Fermenting 1st Lager / What to Expect

[brandonlovesbeer]

I brewed my first lager yesterday. Nothing fancy. Just a first attempt at a style.

Yeast: Wyeast 2007
I made a yeast starter that was 100% active when I pitched it. (56°F)

The wort is at a steady 54-56 (depending on how you read the temp strip).

I pitched the yeast 6:00pm on Saturday
It is now 6:00pm on Sunday.
It doesn’t look like there is any activity at all.

Questions:
How long will it take to get going?
What sort of activity will I see in fermenter when it does get going?

OG: 1.053-ish

 

[JimRausch]

Yes, you are correct in your suspicion that lager yeasts might take a little longer to ramp up to full fermentation. Of course, that depends on how much yeast you pitched. Once it gets going you will see basically what you normally see with an ale fermentation, although here again, it will take a little longer to complete. My lager fermentations do tend to take 36-48 hours to start showing signs, and may take a week or so to finish. After 4-5 days, I do like to increase temp up to mid 60's for a D-rest, and to help the yeast finish. You're good!

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

Thanks for the reassurance.

FYI:
I pitched a little less than 400ml of starter into 4gals.

I see that the 2 small jugs are starting to show signs of life. But the full carbon is still pretty inactive.

If I don’t see activity in the big one, how long should I wait till I need to consider taking action?

 

[JimRausch]

If I don’t see activity in the big one, how long should I wait till I need to consider taking action?

72 hours.
One reason I ferment in buckets is so I won't obsess about what the fermentation looks like. Yeast want to ferment, and you are correctly providing them an optimal environment to do so. You did underpitch, but helped that out with pitching an active starter, so you'll be fine. As Papa P. says, RDWHAHB!

 

[Frogger42]

Dumb question but can you just put your phone up to the refractometer???

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

Dumb question but can you just put your phone up to the refractometer???

I just put the camera lens into the eye piece of the refractometer. Worked perfectly. [emoji106]

 

[Wreck99]

I've done a couple of lagers and notice they take an extra day to get going than ales. RDWHAHB

 

[waldoar15]

I've pitched lager yeast from a stepped up 5 liter starter into well oxygenated wort before and it still was slow.

I tend to ferment @ 50* and you just have to get used to lager fermentations.

 

[Frogger42]

I just put the camera lens into the eye piece of the refractometer. Worked perfectly. [emoji106]

That is AWESOME. Thanks for the idea will be good to document!!

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

I woke up this morning to check to see if there was any activity. Monday 9:30am.
I'm happy to announce that all seems well.
There was a nice fluffy krausen.
The beer is around 52F.

The airlock was bubbling super slow but bubbling none the less.

 

[catdaddy66]

That is a krausen as pure as the driven snow...