Lager and Diacetyl rest

[robbeh]

I have done a lot of search on these forums and google and have a much better understanding of lagering/diacetyl rests. But the one thing I couldn’t find is, when should I start checking gravity of my beer? I don’t want to take a sample every day as I feel that’s a waste.

My goal is to get to that 1-2 points away from my target gravity and then pull it out of the fridge for 3 days. I know there probably isn’t a hard stop answer but roughly what guides you to start keeping a close eye on your gravity.

Also on that topic, I want to transfer it to my secondary since it’s glass to then lager the beer for a month. Should I do that after the diacetyl rest?

Thanks everyone!

 

[Kent88]

I personally don't check gravity to determine when to start the D-rest, I just give it a couple days after krausen finishes, and I leave it in primary so that there are more yeasts to clean it up.

A method I have heard of is letting it ferment all the way, making new wort, siphoning onto that, and then you have fewer measurements to take.

 

[robbeh]

I personally don't check gravity to determine when to start the D-rest, I just give it a couple days after krausen finishes, and I leave it in primary so that there are more yeasts to clean it up.

A method I have heard of is letting it ferment all the way, making new wort, siphoning onto that, and then you have fewer measurements to take.

Ok great, so in theory I could just wait until I don’t see to many bubbles in the airlock, then open up the bucket and take a look. If everything looks good, pull her out, d-rest, transfer and lager.

 

[Kent88]

I would still try to keep it at 60 or lower, and the lager purests might disagree, but I think it is a good place to start.

 

[Upthewazzu]

My usual method is to wait about 8-10 days before ramping up. I've tried ramping earlier and for whatever reason it seems to cause the yeast to stall. I guess they just don't like being heated up while doing all that hard work.

In the winter I ferment lagers at the usual 48°-52° temp, while in the summer I keep it a little warmer at around 58°-60°. My ferm chamber is in my garage so it gets pretty dang hot in there from Jun-Sep.

 

[robbeh]

The yeast I’m using had an ideal temp of 53*F so that’s what I’ve set my fridge to right now. I’ll D rest around 64 as that’s my basement temp but if you think 60 is better I can do that in the fridge.

Then I was going to drop it to mid 40’s for the month to lager it. Or is that too cold?

 

[Upthewazzu]

I aim for 62°-65° for the d-rest.

40's isn't too cold at all. I lager at ~35°. I taste it every week or so to check on the progress (I lager in the keg on pressure).

 

[snowtiger1987]

I don't get this part:

"A method I have heard of is letting it ferment all the way, making new wort, siphoning onto that, and then you have fewer measurements to take"

 

[waldoar15]

I brew mostly lagers now days and I don't get too wrapped up in the D-rest timing. I usually brew and leave town for 10 days/two weeks. When I get back, I warm it up to 62 for a few days then cold crash if I'm happy with the gravity reading.

I could see being more concerned if I were using a yeast that was known for throwing diacetyl, but I've never ran into an issue just doing it the way I do now.

As always, YMMV.

 

[Shwagger]

Fwiw, my vienna lager was brewed Saturday. Last night at 5 the gravity was 1.021. This morning I shot up to 65 which will take about 4 hours to reach. Come Sunday or Monday, ill start dropping 5 a day until I reach 33 or so. I am becoming a student of "why are we waiting so long to package our beer" school and package when its ready, not going by a method someone said one time 20 years ago to someone and it became gospel. Words were created by man, numbers were created by science.

KISS

 

[Kent88]

I don't get this part:

"A method I have heard of is letting it ferment all the way, making new wort, siphoning onto that, and then you have fewer measurements to take"

I phrased it weird. There is a term for this, I just don't know what it is.

As I understand it for a diacetyl rest you need to have active yeast in a warm-ish environment with some fermentable sugars. To me that sounds a lot like bottle carbonation. We don't constantly check gravity until it is just right to carbonate bottles and then get the siphon sanitized, we add some more fermentable sugar and keep them warm for a bit.

We're used to waiting 2 weeks or so until gravity stabilizes, but yeast can be re-awakened after that, so why not just go with business as usual until it comes time to rack to tertiary?

So when I read that we can make a little wort, like a starter wort, and siphon lager onto that for the D-rest it made a lot of sense.

 

[ba-brewer]

There are some charts in the middle of the page that outline a few different ways to skin the lager cat.
http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fermenting_Lagers

I use a refractometer to check gravity daily after active fermentation begins(constant bubbles), most beers are at 90% expected attenuation or better in 4 or 5 days post pitch with temps in the low to mid 50s. I stop checking at 90% and bump the temp by 5 or 6 degrees and allow to finish at that temp for 3 or 4 days.