Did I cool too fast?

[vanceromance]

My first lager with temp control )a mexican pilsner). I pitched at 75deg. In 12 hours had lots of activity. directions said to cool to 50-55deg at about 1 deg per hour. After about 5 degrees It was bed time so I just punched in the final temperature and went to bed. in the morning I was down to 55degs as set. Still have actifvity but much slower than at 75 deg. Should I raise the temp and start again or just leave it be??

How does everyone reduce temp at a 1 deg per hour rate if you just have e temp control with no rate setting??

 

[bruin_ale]

If you lower the temp of your chamber down a few degrees at a time, your wort temp will drop much more slowly because it's got 5 gallons of thermal inertia. So if you have 12 hours to drop the wort 20 degrees, you could drop it 5 degrees every 3 hours. That would be a much more gradual temp change than just dropping the chamber to 55 and letting the wort adjust.

That said, no matter how you drop the temp you'll see far less/slower activity at 55 than you did at 75 - that's kinda the point. You want to slow down the yeast to get them to produce a clean fermentation without all the esthers and other things they may do at 75.