First lager: pitching rate seems insane?!

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I'm here to bring everyone back to reality.
It's Christmas, now everyone shut the heck up and bring some positive good spirited attitude to this thread.

I think for myself I can't justify buying several vials of liquid yeast for one beer. Imagine buying 5 vials for one 5-6 gal batch the yeast would cost double the grain bill. I would step up a starter however like I said I don't buy liquid it's expensive in Canada.

I would like to promote s-23 again though great, easy and cheap lager yeast. I don't promote bad brewing, I like doing things right. I just know some people think it's all grain or nothing, liquid yeast or nothing.
I've made extract better than my ag , so you know keep an open mind I know several breweries who use dry yeast.
You wouldn't know it as the beer is fantastic.


Merry Christmas
 
I don't like all the name-calling that happens when people disagree on the forums, but after reading Drew's latest post - consider yourself name-called.

Over 85% of the time a customer brings in a beer "that don't taste right" to the homebrew shop I work at, the problem is either infection, lack of temp control or underattenuation. In the latter case, people usually didn't pitch enough yeast, i.e. tossed in a liquid vial without making a starter or not rehydrating dry yeast. If you are a good, experienced brewer, you can compensate for what Mr. Malty would consider underpitching by making recipe and process adjustments to a large extent, although the ester profile will almost always differ (and, as you stated, not always for the worse). Nor do you need to pitch 10 vials of yeast if you build, split and oxygenate your starters perfectly to maximize your "growth factor". But to a new lager brewer lacking that experience, spending that extra money on more yeast or a larger starter is the safest way to prevent problems down the road. If you have truly worked at a homebrew shop, you know how difficult it is to treat underattenuation problems after the fact without resorting to methods that will significantly change the character of the beer to something that is either thin, vinous or funky.
 
IMO, drew does have a point. If time and money are scarce, but it is up to the brewer. I like to use Mr.Malty as a guideline. Making a starter and getting half way to where one should be is still better then not making a starter at all. If the time is available I attempt the correct pitching rate. Time is not replaceable. When a weekend is available to brew, I go for it.

I have screwed up pitching yeast many times and try to learn from my mistakes. I find taste problems with my beers, but friends and family enjoy and compliment..... then go back for more. Perhaps "Good Beer" is about who you want to impress? I just try to make the next batch better. Beer is my hobby that I use to relax. Carving methods in stone about "the right way to brew" only creates stress. At one point in time it was thought long primaries were wrong.

If drew likes the way his beer tastes I'd drink it, then decide if I would open another
Taste is in the tongue of the beholder....
 
I did my first Marzen last spring, 5g batch with a Wyeast pack. Pitched yeast at about 70 deg. At first sign of fermentation, I put the fermenter in my keezer at 48 deg, where it stayed about a month. Lagered all summer after a D-rest, and everyone raved about it when I served it at my Octoberfest. Next time I'll probably do a starter, only because everyone says you should when doing low temp ferms.
 
Man, I wish I could do a lager. One of these days I'm going to buy a freezer big enough to hold my conical and try it. But first I gotta figure out where I could possibly fit another freezer in my house.
 
My first lager was a Mr. Beer kit (3 of them actually) that I bought at BJ's on a whim. Started slow... wasn't very exciting ferment. It did however turn out to be quite tasty. I harvested and washed the yeast... (another first). I used one jar of the slurry in a starter wort from dry extract and pitched it into an altered Cream of Three Crops Ale. Was much more active than the lager was... and a great brew to boot. Moral of the story: it worked, without calling in a rocket scientist for advice.
 
I'm just gonna throw my 2 cents out there. I think the pitching rates from mr malty are the "safe" pitching rates. My last beer was a pilsner. OG at 1.048, pitched a vial of WLP830 at 55F without doing a starter. Once the fermentation seemed to be going, dropped the temp to 50F. After primary and lager phases, final gravity was 1.010. Taste test reveal a super clean beer with no off flavors.

Anecdotal evidence you say? You bet!!! Will I be following mr malty's pitching rates from now on? Nope. Now I won't go and tell someone to not pitch Mr Malty's recommended amounts of yeast. I think if you can afford to pitch more yeast, you probably should. But my sanitation techniques are very meticulous and I have good temp control so I can get away with producing fine beer with far less yeast to start out with.
 
But my sanitation techniques are very meticulous and I have good temp control so I can get away with producing fine beer with far less yeast to start out with.

I'm not saying this to contradict your experiences, as I'm glad you've had success. That disclaimer aside, there are potential issues involved in low pitch rates that are not prevented by sanitation or temp control issues, so just having those things down pat does not mean you won't run into issues due to low pitch rates. But they certainly help. :D
 
I'm not saying this to contradict your experiences, as I'm glad you've had success. That disclaimer aside, there are potential issues involved in low pitch rates that are not prevented by sanitation or temp control issues, so just having those things down pat does not mean you won't run into issues due to low pitch rates. But they certainly help. :D

You're absolutely right. There's more to it than sanitation and temp control. Not only does the attenuation matter, but the attenuation rate or how fast it reaches final gravity. The longer the yeast takes to reach FG, the longer it has to be subject to increasingly stressful environment which means increased response to the stress by production of off flavors.

One of these days, I will try a strong lager like a doppelbock which is probably the least forgiving for homebrews and underpitch quite a bit. I'll try like 2 vials of yeast plus a 2L starter and see if I can make a clean tasting beer given those initial conditions. Hell, maybe I'll do it next month just for the heck of it.
 
I brewed a 5 gal 1.080 OG doppelbock yesterday. I spent the last 8 days making and building up a starter. (I don't have a stir plate, but swirled her around throughout the week). After I cold crashed for 24 hours @ 33 degrees, I had almost 1" of yeast in the 1 gallon growler which was almost completely full of spent wort. I have no idea if that was enough or too much but it sure looked like plenty so I decanted and pitched the whole thing.

It's been less than 24 hours and I see signs of krausen (temp is 48-50 degrees)!

Cheers!
 
Kaiser made a chart with Narziss's suggested pitch rates based on the slurry volume. I marked my jug so I can get a reasonable count on the pitch rate. Mr. Malty's cell counts for starter volumes are very close. I play with it until it puts out the number I want to figure the necessary starter size by entering a lower OG. It's not very hard to just guess now.



For a bock I repitch slurry from a pilsner or schwarzbier. I have one fermenting now. I'll also make another pilsner soon to keep my culture alive and healthy for a helles bock next month. I don't like to store yeast very long and I don't like to make starters. The yeast from the bocks will be trashed.
 
I believe this might be the post that got the ball rolling.

Damn. And I hoped it was mine for some odd reason! I think most everyone is missing the point. You CAN underpitch and it will make beer. It might even make decent beer. I don't think anyone is arguing that point. But, I believe if you want to make that beer the best it can be, you must be close to the correct pitch rate. Especially with lagers! This is why they have pitch rates for crying out loud!
 
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