sanitary process, the risk of taking a gravity measurement is pretty low, especially once fermentation has taken hold. OTOH, there's no real risk of it going longer anyway. With lager temps, any concerns of autolysis are even further diminished. I'd probably just wait a little longer, but if your curious, it certainly doesn't hurt to measure SG.

No D rest yet, that's what I was waiting to do, I was hoping to see signs of it slowing and then kick it up to 60 for 48 hours, but its still plugging at 50. I usually Star San a turkey baster on the inside and then rub the outside down with ethyl alchohol so it should be fine.

If you want you can skip the ethyl alcohol. Star-san should be good enough for the whole thing. If you don't already have it, a spray bottle for star-san is indispensible. It makes it easy to sanitize exactly what you want and not waste much star-san.

I have 100% EtOH in a test tube and a spray bottle of star san...i usually spray the outside with the san, and then slurp the EtOH up the inside of the baster, since some usually dribbles back into the fermenter. It was 1.022 and delicious....couldn't taste any DA but since some people have a sensitive palate I upped it to 56 degrees last night and then to 60 this morning....I'll probably crash it tomorrow night to 40 (and cold crash my IPA at the same time)...or would you do a stepwise drop to 40....like 55-50-45-40 every 12 hours?

That's great that it tasted so good - that means no ill effects from underpitching. You'll probably shed some more points during d-rest. Best practice is to slowly ramp down 1-2 F per day so that you don't shock the yeast. I suppose that would be most important if you plan to bottle condition and not have to add more yeast at bottle time. That might not be so important if you plan to keg.

i'm planning to keg so I'll probably just drop 5 degrees a day...the drop is slow and steady anyways because of the volume of fluid that needs to cool.

I'm still not convinced I underpitched....I think maybe the lager process is just slower....I read somewhere that 2-3 weeks ferment is not uncommon for certain yeasts. Mine was Marzen yeast from WL so I'm not sure if that's known to be a slower yeast or not. Anyways I'll be skimming/washing the yeast before I rack to the lagering vessel because it seems to be a very clean tasting yeast right now with little to zero DA.
Would it work for a pilsener or should I go out and buy Bohemian Pilsener or Mexcican Lager yeast?

enricocoron said:

I'm still not convinced I underpitched....

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I think we're just differing on terminology. Since you beer tastes fine, I guess in some sense you didn't underpitch - maybe the only downside was a fermentation lagging and running longer than normal. But in the "best practice" of 1.5 million yeast cells per mL per degree plato for a lager you should have pitched minimally 340 billion cells (that's assuming a 5 gallon Oktoberfest). To get that, in the best case (assuming perfectly viable yeast), your starter should be about 7 liters.

enricocoron said:

Anyways I'll be skimming/washing the yeast before I rack to the lagering vessel because it seems to be a very clean tasting yeast right now with little to zero DA.
Would it work for a pilsener or should I go out and buy Bohemian Pilsener or Mexcican Lager yeast?

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I don't think that top cropping works nearly as well on lager yeast as it does on ale yeast, but I read in the "Yeast" book that it can be done in some settings. By the way, it's a great book I'd recommend purchasing - It's called "Yeast - The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation". I've never top-cropped any lager yeast, so I can't really tell you how your yeast would perform. It also seems late to be top cropping since your active fermentation is at/near its end. You could try just to see if it works, but your starter might take a while or multiple steps to build-up. If you get tired of making starters I'd recommend S23 and S34/70 - both are nice dry lager yeasts. But you probably focus on buying the style appropriate to the beer your making.

7 liters? Wow, that's a lotta hooch. Won't that 7 liters of extract influence the flavor of the beer? I guess LME is pretty good these days. I'm down to 45 degrees and will drop to 40 tonight rack it to a lagering vessel....I'll see if I can score some yeast at this step.

On a side note, I brewed and Irish Ale with maybe 75 billion cells that had been in the fridge for close to 6 months....no starter cause i was lazy, it took 48 hours but it's cranking away now so I'm curious to see if it can finish. I have a WL fresh vial in the fridge that I can use if I need it but I want to see if 6 month old Irish Ale yeast pitched cold can finish the job.

enricocoron said:

7 liters? Wow, that's a lotta hooch. Won't that 7 liters of extract influence the flavor of the beer? I guess LME is pretty good these days. I'm down to 45 degrees and will drop to 40 tonight rack it to a lagering vessel....I'll see if I can score some yeast at this step.

On a side note, I brewed and Irish Ale with maybe 75 billion cells that had been in the fridge for close to 6 months....no starter cause i was lazy, it took 48 hours but it's cranking away now so I'm curious to see if it can finish. I have a WL fresh vial in the fridge that I can use if I need it but I want to see if 6 month old Irish Ale yeast pitched cold can finish the job.

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Yes, 7L is definitely alot - close to 40% of the volume of a 5 gallon batch. It's so much (bad beer) that you would never want to pitch it whole. So what one commonly does with a lager is crash-cool the starter, then decant the spent wort, then pitch the slurry. And to be fair, I was using the calculations for a no-stir or agitation starter. It goes down to about 3 liters if you're using a stir-plate.

BTW, the mrmalty calculator estimates about 10% viability for yeast 6 months old. It will be interesting to see how well it does.

I'm down to 45 degrees with very slow signs of fermentation...I'll transfer to the clean lagering vessel tonight and see if I can wash some Octoberfest yeast out of it. I'll probably do a 30 day at 45 degrees and keg it.

The irish red is kicking still....have to go out of town so I'll probably transfer into secondary onto fresh hops tomorrow midday before I leave for the airport...hopefully it's all good.