First Lager!!

[CoastalEmpireBrewery]

Yesterday I made my first lager, an Oktoberfest lager. right now it is in a controlled temp and is at 48 degrees. Is that too cold?

 

[BigFloyd]

For most lager yeast strains, pitching at 45 and beginning the ferment at 48*F is right on the money.

 

[MrHadack]

I'd say you're doing just fine. A general rule to live by with yeasts is start them slightly lower than their ideal and let them work up a few degrees on their own. What yeast are you using?

 

[CoastalEmpireBrewery]

I used white labs Oktoberfest yeast. Still no action in the airlock

 

[CoastalEmpireBrewery]

Its been 36 hours now and still no action in the airlock... should I be concerned?

 

[MrHadack]

Did you use a yeast starter, or just dump the vial into the fermentor?

 

[CoastalEmpireBrewery]

Dump straight into the carboy

 

[MrHadack]

AH-ha. Give it some more time and see what happens. Lager yeasts are typically slower to start and slower to finish, especially if you aren't pitching enough cells to begin with. I would recommend looking into creating yeast starters with the liquid yeast you buy rather than just dumping the vial straight in. I used to do it that way, too, but starters really do a much beter job.

 

[CoastalEmpireBrewery]

Yea, I've always wanted to get one and use it. I also wanted to culture my yeast so i could use it again.

 

[BigFloyd]

You way underpitched with just one vial and no starter so the lag is going to be longer.

If you're going to be doing lagers, a stirplate is a handy bit of brew gear.

 

[CoastalEmpireBrewery]

Yea I just purchased a stir plate and a 2L flask and a yeast culturing kit

 

[Jayhem]

Use this for determining how large of a starter you need. www.yeastcalc.com

You will be surprised how much yeast you actually need for a lager, it's like 3 times more than you need for an ale.

Just to give you an idea. I made a Vienna lager a couple months back and for 5.5 gallons it took 1 yeast vial, and then a 1L starter stepped up to a 2L starter to have enough yeast to pitch. So you probably pitched only 20% as much yeast as ideal with one vial and no starter. Even with proper pitching it takes 24 hours or so to get active fermentation because lager yeast are slow at cool temps.

 

[JimRausch]

Coastal: I agree that you drastically underpitched, but....
If you are looking for an ale-type vigorous fermentation with lager yeast you'll be disappointed. My "Soxtoberfest' brewed back on November 24 was pitched with 3 qts. yeast slurry from a Vienna lager- in the neighborhood of 400billion cells calculated. Pitched at 48 and fermented at 45-50 until d-rest time. She took about 48 hours to show any burps, and then was a nice steady sedate blurp every couple seconds. Fermented down to FG in about a week and 1/2, then D-Rest and lagering. Bottled 1 week ago, and she was beautiful.
Your underpitching has led to a longer lagtime because the yeast had to build up their numbers, and it might lead to more off-flavors. Definitely should give it a Diacetyl rest to help clean up off-flavors, and then might even consider leaving it on the yeast at a higher temp. for longer than normal(say a week instead of 2-3 days) before racking it for cold lagering.

 

[progmac]

i would strongly recommend immediately adding yeast nutrient, oxygenating the best you can, and bumping the temp to 65. when you see signs of fermentation, lower to 52-54.

what you're doing now very well might give you excessive sulfur in the finished product.

 

[CoastalEmpireBrewery]

I brought it inside my house and gave it a little oxygen and fermaid.... still nothing yet.. lets see what happens