A good weekend

[Beerdoc]

Well, I told you I was going to do it and I did my first AG batch this weekend. I batch sparged a 10 gallon batch with a protein rest (probably not necessary, but I did it anyway to test my calcs from Palmer's online book) at 125F for 20 min, then I took it to 153F (really, I'm not kidding) with a little extra added boiling water for 60min. I drained, then took it to 170-173F for about 15min. The runoffs were then boiled as usual.

SpecGrav was 1.040 prior to boil, then 1.060 into the fermenter(target 1.056).

I'm definitely not bragging, cause all the info I used came from this Forum, so thanks. I just want to say it really works (my friend helping me was amazed).

I'm using 2 carboys and pitched 2 diff types of yeast, a German ale and an Oktoberfest mix (both wyeast) just to see the difference. The ale is going like crazy after 12 hours and the lager was still, so I aerated again and now I have 1 bubble every 2 minutes in the airlock. Is that enough indication for "activity" and should I go ahead and cool it down from 70F to 50's? This is my first lager, so I don't know what to expect. Looking at them side by side is crazy because of the difference in activity.

 

[boo boo]

IMO the lager should have been started at fermentation temps. The lag time would have been longer unless you pitched the optimun amount of yeast and aerated well. I pitched a starter into a czech pilsner yesterday afternoon and it is working good now and I pitched into 60f wort and placed into a fridge at 50f for fermentation. Pitching into 70f wort may and I do say may cause esters to be produced which may show themselves in the final beer as off flavors. But it will still make great beer. Throw that sucker in the fridge.