Lager Starter = Starter Lager

[zeg]

Earlier this evening I decanted my WLP833 starter in preparation to step it up to about 5 L before pitching this weekend. The starter had been crashing for a couple days and I noticed that it looked exceptionally clear in the top of the jug, so I caught the first cup or so of the decanted "beer". For the first time yet, it wasn't profoundly rank with diacetyl, so I gave it a taste...

To my surprise, other than some faint lingering diacetyl, it wasn't bad. It tasted an awful lot like a Bud/Coors/whatever Light beer, actually. Whether that says something good or bad about the stuff, I drank about half of a cup of it before tossing the rest.

So there I am waiting for my 5 L of step-up starter to boil thinking what a shame it is to make almost 2 gallons of beer (including the previous steps up from a few mL of rinsed yeast), ferment it, and toss it. Then it hits me---there's no wrong way to make beer unless it tastes bad. Why not toss in some hops and, when the time comes to decant, save the beer?

So I tossed in an ounce of Spalt Select hops (1.5% AA) and gave it about a 15 minute boil. This puts it right smack in the middle of the numbers for a Lite American Lager, according to BeerSmith (and, incidentally, confirms my ability to estimate IBUs in my head while simultaneously fighting against a boil-over with 6 L of wort in a 2 gallon pot).

Since the whole point of this is to see if I can conserve some precious (and otherwise waste) beer, it'd be pretty foolish to follow the rules on this fermentation. I'd have willingly drunk what I decanted from the starter, which had no hops and no carbonation, so I'm going to ferment this just like I did that one---2 days at 70°F, then crash at 36°F for a couple days. What's the worst that can happen, right?

There are a couple other things I'm worried about. One is winding up with incomplete fermentation on such a short schedule and then getting bottle bombs. For safety's sake, I think I'm going to bottle this in plastic. I may also give it another week at room temperature after decanting to give the yeast a chance to finish up if they're still interested, and/or I may give it a week of "lagering". The other thing I'm worried about is oxidation, though, since it's going to be hard for me to avoid post-fermentation aeration as well as I can when working with a full batch. We'll see, but I think this will be interesting as a quick-turn lager experiment. That should keep oxidation concerns to a minimum.

Anyway, long post, but I'm pretty excited about this experiment. It'd be pretty cool to wind up with a "found" gallon of beer.

 

[pdxal]

I've been doing this for quite a while since reading about it on another forum. You can make a 1.030-1.040 beer with the starter. Low hopping, ferment like a regular starter but give it a little longer time to finish fully and clean up a little before crash cooling and decanting off the beer into 2L soda pop bottle(s) with priming sugar and let it condition 1-2 weeks. Makes a decent table beer, but drink it fresh if possible to avoid oxidation/staling from ruining your "found" beer. Works great too when making a 2 gallon lager starter in a carboy and pitching the new wort onto the cake after decanting off the starter beer.
Another way to stretch starter beer dollars is to use second or third runnings from batches for starter wort. It can be canned or frozen, whether boiled first or not, and used later to make a starter if you practice good sanitation.

 

[zeg]

Glad to hear that this can work. It's only going to be a few pints, so if it's drinkable, it shouldn't be too onerous to get through while still fresh. I think I'm probably going to try to get some pint-sized soda bottles since I don't often drink more than that in a day.

How much longer would you say is a "little" longer? I'm hoping to do a real batch this weekend, so I'd like to have the starter crashed by Monday evening (that's about when a Sunday afternoon lager brew reaches pitching temp for me). That gives me 6 days between now and then. It took about 2 days of crashing to get everything settled on the previous step. As of this morning, there was a clear gradient in the cloudiness, with clear beer down about half-way; by this evening, it was completely clear except for the yeast layer and maybe half an inch above that.

So I guess it's a question of 4 days fermenting and 2 crashing, or 3 and 3. On this one, with 2 days of fermenting, the beer was only very slightly sweet so I'd say it was pretty well attenuated.

As for freezing wort, I'm still doing partial mash, so it's sort of a financial wash since it's just a question of whether the DME goes into the starter or into the beer to make up for the wort I froze... It's a good suggestion, though, and it'd be nice not to risk spilling DME all over the kitchen.

 

[pdxal]

A couple extra days would probably be long enough. A starter is a small batch, and finishes much faster. It is just that if you give them a little longer they will clean up after themselves better and make your table beer better. Up to you, but if you can give the starter beer nearer to full batch care it will turn out better and still make good beer in the main batch.

 

[zeg]

Ok, thanks. I'll probably do 4 days fermenting then and 2 days crashing. That was enough crashing to get most of the yeast down this time. If it seems way underattenuated, I can always steal a bit of the decanted slurry back and give it some more time.

Next thing to do is to figure out if my autosiphon will fit into the jugs I'm fermenting this in. I have a racking cane that will fit in there quite easily, but I've rather enjoyed not having to start siphons the old-fashioned way...

 

[zeg]

For posterity's sake (and in case anyone is listening), I'll update this. Racked this experiment to the lagering tank (a.k.a. 1-gallon cider jug) after about 3.5 days room-temperature fermentation and 2 days crashing at 1°C, then warming up to 7°C. I siphoned from the two 1-gallon jugs that contained about 6 L (total) starter. There was a bit over a pint left over, which I captured for gravity testing and tasting.
Tastes pretty good. A little diacetyley, but I've got high hopes.

 

[zeg]

Bottled it today with a bit under an ounce of table sugar for priming. Got 7 pints in plastic Perrier bottles and a pint left over for testing/tasting. Fairly strong diacetyl aroma, and a slight taste, but neither is enough to be unpleasant. A bit malty-sweet, a lot of hops flavor, and a pretty good bitterness balance.