Lager question....

After 15 successful ale batches this year I attempted my first lager last night. I innoculated the wort with 2 pouches of saflager and left in my garage which is a balmy 48°.

Should I have started the fermentation warmer and then cooled or can I start the fermentation at 48°? I don't see any activity after 7 hours. I use pure O2 for oxygenation and usually have good activity by now.

Any input would be helpful.

Cheers.

You should be fine. The yeast will take a little longer to get started and to completely ferment out the beer at lower temperatures. There is some debate about whether it's better to pitch the yeast warm and chill it down to fermenting temperature or start with the whole show cold and let it warm up a few degrees to fermntation temps. I'm a pitch cold man myself.

I've done both. Lag times are longer with pitching cold, but you don't have to worry about your fermentation getting out of control. Pitching warmer gets things underway faster, but you have to worry about getting it your temperature down before your yeast goes wild.

I tend to chill my wort down to around room temperature or a little lower, pitch the starter, and then put the primary in the cooler for lager fermentation. The wort will not cool down faste enough to shock the yeast, and the warmer temperature will reduce lag time a bit. I figure it's as close as I can get to the best of both worlds.


TL

What about starters with lager yeasts?

My system consists of a flask and stir plate. Typically make up a 1.040 DME solution, boil, cool to about 70F, pitch, and leave on stir plate for a bit over 24 hrs.

Will this work for lager yeasts?

drayman86 said:

What about starters with lager yeasts?

My system consists of a flask and stir plate. Typically make up a 1.040 DME solution, boil, cool to about 70F, pitch, and leave on stir plate for a bit over 24 hrs.

Will this work for lager yeasts?

Click to expand...

Take a look at these:
http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Essentially, yes, repeat your process but you will probably want to make the starter bigger and cool and decant the spent starter wort before pitching especially if you fermented your starter warm.

The thing i would worry about is the temp fluctuating. it is not going to be 48 during the day and night. I did a similar thing with a lager and placed it under the porch (non climate controlled room in my basement) and the temp never dipped below 40 but it fluctuated so much that the yeast must have gone crazy and created a beer with crazy fusel alcohols.

My first and only dumped batch (knock on wood)

This may also give you some more insight on fermenting lagers. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Fermenting_Lagers

Kai