Doing First Lager

I'm about ready to do my first lager and wanted to know if how i'm going to do it would be alright. I have a 7 cf. chest freezer and digital temp controller so i can keep perfect temp. What i'm going to do is have the yeast and the wort in about 55 deg. fahrenheit before i even pitch the yeast. When fermentation is complete i was going to transfer to sanatized keg and force carb it, then either keep in keg or transfer to bottles with blichman beer gun. My question is how big of a starter should i use, (the starter would be made of the actual beer wort), and is there any problems how i'm going about this.


Thanx:rockin:

 

What's the O.G.?

 

Don't know yet, haven't made it yet but it would probably be around 1.041

 

........your thread makes me sick.......


"I'm going to invade a third world country, and all I have is a fleet of stealth bombers, surveilance drones, 100,000 soldiers, and tactical nuclear weapons......"

Lol, you will be fine.

 

Typically, after fermentation you want to lager it. Fermentation should be 2-4 weeks, after which you'll want to rack to secondary and lager at 7-10 degrees below your fermentatiion temp for 3-5 weeks. Some will just leave the beer in the primary for 3-5 weeks and package from there, but that skips the "lagering" stage of your lager. That having been said, so long as fermentation has run its course, do what you will and you'll have beer brewed with a lager yeast.

 

That's a pretty low O.G., but still, it being a lager and all, I would do a 2 liter starter or two yeast packets/vials or whatever yeast you are using. Jamil would probably recommend a 3 liter starter and or 3 packets. Your call. I think you'll be fine with 2.

 

Wait a second...(the starter would be made of the actual beer wort). Do you mean that you are going to calculate your batch so that 2 liters of starter liquid will bring the final wort up to 5 gallons?

 

yes

 

I usually use a 2 liter starter but I use dme and decant as much of the liquid off as I can before pitching in my lagers.

 

It may upset the purists but I would recommend pitching the yeast at room temperature then putting the fermenter in the lager chest. You certainly don't want to pitch room temperature starters in 55 degree wort.