White Labs WLP-810 San Francisco Lager Yeast Temperatures

According to the instructions on the tube, "add to 5 gallons of aerated must or wort at 70-75F. Keep at this temperature until fermentation begins."

I saw my first bubble in the airlock about 14 hours after pitching, 72F inside fermenter, and left it in the 68F kitchen until 22 hours had passed and it was around 70F inside the fermenter. The bubbling was around 1 bubble per 3 seconds at 22 hours.

At 22 hours I took the fermenter to the garage and it was down to 68F inside fermenter after about 30 hours. Continuous bubbling now.
Inside fermenter temperature has slowly worked down to around 58F. as I approach day 6 after pitching. Bubbles are about once every 3-4 seconds again.

Did I keep it above 70F too long? Should I have moved it to the cold of the garage on sight of the first bubble at 14 hours?

I plan on dumping trub after primary and leaving in the garage until 4 weeks have passed after fermentation began and then I will bottle and let bottle condition for 3 weeks. It is a California Common (Steam beer) by the way and chosen for my first lager from my hope that it would handle some mistakes better than a pilsner or German lager and those yeasts would.

I did a California Common with that yeast a little while ago. I held fermentation at 62F for a couple of weeks, then racked to secondary for another 3 weeks at roughly the same temp (per Jamil's guidance in "Brewing Classic Styles").

My understanding is that a steam beer should be fermented cool (but not as cool as a "real" lager). Regardless, you've already finished and you've made beer. I'm sure it will be good.

For the future! I think you would have been better off making a big starter and pitching into a cooler Wort. Any off flavors you might get from the warm ferment should fade over time.

My Lager attempts never came out that good because I did pitch and start ferment too warm as per advice of LHBS, which may possibly be where you are shopping. Then I realized I don't really like lagers all that much so I stopped trying.

4 year old throead, but I';m adding some pennies:

I plan on brewing CA Common next weekend, been researching SF Lager Yeast -- looks like its best to stay below 65 degrees. I live in Coastal SF Bay Area, so the garage is probably where my bucket will live. Looking forward to this beer, single fermentation and quick to brew means I'll be a very happy boy around the 2nd week of December.

Glad you dug up a 4 yr old post. I'm thinking about doing a Steam Anchor clone first part of Dec and it calls for this yeast. How did your brew day turn out? How is the yeast doing?

johnny1211 said:

Glad you dug up a 4 yr old post. I'm thinking about doing a Steam Anchor clone first part of Dec and it calls for this yeast. How did your brew day turn out? How is the yeast doing?

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Can you post your recipe or a link? Thinking this will be a beer I brew with my Father-in-law soon.

Here's the link to the recipe I'm going to use. Hope it turns out for you.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f63/california-common-anchor-steam-clone-extract-ag-54301/

I'm fermenting the California Common as we speak (boil was on Friday).

I screwed up the starter (long story) so I had to just put the yeast on top of the wort.

Pitched in about 24 hours, thick krausen at about 40 hours (give or take), now its doing just fine.

I live in California, normally ferment my ales under my stairs, but because my house is always 68 degrees, I decided to put the fermenter outside in the garage, where its staying at a healthy 63 degrees.

I'm just going to do single fermentation, don't much care if its filtered. But, I figure I'll start checking gravity in about 10 days. If I had a starter, I probably would sit on it one more week than I'm going to.

Big question I'm wondering -- Anchor Steam has a crisp copper flavor, some other beers also have a strogner copper flavor (thinking specifically of a brew called Copper Tail by Bridgeport, I think?) -- anyone know if this comes form fermentation? Can it be as simple a fermentation in a copper pot?