Lager fermenataion with SalLager 34/70

[BitterSweetBrews]

I am making a Marzen. I think my fermentation is done, but my gravity is a bit high.

I did a BIAB with a full water volume mash at 153F, recirculating the whole time. I mashed out for 10 minutes at 168. My efficiency is at about 80%. OG was 1.056.

I did a 1/2 liter 1.040 starter the night before brewing and pitched the whole thing into the fermenter at about 67F (it is dry yeast but I wanted as much as I could reasonably get going fast). I dropped the temp over 18 hours to 55F

Using the quick-lager method, when Fermentation was at about 60% attenuation, at about 1.022 SG around I slowly raised the temp over a 2 days to 168 F to do a Diacetyl rest. This was 5 days ago. It has been fermenting at 168 for 4 days and the gravity has stayed at 1.020 without moving. I rotated the fermenter to stir the yeast up a but yesterday. Today the gravity is still at 1.020. Beersmioth's estimated final gravity is supposed to be 1.014.

My questions are should I consider it finished or let it ride for another day or two? It tastes great and I don't sense any butter (diacertyl). It is pretty malty in a good Octoberfest way. I need to crash it, keg and carbonate it for a week or two so I can have couple bottles for a contest deadline the 29th. I don't have much time for error. It can lager while it carbonates.

 

[WBB]

How are you testing the gravity? Hydrometer or refractometer and using a calc? Are they calibrated? Are you taking readings at the correct temp and if not temp correcting?

 

[waldoar15]

Guess it's done.

I use 34/70 quite a bit but I pitch much more yeast and follow a more traditional lager ferment.

 

[BitterSweetBrews]

How are you testing the gravity? Hydrometer or refractometer and using a calc? Are they calibrated? Are you taking readings at the correct temp and if not temp correcting?

I am using a hydrometer and check the gravity at room temp (for all my readings so they are consistent).

 

[BitterSweetBrews]

Guess it's done.

I use 34/70 quite a bit but I pitch much more yeast and follow a more traditional lager ferment.

That's why I made the small starter, to give it a bit of a leg up. I think there were plenty of yeast cells but looking now I see that Mr. Malty suggests 2 packs.

Thankfully, there are no off flavors.

 

[specharka]

Thinking you might have under pitched a bit. Assuming 100% yeast viability you’re looking at ~170B cells, where a typical lager pitch rate would be ~430B cells for a similar beer. A 2L starter would have gotten you much closer. To minimize lag time, it’s much easier on the yeast to pitch cool and ramp fermentation temperatures than to pitch warm and cool thereafter.

You can pitch more yeast and hopefully it will come down. Just leave it at your diacetyl rest temperature.

 

[Hopalong]

The quick lager method quickly wipes out yeast. Besides it takes months of lagering for lager and pils to reach expected FG.
Beer is krausened after a diacetyl rest to make up for yeast that are wiped out during the high temperature. There's absolutely no reason for a diacetyl rest unless a brewer is expert at producing a nutrient imbalanced wort and using beat up yeast.

A Beta rest was omitted and conversion didn't occur. When conversion doesn't occur complex sugar maltose and maltotriose aren't produced. The types of sugar are needed in ale and lager. Secondary fermentation is needed when conversion happens and the beer won't need to be primed with sugar or injected with CO2 for carbonation. Part of the lagering cycle is for yeast to work over maltotriose which causes natural carbonation to occur.
When a recipe recommends fully modified malt, brewers syrup, single infusion, only primary fermentation and adding priming sugar the beer produced will be similar in quality to Prohibition style beer.

 

[BitterSweetBrews]

The quick lager method quickly wipes out yeast. Besides it takes months of lagering for lager and pils to reach expected FG.
Beer is krausened after a diacetyl rest to make up for yeast that are wiped out during the high temperature. There's absolutely no reason for a diacetyl rest unless a brewer is expert at producing a nutrient imbalanced wort and using beat up yeast.

A Beta rest was omitted and conversion didn't occur. When conversion doesn't occur complex sugar maltose and maltotriose aren't produced. The types of sugar are needed in ale and lager. Secondary fermentation is needed when conversion happens and the beer won't need to be primed with sugar or injected with CO2 for carbonation. Part of the lagering cycle is for yeast to work over maltotriose which causes natural carbonation to occur.
When a recipe recommends fully modified malt, brewers syrup, single infusion, only primary fermentation and adding priming sugar the beer produced will be similar in quality to Prohibition style beer.

I have to disagree with a few or your statements and correct a bit of misinformation.

First, yeast are not "wiped out" at the 68 degrees diacetyl rest. In fact they would probably be just fine at 80 degrees at this point in the fermentation (or earlier if I was making a farmhouse beer). They can live at over 100 degrees. They just produce better flavors at lower temps and go dormant at very low temps.

As you say, Kreusening is used for cleanup and bottle conditioning, which I am not doing. (I am kegging and force carbonating). Kreusing for conditioning is done to make up for the yeast that has gone dormant and settled during a long lagering phase before bottling. It is not wiped out from the earlier diacetyl rest before lagering.

It is a part of the Reinheitsgebot brewing in Germany. But, it isn't really done much by brewers in other parts of the world. As a home brewer you can reserve some of your wort and yeast for later in the cycle, but it really isn't worth the time and effort to me.

If I have more than 5 gallons, I will bottle condition what doesn't fit in the keg. Depending on how much I end up with I will probably be adding sugar to individual bottles. There will probably only be a half dozen or so (I have 6 gallons in the fermenter) and don't want to oxygenate it. Since it will only be after a short lagering, there will be plenty of yeasties in the bottles to carbonate, even given the bottom fermenting nature of lager yeast and what the cold crashing will do. It will just take longer.

Conversion did occur, just not really in the way you state. With today's well modified malt, which I used, a saccharification (beta) rest at 145-150 during mashing to specifically cause the beta-amylase enzymes to kick in is not necessary. Especially if you moderate your temperature to the low end of the alpha-amylase temp range. A beta-amylase, lower temp rest is for the promotion of alcohol over maltiness because it breaks the 1-4 starch bonds at the ends which gives you more fermentable sugars to turn into alcohol. Mashing at a higher temp kicks in the alpha-amylase enzymes which breaks the 1-4 bonds randomly, which gives you more unfermentable sugars and a maltier beer. Since it is random you still get some fermentable sugars, just not as many.

Since this is a Marzen, I am going for a more malt forward beer so I mashed at a 153 degree saccharifaction rest which is a happy medium between both of the debranching ranges and will let both enzymes work their magic giving me a more balanced flavor profile. This temp breaks the starch bonds at both the ends of the 1-4 starch strings and randomly in the middle (all that BJCP studying pays off).

A diacetyl rest at the end of fermentation is always a good practice when lagering (and also with ales).

I don't understand the final part about pre-prohibition beer and where it applies to my fermentation stalling.
Adding sugar to beer to bottle condition does nothing to change it's flavor profile. You can't possibly notice a difference of what amounts to 3/4 tsp sugar in a bottle does to the beer after it is carbonated.

I think I am going to let it ride for a few more days in primary before crashing and lagering.

I have had great results with the quick lager method and had some high scoring beers produced with it. I think people use the old drawn out methods because that is what they have learned. You can bet the big production breweries use some form of it (BMCs).

 

[RM-MN]

I am making a Marzen. I think my fermentation is done, but my gravity is a bit high.

I did a BIAB with a full water volume mash at 153F, recirculating the whole time. I mashed out for 10 minutes at 168. My efficiency is at about 80%. OG was 1.056.

I did a 1/2 liter 1.040 starter the night before brewing and pitched the whole thing into the fermenter at about 67F (it is dry yeast but I wanted as much as I could reasonably get going fast). I dropped the temp over 18 hours to 55F

Using the quick-lager method, when Fermentation was at about 60% attenuation, at about 1.022 SG around I slowly raised the temp over a 2 days to 168 F to do a Diacetyl rest. This was 5 days ago. It has been fermenting at 168 for 4 days and the gravity has stayed at 1.020 without moving. I rotated the fermenter to stir the yeast up a but yesterday. Today the gravity is still at 1.020. Beersmioth's estimated final gravity is supposed to be 1.014.

My questions are should I consider it finished or let it ride for another day or two? It tastes great and I don't sense any butter (diacertyl). It is pretty malty in a good Octoberfest way. I need to crash it, keg and carbonate it for a week or two so I can have couple bottles for a contest deadline the 29th. I don't have much time for error. It can lager while it carbonates.

Wild guess only since I can't see your mash. I think your grain was not crushed really well and at the end of your mash period not all the starch was converted. When you raised the temperature for a mash out (not needed for BIAB) the higher temperature accelerated the conversion by the alpha amylase but denatured the beta amylase leaving your wort with more dextrines than you anticipated.

 

[BitterSweetBrews]

Wild guess only since I can't see your mash. I think your grain was not crushed really well and at the end of your mash period not all the starch was converted. When you raised the temperature for a mash out (not needed for BIAB) the higher temperature accelerated the conversion by the alpha amylase but denatured the beta amylase leaving your wort with more dextrines than you anticipated.

The crush observation is a good one I hadn't thought about. I crushed my grains at the LHBS to save me brew day time. I typically do it at home with my corona mill bucket. I have never had a problem with their crush settings before that I am aware of. But that could explain it.

The mash out was a part of the Beersmith BIAB medium body mash profile. I did a 60 minute mash and 99% of conversion should have happened long before the 60 minutes were up.

While a mash out might not be really needed in BIAB to stop the A/B enzymes (more of a sparging thing), it does decrease the viscosity of the sugars in the grain so more are released during the drain out.