How soon to diacetyl rest ?

Ive never brewed a Lager before but I gave it a shot over the weekend. Starting gravity was 1.058 . Two days into it I'm down to 1.025 and its still fermenting hard. I'm using S-23 saflager yeast from the pack into the wort. I am running the brew at 49 degrees in the chest freezer. Like i said Ive never done a lager before and the ferment seems crazy fast to me but I aerate with O2 through a stone so this seems to be what my Ales do as well. Anyway is this the time to pull the carboy out for a diacetyl rest?

wired247 said:

Ive never brewed a Lager before but I gave it a shot over the weekend. Starting gravity was 1.058 . Two days into it I'm down to 1.025 and its still fermenting hard. I'm using S-23 saflager yeast from the pack into the wort. I am running the brew at 49 degrees in the chest freezer. Like i said Ive never done a lager before and the ferment seems crazy fast to me but I aerate with O2 through a stone so this seems to be what my Ales do as well. Anyway is this the time to pull the carboy out for a diacetyl rest?

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You can either do it when you're about 75% of the way to Fg (about 1.018-1.020) or wait until visual clues show that it's active but slowing down some. If you miss that period, and do it later, it'll probably still be fine. The thought is just to do it before the yeast go dormant.

Sometimes you don't even need a diacetyl rest- if you pitch cold, do a long primary, and don't use a notorious diacetyl producer, for example- but it never hurts to do one.

I thought yeast was pretty good at taking care of diacetyl and other off-flavors even when flocculated, no? Hence, AB's practice of using Beechwood chips to create more surface area for flocc'd yeast to be in contact with the beer.

I just did my first lager with S-23. Went from 1.062 to 1.018 in about 6 days at 50F. I planned to d-rest it that day but something came up. The next day it was at 1.015 and I started the d-rest at 62F or so. Tonight it's into the fridge for a few weeks lagering. I was surprised at how fast the S-23 fermented out. I pitched 2 rehydrated packages into 50-ish wort and it was going strong after about 24 hours.

I'm anxious to taste the final results as this is my first lager in a LONG time.

Cheers!
K

I usually do it between the primary and secondary fermentation. Mainly because I have to rack it to empty the fermenter. Essentially it is nothing more then waiting to put the secondary in the lagerator.

Sometimes I go to drink the beer and realize it could use a rest. Again the solution is easy. Take the keg out of the kegerator and let it sit. Generally about a day is good enough for both. And I have taken kegs from my kegerator (most call it a beer fridge) and forgotten it in the garrage in a Texas summer over a weekend. After cooling it back down it was still fine. And my garage easily gets into the 100's in the summer.