Yeast options for larger (half barrel or more) homebrew lager batches

[eric19312]

I'm wanting to get into lagers and struggling with how to manage yeast requirements. My standard scale is 17 gallons into fermenter. Focusing for now on worts in the 1.046-1.052 range. Prefer not to warm ferment or pressure ferment at this time. I'd like to use liquid yeast. Calculators available on White Labs and Imperial Yeast sites indicate I'd need 6 packs from either. Assumes I get them fresh.

Answer I am expecting is either starter or yeast harvesting...the starter plan looks daunting. BrewUnited suggests perhaps 2 packs of white labs yeast in a 7 liter starter on a stir plate. Anybody doing something like this? What sort of container are you using? Can you provide details about your process?

 

[RM-MN]

Think of a batch of beer as the starter for another, bigger batch. Rule of thumb is that you can use the yeast from a batch of beer to start 4 new batches. If I were to brew a 5 gallon batch, that yeast in the bottom of the fermenter would be sufficient for a 20 gallon batch at optimal pitch rate. Optimal pitch rate isn't totally necessary as people have strayed quite far from that and still made good beer.

 

[eric19312]

Think of a batch of beer as the starter for another, bigger batch. Rule of thumb is that you can use the yeast from a batch of beer to start 4 new batches. If I were to brew a 5 gallon batch, that yeast in the bottom of the fermenter would be sufficient for a 20 gallon batch at optimal pitch rate. Optimal pitch rate isn't totally necessary as people have strayed quite far from that and still made good beer.

OK this works for you with lagers?

I've got a batch going now that I used 3 white labs pure pitches in. I made a 2 gallon shaken-not-stirred starter and the batch was 17 gallons of 1.046. Lag was probably 48 hours before I saw blow off tube activity. I've tried harvesting the yeast before cold crash and only got about 300 mL after the harvesting vessel settled. I think there is still quite a bit of yeast in the fermentor but seems to be stuck in the elbow plumbing. Maybe after I keg the batch I can add some cold starter wort and give it a shake to get a bigger harvest.

 

[Jack Arandir]

I brew 15gal batches of lagers fairly frequently. My metric is 1200B cells, and I estimate a yeast pack has 200B cells. If starting from scratch, I'll make 2x 5L starters of 600B cells each. Or preferably, I'll harvest yeast and use it for the next batch. My house strain is WY2308/Diamond, but I've started using 34/70 for its reliability.

 

[eric19312]

Got a microscope and going to do a cell count on coming batch. know I'm overthinking this but lager has been one of those styles I've never gotten right and I'm planning to keep at it till I get it.

 

[AlexKay]

Got a microscope and going to do a cell count on coming batch. know I'm overthinking this but lager has been one of those styles I've never gotten right and I'm planning to keep at it till I get it.

You’re going to keep at it … 17 gallons at a time? Wowza.

 

[pvtpublic]

Talk to your local breweries, I'm sure there's at least one of them willing to hook you up with as much slurry as you want. I know a few around my area that are happy to do so.

 

[Jag75]

I'd do what @RM-MN is talking about. Brew a 5 gallon batch , use that yeast cake for your 17 gallon batch . Then harvest the yeast.

 

[Bobby_M]

You really can't do big lager batches without a stirplate. My buddy makes 17 gallons of lagers on the regular and uses a 3 gallon glass carboy to make 7 liter starters from 2 packs of yeast.

 

[eric19312]

My plan is to keg and harvest yeast from current batch on Saturday and get a cell count. Then brew on Sunday, and depending on amount of live yeast cells on Saturday either do a SNS or vitality starter or just make an ale with dry yeast if count is nowhere close.

 

[eric19312]

So I collected my yeast cake from previous batch...was a 1.048 Helles, I used 3 pure pitch pouches of WLP 830 on that batch in a 1 gallon SNS starter. I forgot to check the born on date for those pouches but I did see about 48 hour lag and was kinda worried about the beer. Brewed on 3/19 and kegged it yesterday, no need to worry it came out fine.

So the yeast cake I harvested worked out to about 1.75 quarts moderately thick slurry. Collected about 2/3 of it about a week ago before cold crashing and the rest yesterday after kegging. This was brewed on 3/19. It would probably compact to much lower volume but I mixed it up to make sure I could get a uniform sample and tried my hand at cell counting.

Looks like I've got about 1500 billion live yeast cells and plan to pitch them all into a 1.050 17 gallon batch as soon as the wort finishes chilling. That will work out to about 2 million cells/mL/degree Plato.

Will be interesting to see how it performs compared to last batch. The lag was scary and finishing gravity was a bit high at 1.012 but still quite a nice beer.

 

[SanPancho]

if you're counting cells then you're golden, just figure out what the starter requirement is and you're set. frankly in this case you're still having to cough up quite a bit for yeast. since you dont want to ferment warm or under pressure i'd do the biggest starter you can with the gear at hand. for most folks, i'd wager that's a 5gallon starter beer that will be a bit of an overbuild for your 17gal. if you're fermenting cold, its always better to overbuild/pitch.

getting it from a brewery is great, but most dont brew a bunch of lagers so its a bit hard to find the brewery who uses the one you want, find out next time they brew, and make sure you can get there when they dump yeast. can be hard/tricky.

you'll save yourself a TON of time and money if you just go dry. morebeer has mexican lager, the weistephen 34/70, and i think the s23 lager by the brick for less than 100 bucks. other brew shops (even amazon) sell the fermentis and lallemand stuff as well. s189, diamond, novalager, etc. etc. 500g bricks, and if i recall correctly thats enough for like ~7bbl of beer if pitching cold.

unless you've got a favorite yeast that is only liquid i'd say skip the hassle, go dry by the brick.

 

[eric19312]

you'll save yourself a TON of time and money if you just go dry. morebeer has mexican lager, the weistephen 34/70, and i think the s23 lager by the brick for less than 100 bucks. other brew shops (even amazon) sell the fermentis and lallemand stuff as well. s189, diamond, novalager, etc. etc. 500g bricks, and if i recall correctly thats enough for like ~7bbl of beer if pitching cold.

unless you've got a favorite yeast that is only liquid i'd say skip the hassle, go dry by the brick.

This is interesting advice and I might give it a try. For some crazy reason Morebeer wants $275 for a 500g S-189 and $225 for 34/70 but see other vendors more in the $150 range for various Saflager products. For the pitch rate I'm after looks like I'd get 3-4 batches out of one of these although I do also see anecdotes of brewers claiming to brew 7 bbl batches with a single brick.

Here is what the Fermentis tech pack says about W-34/70
80 to 120 g/hl for fermentation at 12°C–18°C / 0,11 to 0,16 oz/gal for fermentation at 53.6-64.4°F. Increase pitching for fermentation lower than 12°C/53°F up to 200 to 300 g/hl at 9°C (up to 0.27 to 0.40 oz/gal at 48°F).

So I'd start out aiming at 250 g/hl rate which would be 160 grams per batch...just about perfect for 3 batches per brick and then you get all the convenience of working with dry yeast.

 

[Jag75]

I brew 3bbl and use 05 a lot. I pitch 207g . While dry yeast is cheaper , I find that some yeast is way better in liquid . For instance, Mexican lager. So we use dry yeast in everything except the Mexican lager

 

[SanPancho]

This is interesting advice and I might give it a try. For some crazy reason Morebeer wants $275 for a 500g S-189 and $225 for 34/70 but see other vendors more in the $150 range for various Saflager products. For the pitch rate I'm after looks like I'd get 3-4 batches out of one of these although I do also see anecdotes of brewers claiming to brew 7 bbl batches with a single brick.

Here is what the Fermentis tech pack says about W-34/70
80 to 120 g/hl for fermentation at 12°C–18°C / 0,11 to 0,16 oz/gal for fermentation at 53.6-64.4°F. Increase pitching for fermentation lower than 12°C/53°F up to 200 to 300 g/hl at 9°C (up to 0.27 to 0.40 oz/gal at 48°F).

So I'd start out aiming at 250 g/hl rate which would be 160 grams per batch...just about perfect for 3 batches per brick and then you get all the convenience of working with dry yeast.

cellar science is their in-house brand. its just repackaged from big yeast labs. looks like $109 for mexi, 34/70 and s-23 varieties. (baja, german, berlin)

 

[eric19312]

I brew 3bbl and use 05 a lot. I pitch 207g . While dry yeast is cheaper , I find that some yeast is way better in liquid . For instance, Mexican lager. So we use dry yeast in everything except the Mexican lager

so you are at about 60 grams/hL which would be in the recommended dose range recommended for US-05.
50 to 80 g/hl at ideally 18-26°C (64.4-78.8°F)

Is there a dry lager yeast you do like? How much of that do you pitch?

 

[Jag75]

so you are at about 60 grams/hL which would be in the recommended dose range recommended for US-05.
50 to 80 g/hl at ideally 18-26°C (64.4-78.8°F)

Is there a dry lager yeast you do like? How much of that do you pitch?

I don't know of any dry Mexican lager yeast. We order from Imperial . We let them know how many barrels and the OG. They send us a direct pitch.