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.
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.
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