I'm doing my first lager this weekend and had a question on what temp my starter should be prior to pitching? And if it is a cooler temp, keep it on the stir plate at the lower temp or just lower it prior to pitching?
Lager Starter Temp?
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aiptasia
Well-Known Member
Lower it prior to pitching. With lagers, it doesn't hurt to pitch at a slightly warmer temperature and hold the wort there for a day while the yeast multiplies and gets established. Hold the wort and pitch at 65 for the first day, then gradually lower the temperature to the mid 50's for three to four weeks, then lower it to lagering temperatures for four to eight weeks.
I always do a warm pitch around 75 deg and let it cool down to 50 in about a day. Had my Czech Pils and IPL at a club meeting last night they all enjoyed the clean crisp flavors. The same question came up last night and I stated I always do that warm start. I let my lagers ferment at 50 deg, keep them in the primary to age again at 50 deg for another 4 weeks. Think about it before refrigeration that was the way the did lagers in the cellars of the breweries. Benefits of cold crashing would be you speed up the aging process.
senfo
Well-Known Member
This is a great read. http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php
Thanks for the info, I've seen a couple different things about pitching at around 45F then letting it come up to temp. Seems like fermentation would take a lot longer to get started doing it this way tho. I'm gonna go with pitching @ 65, then slowly bringing it down to 50F
Doing that, you sacrifice beer quality for a fast start. I've tried it both ways and now I always pitch a little below fermentation temp and let it rise to about 50. My lagers are immensely better for doing that.
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I do my starter well in advance and ferment it at room temp. When it's done I refrigerate it for a day or 2, then decant the spent wort before pitching.
I have never noticed an immensely difference between the methods. I notice an immense difference by doing step infusion. I get more maltiness doing step infusions.
Yep. Most esters are produced in the first 24-48 hours of fermentation. That';s why it's important to keep the temps down then.
Conversely, I notice no differences with a step mash! I do one every now and then to see if I'm missing something, but so far I haven't come up with a reason to do it consistently.
Nothing that hasn't been going on for a long time! I'm a "pragmatic" brewer, which is a code word for "lazy".
I don't mind doing anything that will make my beer better, as long as I know the effort I take is worth the results. Consequently, many of my 436 batches have been experiments, controlled as closely as I can, to determine if certain things that are accepted as common knowledge are actually relevant to making better beer. My own conclusions have been that a lot of things we do are based on myths and tradition, rather than actual evaluation of the outcomes of those techniques. While I may disagree with others an some of those things, they're solely my opinion based on testing. That doesn't mean that I'm right and everybody else is wrong. OK, maybe it does....
I've only made about 50 lagers, so I'm not as experienced with them as with ales, but I'm in agreement with Denny. I pitch lagers at about 48 degrees, with 45 degree yeast (from the fridge, with the spent wort decanted), and then allow the fermentation temperature to rise up to 50 degrees for fermentation.
If you pitch the proper amount of yeast, this technique works very well for the best lagers I've brewed.
I also don't pitch ales 20 degrees too warm and then chill, either. For ales, I'd cool to 60 or so and then add the yeast. Right now, I have two fermenters of IPA going with WLP001 in one and one with Denny's Favorite in the other- both are up to 64 degrees. I'll raise them a bit at the very end of fermentation, to encourage them to fully attenuate and clean up diacetyl.
Pitching cooler with the proper amount of yeast has really made my beers better than ever, and I would recommend trying it to anybody.
I knew this would get both groups going on the age old question. 1st of all I will say I'm not blessed with being a supertaster. That is the roughly 10 percent of the population that have extremely sensative taste buds to detect what ever suttle flavor there is. I'm only speaking of my own 20 yrs of experience in brewing both ales and lagers. I get those off flavors in my lagers either way when they are young and not conditioned the at least 6 weeks they should be. My own experience has shown my limited taste buds do not detect those off flavors mentioned once the beers have lagered the proper amount of time. Tatse the Lager at two weeks, three weeks, 4, 5 and 6. No matter the start temp let me know what your thoughts are on the beer.
helibrewer
Well-Known Member
I also pitch colder than I ferment. I chill the wort into the mid to upper 40's then pitch. I start temperature control at this point raising the temp to 50-54 over 48 hours depending on the beer style.
Depends on the method of stepping. My false bottom has about a 1/2" of liquid below the grain. I step using direct flame on that liquid. My theory is that I actually am boiling a portion of the grain kind of like a decoction. I notice the boiling effect coming up through the grain as I step up the temp. I have found a better extraction (about 10%) and more maltiness in my beers since doing steps vs single infusion.
If it works for you, that's what you should do. And don't get me started on decoction!
If it works for you, that's what you should do. And don't get me started on decoction!
I agree, there are quite a few different ways to make beer. Bottom line you make it the way you want to. The flavor of the finished beer is what we are all after
