First lager effort under way.

[r4dyce]

Hello. After reading all kinds of opinions and options I decided to try my hand at a Lager. I don't have a dedicated fermentation chamber so I decided to use a cold water bath in a large well insulated camping cooler.

I used a Cali common recipe figuring it would be more tolerable to temperature fluctuations.
3 gallon batch. All grain. 80% pale and some Crystal 10 and 40.
Og 1.058
1 pack of s23 made into a 24oz starter ~16 hours before pitching.
Pitched at 55. Lots of activity in the starter at pitching time.
Lots of fermenter airlock activity by the next morning. Temp was at 58-60 Decided to leave it out of the bath.
Day two. Still lots of activity but the fermenter temp was up to 64 so I put it in the bath.
Day 3-6 temp held steady at 58 since then.
Day 7 (today) took a sample. gravity down to 1.016 temp still at 58. Tastes very good. Very very close to anchor steam. Which makes sense. I couldn't taste any diacetyl or off flavors although I can't say I know 100% what I'm looking for. There was quite a bit of sedement floating around. Not sure if this is typical with the yeast or if it's some combination of me not being careful enough moving the bucket and having not cold crashed it yet.

Questions:
Should I still expect the gravity to drop a point or two?
Should I still bring it up to a diacetyl rest? Or should I just start bringing it down? My plan was to drop to close to 50 which will be easy. I have cold 45 degree tap water. Leave it there for a week and then drop it into my fridge for another two weeks ~38 deg. Unfortunately we use this fridge/freezer for other items so I can't dedicate it to a temperature controller.

Thoughts? Is this a good schedule? As might be assumed, I'm just kind of winging it. I realize I'm not using perfect temperature control methods, but I figured what the heck, worth a shot.
Even if it doesn't turn out great, I kind of like learning from mistakes first hand. Gives me a baseline from which to improve.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Morrey]

Hello. I decided to try my hand at a Lager. I don't have a dedicated fermentation chamber so I decided to use a cold water bath in a large camping cooler in a basement shower to make it easy to exchange the water if needed.

I used a Cali common recipe figuring it would be more tolerable to temperature fluctuations.
3 gallon batch.
1 pack of s23 made into a 24oz starter ~16 hours before pitching.
Pitched at 55
Lots of activity by the next morning. Decided to leave it out of the bath
Day two. Still lots of activity but the fermenter temp was up in the ba

Good choice being that Cali Common (yeast) is flexible in the temperatures that yield decent beer. Lager beers are usually difficult for brewers that lack fermentation control albeit you have made a swamp cooler of sorts.

Your first day or two of high yeast activity will create exothermic heat and drive the wort temp up by several degrees over ambient. It may be helpful to float a few frozen Gatorade (or similar) water bottles in the water bath to keep temps down. Even though this yeast can stand higher temps than other lager strains, there can be off flavors associated with temps on the high side.

After a few days and the krausen activity has subsided, temps can be easier to maintain. Draping a towel over the fermenter and letting the cool water wick upwards is also helpful. In the meantime, a used chest freezer is a worthy investment.

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

Still lots of activity but the fermenter temp was up in the ba

...in the bacon curing shed?

 

[r4dyce]

...in the bacon curing shed?

Lol sorry . Finger hit the wrong button. Edited with more details.

 

[r4dyce]

Good choice being that Cali Common (yeast) is flexible in the temperatures that yield decent beer. Lager beers are usually difficult for brewers that lack fermentation control albeit you have made a swamp cooler of sorts.

Your first day or two of high yeast activity will create exothermic heat and drive the wort temp up by several degrees over ambient. It may be helpful to float a few frozen Gatorade (or similar) water bottles to keep temps down. Even though this yeast can stand higher temps than other lager strains, there can be off flavors associated with temps on the high side.

After a few days and the krausen activity has subsided, temps can be easier to maintain. Draping a towel over the fermenter and letting the cool water wick upwards is also helpful. In the meantime, a used chest freezer is a worthy investment.

Thanks for the input. I edited with more details. (Sorry I hit the wrong button on my phone.)

 

[Morrey]

Looks like you are on the right track....after reading your edit. You will always get tons of opinions on processes like doing D rests. I used to do D rests all the time, then I just decided to try a true Lager w/o doing a D rest. I couldn't tell a darn bit of difference. The D rest encourages fermentation to finish up, but if handled properly along the way, I personally have gotten away from the rest.

You may have some krausen floating around on top, but most of it will have settled to the bottom. Lowering temps encourage flocculation of all suspended yeasts and trub, so you'll benefit from lowering the temps (cold crashing) before racking off and leaving the crud behind.

If you are at 1.016 on day 7, there is a strong possibility you'll drop another point or two by day 14. My personal rule of thumb is to allow 14 days for the yeast to complete fermentation and finish its cleanup period in which many off flavors will be eliminated. Follow that by crashing for a day or two and you should be ready to move the beer into keg or bottles.

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

Technically, you're a little late for a diacetyl rest, and you may have already accomplished that on Day 2 when it was at 64.
Also, some folks don't even do one at all... so don't sweat it at this point.
I'd just try and keep it 50-55 for the next week and then take another reading (I'd be surprised if a cali common didn't get to ~1.012. After it reaches terminal gravity, you can proceed with bottling or kegging, and lagering for a few weeks