In a nutshell please describe your technique for brewing lagers

[Q2XL]

I have brewed 3 lagers so far and 2 of them had very poor attenuation. I used the brewing method for lagers as described in "Brewing Classic Styles".

The method is to chill the wort down to 44F, rack to another carboy, pitch yeast, slowly raise the temp to 50F over 36 hours and hold at that temp for the rest of the fermentation.

I pitched a lot of yeast (or so I thought), so I don't know what the problem is.

So, how do you brew your lagers?

 

[willynilly]

I brew mine just like an ale...


I chill to the IDEAL temp. for the yeast strain I am using, 50-55 typically, pitch yeast and let her go. I have always hit my #s... I dont see the point in chilling to 44F, then letting it rise to ferm. temps??

Some if it may depend on your grain bill and your mash itself.

 

[Pharkan1]

Well I brewed 4 lagers, all turned out somewhere between good and great.

I cool to 18-20 C (66-68 F) pitch a lot of lageryeast (no racking to another carboy) and leave in a place of 11 C (50 F) for 4 to 6 weeks.

 

[mightynintendo]

Hold at 50 for primary. Well yes, but I do things differently. Sometimes I hold at 52 and even 54 for primary or as low as 48. 50 is a starting point. If the yeast kicks in fast and strong I lower the temp. If it lags a day or two I raise it. Are you forgetting your diacetyl rest? Just as the krausen begins to fall (typically about 2 weeks) you should raise the temp by 5 degrees for two days, then hold for a day, then drop by 5 degrees per day until you hit 35 (or whatever you want to lager at). Then rack to your lagering vessel and wait and wait and wait...

 

[Yooper]

I make a HUGE yeast starter, and then chill. On brewday, I decant the spent wort and take it out of the fridge while I brew. I chill the wort to 50 degrees, and pitch the yeast at 48 degrees if I can.

I know that Noonan (and others) suggest pitching cooler and allowing it to rise, but I can barely get the wort down to 50 with my chiller- no way I can get it in the 40s. I guess I could let it sit overnight in the fridge, let the break material fall out, etc, but I just pitch when I'm at 50 degrees.

I've never had a problem with attenuation. I generally mash at the temperatures dictated by the style, and do a decoction mash for the beers that are traditionally decocted. The Vienna lager I have on top now (Bradsul's recipe) is a double decoction. It went from 1.054 to 1.010 using Bavarian lager yeast (Wyeast 2206).

 

[azscoob]

I brewed my first lager yesterday, I did a double decoction mash, cooled to 50° and pitched waaay more yeast than I thought I needed, (I followed the mr malty calculator for a lager stirplate starter volume) and stuffed it into the fermentation fridge. I will let you know how it works out in a few months!

 

[Q2XL]

How do you guys and girls chill down your wort to the 50's? Do you just use your chiller or do you put it in your fridge overnight and let it chill down to your desired pitching temp?

 

[willynilly]

How do you guys and girls chill down your wort to the 50's? Do you just use your chiller or do you put it in your fridge overnight and let it chill down to your desired pitching temp?

Closed circuit ICE water cooling while still in the BK

 

[mightynintendo]

I crash cool my boiled wort down to 70 with a chiller, then siphon it to a carboy and put it in the chest freezer at 48 degF overnight. The yeast is also chillin in the freezer too. The next day I siphon to the primary and leave behind the break material, pitch the yeast and let her go.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

I chill it to 'ale' temps and then let it chill the rest of the way in the lager fridge.

How much yeast did you pitch and how did you get that much yeast? Did you make a starter? Can you explain exactly how you propogated the yeast (including the mfr date of the yeast)?

EDIT: reading the post above made me think of another question: did you put perfectly clear wort in the fermenter or did you let some cold break get in (you want some cold break)?

 

[menschmaschine]

How do you guys and girls chill down your wort to the 50's? Do you just use your chiller or do you put it in your fridge overnight and let it chill down to your desired pitching temp?

I use an immersion chiller with regular cold water (well) and get it as low as I can (even in summer, I can get it down in the 60s°F), then switch the water supply from the faucet to a large plastic tub filled with ice water and a submersible pump. I buy 2 large bags of ice the day before brewday to use. I can get it down to 45-ish°F fairly easily.

For your attenuation problem, I too had attenuation problems with both ales and lagers. I always mash a little lower to account for this and can get my lagers down to 1.011. But I do a direct-heat mashout and I theorize that this 10 min. rise in temp. through the alpha-amylase range gives more dextrins than expected. I hope to brew a German Pils this weekend and may try to do a hot water infusion to mash out and see if that creates a more fermentable wort.

 

[azscoob]

I had some cold break in mine, as for pitching volume, I used my stirplate to build up to calculated volumes. on the chilling side I cool all my batches with my immersion chiller and a pond pump in a cooler full of ice water, works fast and I can chill down into the 40's if needed :rockin:

 

[steinsato]

It's interesting that a lot of you chill your wort to 50 before pitching yeast. I used Wyeast Lager Yeast and the directions I found were to pitch at regular temps of around 70F wait about a day for the yeast to start doing it's thang, then slowly drop the temp to about 50F. I then leave it in primary for about 2 weeks, bring it back to about 65F for 2 days for the Drest then drop it back to 50 for another week or so. Then rack to the cornelius and stick it in the kegerator at around 40F for x amount of months. This is what i've done 3 times and I've always been happy with the results. I'm certainly no lager genius though.

When I keep my fermenter at 50F it is simply set in an unheated room in our house that tends to stay in the 50s during the winter. The temps may fluctuate 5 degrees or so, which i'm sure is not a good thing but I've never been dissappointed in the end result.

 

[mightynintendo]

Well getting some break material is pretty much inevitable without leaving a whole gallon of wort behind. I siphon right above the break material so some is always being sucked in, then at the end i'll tilt the carboy and get considerably more. I still leave behind about 75% though. I don't pitch at 70 because I make a starter. The starter does start at 70 and goes for 36 hours then sits for a couple to several days in the fridge before decanting and pitching. I pitch when both are at 48-50 so as to not thermally shock the yeast.

 

[toman8r]

Doing a Fast Ferment Test with your lagers should help you figure out what is up your poor attenutation.

 

[LagerLover24]

I do the same method, exept I just leave it in the primary to lager. Works out great every time.

 

[yournotpeter]

How do you guys and girls chill down your wort to the 50's? Do you just use your chiller or do you put it in your fridge overnight and let it chill down to your desired pitching temp?

I chill it as much as I can with my immersion chiller, transfer to a bucket, and let it sit overnight in my fridge. In the morning, I transfer to a carboy (leaving break material behind) and then pitch a HUGE starter that I've had spinning on a stir plate for a number of days (I decant the starter wort before pitching).