After brewday

Hello my friends,

I would like to tell you what i usually do for lagers and ale, and ask that you suggest ways to improve. I am not certain that I am doing things correctly.

I have read how to brew, and several other brewing books. I am very confused because it seems they all do things differently. It would be great if you could just read what I do, and tell me if it is ok or not.

EDIT: I use larger staters 1 -2 gallons usually for lagers, maybe one gallon for large ales and half gallon for small ales. I pitch slurry.

I usually pitch at fermentation temperature. For lagers i fermet aprox 45*F and ale between 60*F and 80*F. I let the pucket ferment untill i reach my final gravity or within two points of final gravity. When this is finished, i increase temperature by maybe 10*F for lagers, and sometimes as high as 15*F for ales (with the aim of reducing diacetyl rest) for 2-4 days. (that means I do not rack it to a 2ndary vessel before it is complete to let it ferment to finish in a different vessel).

After wards I rack to new vessel (leaving yeast cake, trub and crap behind), and leave at aprox 35*F for both ale and lager. I usually leave ale for 1 - 2 wks, and lagers up from 4 wks to 8 wks.

Then I bottle. I leave the bottles at room temperature for both ale and lager for three weeks to 9 months (depending on gravity)

Thanks,
Marius

All sounds great to me, though I can only speak for the ales, I can't do any lagers at this point.

Like many others on HBT, I usually leave my ales in primary for 3-5 weeks, and don't use a brite tank unless I am adding fruit/spices/dry hopping, etc. That being said, I don't really mind if my beers aren't perfectly clear, as I am not submitting anything to competitions.

One thing I would change - 80 is high for ales, I would say try to keep it at around 72 at the warmest.

However, just like the varying opinions on the books, you will find varying opinions on HBT. Read everything, and consider all options, and experiment. There really isn't a perfect way to do it, there are many ways of achieving great beer - just do whatever works for you.

You generally don't have to do a diacetyl rest with ales, but raising the fermenter about 2 degrees at th end of fermentation may clean up some diacetyl if it's in there. I don't do that, unless I'm using a notorious diacetyl producer, or a yeast that doesn't want to finish up the last few points.

As the other poster said, though, 80 degrees is WAY too high. Most ale yeast like being in the 60s, and you'll get a better beer if you ferment no higher than the yeast strain's optimal temperatures. (Not ambient temperature, but fermentation temperature of the beer inside the fermenter).

I would consider raising the temperature from 62 degrees to 66 degrees, for example, if I needed a diacetyl rest for an ale or if it was sluggish and not dropping the last couple points.

Lagers are a whole different ballgame. They need a much larger starter (usually twice as large) and more babying. Some lager yeast don't produce much in the way of diacetyl though, especially if you pitch a huge starter cold, so I don't always do a diacetyl rest for them either.

Thank you for your replies!

I use larger staters 1 -2 gallons usually for lagers, and pitch slurry.

YooperBrew, you say that lagers are a whole different ballgame. I have heard that too. When you say this, do you mean that there is anything that can be improved in the procedure I described?

What does it mean that lagers requires more babying?

Thanks,
Marius