Little lager test!

So last night I decided to try my first 10 gallon batch of a basic German Pilsner and split it into 2 separate 5 gallon batches. First batch will be fermented with a dry yeast(Saflager 34/70) and the second with a liquid yeast built up with a 2000ml starter(Pilsner WLP800) to test out dry vs liquid yeast. Have brewed this recipe a few times with the dry yeast with great results in 5 gallon batches. Curious to see how the liquid yeast turns out. Here was the recipe that I used:

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Pilsner 50/50 test
Brewer: Bips Brewing
Style: German Pilsner
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
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Boil Size: 14.00 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.75 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 10.75 gal
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 3.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 32.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 78.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 80.1 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt Name Type # %/IBU
12 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) UK (1.0 SRM) Grain 1 64.9 %
5 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 27.0 %
1 lbs Carafoam (Weyermann) (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.4 %
8.0 oz Carapils Muntons (15.0 SRM) Grain 4 2.7 %
2.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 5 17.4 IBUs
2.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 6 12.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 3.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Steep/Whirlpool Hop 8 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Pilsner Lager (White Labs #WLP800) [35.4 Yeast 9 -


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash
----------------------------

Step one Add 6.28 gal of water at 158.2 F 148.0 F 60 min
Step two Add -0.00 gal of water and heat to 156. 156.0 F 30 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F 10 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 10.44 gal water at 168.0 F

Boil 90 Minutes

Chill to 45 degrees F
Pitch yeast.

I am very excited about this experiment.

Got a measured mash eff. of 100.6% for the first time on Beersmith. I cooled the wort for 24hours in my ferm chamber along with the yeast starter and the dry yeast down to 45F. I aerated the wort for 5 minutes each 5gal and pitched. Have bubbler action within 30 minutes for each!

Lets see how this goes! :rockin:

Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Did you re-hydrate the dry yeast?

I've never used dry lager yeast and have often wondered about how people go about this. Obviously, the smart move is to rehydrate any dry yeast, but that is often done around 85F for ale yeasts. I would think that pitching re-hydrated lager yeast into 45F wort might end up shocking the yeast. Do you chill the re-hydrated slurry down to pitching temps before adding to the wort?

I haven't run the numbers, but it sounds like you really underpitched both beers. For a lager, you should pitch two packs of dry yeast, not one, and if you don't rehydrate then some estimates are that you can lose up to half the viable cells. So you may have pitched like a quarter the dry yeast of what is recommended. For dry lager yeast, you should rehydrate around room temp then add cold water or wort over like 10-15 minutes to slowly chill the slurry to near pitching temp, then pitch.


And usually a 2L liquid starter would be way too small for a lager; 4-8L is more typical.

Both beers may well be delicious, but you probably shouldn't form very strong opinions on the yeast if good pitch rates weren't followed.

For the liquid yeast started, Beersmith calculated one pack would be enough as starter with stir plate. And for the dry yeast, I did pitch 2 packs.

This morning the dry yeast batch was bubbling away and the liquid batch very little action. So maybe I should have built up the starter more.