How quick can I Secondary and re-pitch on a lager cake

[PaulHilgeman]

Brewed an amber lager on Monday, used a 4L stirplate starter of WL833 bock yeast, had solid activity in 12 hours and it was roaring after 24 hours. I have kept the internal wort temp at 51 degrees.

Is there any chance that:

1. I can move this to secondary on Sunday, 6 days after brewing?
2. Enough yeast will have dropped out that I can usefully ferment on the yeast cake on Sunday?

I have a programmable fermentation chamber and could ramp up on Saturday to help it finish. I'll also take a gravity reading on Saturday and Sunday to see where it is at. I'll keep the secondary warm for a week or so as a D-Rest and to complete fermentation. I think this is the way that Kai reccomends:

"When to rack the beer
When using accelerated maturation, as described above, the beer can be racked before or after its maturation is completed. Though it will be taken from the majority of the yeast, plenty of yeast will remain in suspension to finish the job although it may do its job a little slower. My own experience tells me to keep the beer in the primary until it is at least within 1 Plato (4 gravity points) of the expected final extract/gravity. Racking shortly after finished primary fermentation also enables the home brewer to harvest fresher yeast that can immediately be used in another batch."

What do you guys think?

 

[nitrousjunkie]

Brewed an amber lager on Monday, used a 4L stirplate starter of WL833 bock yeast, had solid activity in 12 hours and it was roaring after 24 hours. I have kept the internal wort temp at 51 degrees.

Is there any chance that:

1. I can move this to secondary on Sunday, 6 days after brewing?
2. Enough yeast will have dropped out that I can usefully ferment on the yeast cake on Sunday?

I have a programmable fermentation chamber and could ramp up on Saturday to help it finish. I'll also take a gravity reading on Saturday and Sunday to see where it is at. I'll keep the secondary warm for a week or so as a D-Rest and to complete fermentation. I think this is the way that Kai reccomends:

"When to rack the beer
When using accelerated maturation, as described above, the beer can be racked before or after its maturation is completed. Though it will be taken from the majority of the yeast, plenty of yeast will remain in suspension to finish the job although it may do its job a little slower. My own experience tells me to keep the beer in the primary until it is at least within 1 Plato (4 gravity points) of the expected final extract/gravity. Racking shortly after finished primary fermentation also enables the home brewer to harvest fresher yeast that can immediately be used in another batch."

What do you guys think?

Check the gravity before ramping up the temps. If it's mostly done, it should be fine. You got to remember that lager yeast is slower than ale yeast. If it were me, I would hold off for one more week and let it finish in the 50's.

 

[aiptasia]

The question isn't "can I do a quick turn around?" on your yeast, the question should be "should I do a quick turn around on my yeast?"

Rapid fermentations benefit from sitting on the yeast cake to clean up any early production fusel alcohols, such as diacetyl and acetylaldehyde. When you take your gravity readings and they're the same for two to three days in a row, let it sit another week. This extra time is only going to benefit the finished beer. If you rack to a secondary too quickly, you will still have residual fermentation going on and/or potentially have off flavors in your beer that may never clean up right through conditioning. Don't rush it.

IMHO, get another primary vessel, make another starter, and use both on the new beer.

 

[AnOldUR]

Since it's a lager I'd also give it another week before doing a D-rest, ramp back down and harvest.

 

[PaulHilgeman]

I am going to go for it. I pulled a sample, light diacetyl and sulphur, but gravity was at 1.014, a few points higher than target. Krausen has fallen, so a good amount of yeast should transfer over with the beer, and enough *should* be left behind to ferment the pilsner next. I'll let this one sit warm for a week before putting it in the kegerator.

I guess this is what happens when you do a huge starter!

 

[PaulHilgeman]

So wl833 is an absolute monster. I ferment in a SS conical. I pulled the first pint or so of thick yeasty beer and then kegged the remainder, I poured the thick yeasty beer right back in the conical. I chilled the pilsner down to 39 degrees before transferrin to the conical. I set the fermentation chamber at 48 degrees. 14 hours later, it was going nuts! Huge cap of foam on the surface of the beer, most of that time it had probably been in the low to mid 40s!

The original beer was super cloudy as expected and is sitting indoors letting the yeast clean-up. It was fully attenuated though an should be ready for cold conditioning later in the week.

I have previously used the classic WL830 / WY2124 and WY2206, even with huge starters and lots of o2, those seemed to take twice as long at the same temps.

-paul