My AHS Oktoberfest progress

[nostalgia]

Hey gang. I've been documenting my first lager attempt and wanted to run my progress by you more experienced types.

My OG was 1.054. On the 7th day SG was 1.036. Today is the 10th day and we're at 1.032.

With an anticipated FG of 1.015, I was planning to start my diacetyl rest when the SG hit 1.025. Sound about right? At this rate it'll be another week before that happens. Seems like a much longer ferment than I've been reading about.

Here's the sample:

Thanks for any advice,

-Joe

 

[avidhomebrewer]

For all the lagers I've made, I ferment at around 50 for primary (about 2 weeks), rack to secondary, do a 2-3 day diacetyl rest (regardless if it needs it or not-works for me), then cool it down to about 30 over the course of several days and lager for as long as I can, the longer the better. I've made big lagers (sg 1.150) and lagered for over 1 year-the result was plenty smooth, and it did finish fermenting. For your oktoberfest, I would also follow a similar routine. As I'm sure you know, lagers do take longer to ferment, so with a good lager like that, patience is key and you will be rewarded.

 

[nostalgia]

For all the lagers I've made, I ferment at around 50 for primary (about 2 weeks), rack to secondary, do a 2-3 day diacetyl rest

Do you rack to the secondary before bringing the temp up for any particular reason? I was of the understanding that the diacetyl rest is when the yeast clean up after themselves. I was planning to do the rest in the primary.

-Joe

 

[menschmaschine]

Yes, do the diacetyl rest in primary. What does the krausen look like?... has it started to fall yet? Your fermentation seems a bit slow. I wonder if it will make it down to 1.015. If it doesn't, you may have got your mini-mash a little too warm. You should really do your diacetyl rest when its at about 1.021, but I'm sure 1.025 would be alright. Depending on how long you lager, you might lose another point or so of gravity during lagering.

 

[Yooper]

I believe the best course is to do the diacetyl rest on the yeast cake (so you have more yeast to clean up the diacetyl). Then rack and begin lagering.

 

[nostalgia]

Yes, do the diacetyl rest in primary. What does the krausen look like?... has it started to fall yet? Your fermentation seems a bit slow. I wonder if it will make it down to 1.015. If it doesn't, you may have got your mini-mash a little too warm.

The kraeusen is dark brown and the surface is developing cracks where white foam is showing through. I'll take a picture later tonight.

Yes, I was wondering the same thing myself. I kept a very close eye on the mini-mash while it was steeping, and it never got above 158.

Well, thanks for the advice. I'll take another reading on Friday and see where I stand.

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Here's what the kraeusen looked like at 2, 7 and 10 days (tonight):

I'm planning on leaving it in the fridge to lager for 8 weeks at around 35F.

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Well, in good news it's still fermenting away. I switched from the blowoff tube to an S-bubbler and it's bubbling once every 4-5 seconds.

I'll take another grav reading tomorrow or Sunday.

Happy 4th everyone!!

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

1.028 at day 13. Guess I'll be giving it a few more days.

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Is this what kraeusen looks like when it's fallen in?

I'm likely not going to bother with another hydro reading and just start raising the temp tomorrow. It's been 15 days already.

Edit: It's still bubbling once every 5-7 seconds.

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Here we are on day 17. Raised the freezer temp to 64 yesterday at about 1 degree/hour. Today's SG reading: 1.023. Still have active fermentation, but it appears to be reaaaaaaly slow.

In good news, it now tastes like beer. It's malty and a little sweet, but unquestionably beer now. It's good enough that I'm in the process of finishing off the hydrometer sample There's still a hint of that slimy mouthfeel but it's quite diminished from the last time I tasted it. And I'm not getting any buttery flavors.

So now, questions:

I wait until fermentation has stopped moving before racking to the secondary, yes?

Should I bring the temp down to lager temps before or after racking?

Thanks!

-Joe

 

[menschmaschine]

I wait until fermentation has stopped moving before racking to the secondary, yes?

You should pretty much wait until there is little to no bubbling in the air lock.

Should I bring the temp down to lager temps before or after racking?

When doing a diacetyl rest, I start to bring them back down to primary fermentation temps before racking and then bring them down to lagering temps after racking. You'll hear 2 different viewpoints on how fast to reduce to lagering temps. Some say crash cooling a lager is OK, some say do it 5 degrees a day. I play middle of the road and do it 5-10 degrees a day. I figured that since the lager yeast are still fermenting sugars during lagering, that it would be better not to shock them out of suspension... but I'm not certain that reasoning is sound (need to re-read Noonan). If I were you, since your FG is high, I'd want as many yeast in suspension as possible to try to get every ounce of attenuation out of them.

 

[nostalgia]

You should pretty much wait until there is little to no bubbling in the air lock.

Should I be concerned about when that happens? E.g. if fermentation stops dead at 1.020 should I be thinking about re-pitching, or just lager it and hope for the best?

Thanks!

-Joe

 

[menschmaschine]

Well, I would try to figure out the most likely source of the problem for your high FG before making any firm decisions. If the most likely source resulted in a dextrinous wort, there isn't much you can do about it and you'll have to live with a higher FG beer (unless you want to dilute it with water). However, whenever I had high FGs, they have not gone any further with reducing gravity despite my efforts (repitching, adding yeast nutrients, etc., etc.). But I've only ever done AG, so there are some differences in regard to potential attenuation. I have a sneaking suspicion your mini mash got to a higher temp than what you thought. When the bubbling airlock stops, you're probably as far as your going to go and you can go ahead and lager.

 

[nostalgia]

I have a sneaking suspicion your mini mash got to a higher temp than what you thought.

Ok, I'll buy that. Can you explain to me the mechanics behind why this would cause a too-high FG?

When steeping the grains I had a recently-calibrated probe thermometer in the water. Whenever the temp reached 155 I'd shut the heat off. If it dropped below 150 I'd turn it back on. The temp never coasted past 158. Is there a better way to do it?

Thanks,

-Joe

 

[menschmaschine]

For the chemistry behind it, you can read this: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-5.html

But in short, higher mash temp results in higher FG because it increases the ratio of unfermentable sugars to fermentable sugars. It could have been the way you heated it or how you checked your temps or inadequate stirring. I've learned the hard way with direct heat mashing that you have to turn off the heat a few degrees before your target temp because all of the heat at the bottom has not reached the top when you turn off the heat source. I've also learned not to trust one temperature reading. Now I take 3 or 4 at different points in the mash.

This happened to me once with an Oatmeal stout... FG ended up beeing 1.022 (with a target of 1.016). So, I watered it down to 1.021 just to lighten it up a little without sacrificing too much in ABV and IBUs. It ended up being very good... yeah, it was a little thick but still quite drinkable.

Now... I'm off to brew a Helles.

 

[nostalgia]

Ok, thanks for the info. I'm going to get an FG and rack it tomorrow.

-Joe

 

[Saccharomyces]

Don't recall starter size or if you even had one. Could be low attenuation because of underpitching.

Also your PM may have been hotter than you think if you didn't stir up well before taking the temp. A lot of folks have good luck with preheating the water to 165 or so, dropping in the grain and wrapping the pot in a blanket.

- Eric

 

[cheezydemon]

Not Criticising! Just sharing.

Traditional Oktoberfest or Maerzen's are started in March to be consumed in the fall. I look forward to starting one this next year and letting it condition that long.

Your set-up looks good!

 

[nostalgia]

Don't recall starter size or if you even had one. Could be low attenuation because of underpitching.

I made up a 3 quart starter over 5 days.

Also your PM may have been hotter than you think if you didn't stir up well before taking the temp. A lot of folks have good luck with preheating the water to 165 or so, dropping in the grain and wrapping the pot in a blanket.

I'll try that next time. It's generally better to err on the side of too cool when doing a partial mash, then?

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Not Criticising! Just sharing.

Traditional Oktoberfest or Maerzen's are started in March to be consumed in the fall. I look forward to starting one this next year and letting it condition that long.

Your set-up looks good!

I did consider that when I started this brew. I have an Oktoberfest party at my place every year and I wanted something fitting to have on hand. I started this one as soon as I could.

I'll be lagering it for 8 weeks, and bottle conditioning it for 7 more weeks before the party, so I'm hopeful it'll be good. According to my brew schedule I bottle on 9/7, and the party is on 10/26.

At the very least it's a learning experience I can apply to my next Marzen next year!

And thanks about the setup. I just inherited an extra fridge today, so I'll now have a dedicated lagering fridge!

-Joe

 

[WBC]

What a lot of new lager brewers don't realize is that lagers do take a lot more time and during this lagering process the yeast are still busy cleaning up and eating more sugars but at a very slow pace. You will be surprised at how much better the lager is in another month.

 

[menschmaschine]

Traditional Oktoberfest or Maerzen's are started in March to be consumed in the fall. I look forward to starting one this next year and letting it condition that long.

Hey Cheez... it's been a while!

That's old-timey tradition. Modern brewing science has negated the need to lager Marzens for 6 months because they just don't need to be lagered that long. Modern German breweries typically don't do this anymore because it costs a lot of money to have beer sitting around for 6 months... and they're still allowed to call them Marzens by German law.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Yeah mashing the partial mash too cool a bit is OK as long as it's in the 140s or more it will convert. Too warm and you will have permanent haze and too high FG from incomplete conversion. I had this problem with my first few brews so I learned from the school of hard knocks. Starter looks good so I don't think that is it.

- Eric

 

[nostalgia]

Siphoning to the secondary today was a minor disaster.

I got my new fridge in so I'm all set to lager. I had brought the temp down to 50F and all set to siphon.

First mistake: I tried to use the auto-siphon to pull a test tube full for a hydro reading. I thought I could pinch the line off and raise it above the level of the beer to stop the siphon; I could do neither fast enough. I got it in my face, hair, floor, you name it. FG was 1.020, though - got 3 more points.

Second mistake: When I was preparing to siphon I propped the front of the carboy up about 1" and had the end of the siphon in the deep end. All went well until the last inch or so of beer. I was getting ready to lift the auto-siphon when all of a sudden it just started sucking up trub! What I didn't realize is if the carboy is tipped, as the beer level goes down past one corner the trub level goes up. So it climbed past the little plastic grommety-thing.

So now I have a 1/2" layer of trub on the bottom of my secondary that I'm going to lager in for 8 weeks Should I concern myself about this or just forget it and hope for the best?

Thanks for all the help on this one, gang. I really do appreciate it

Oh and before we forget about it, here it is sharing the fridge with some Vertical Epic, 06-06-06.

-Joe

 

[menschmaschine]

So now I have a 1/2" layer of trub on the bottom of my secondary that I'm going to lager in for 8 weeks Should I concern myself about this or just forget it and hope for the best?

Congrats on the new fridge! It will probably be OK. There isn't much you can do about it now anyway, so I would hope for the best. Racking to another carboy could be more risky (oxidation, contamination) than leaving it alone. It might not be competition-worthy, but it will still probably taste good.

 

[nostalgia]

Racking to another carboy could be more risky (oxidation, contamination) than leaving it alone.

hahahaha I've been reading this forum too long - that is almost verbatim what I told my wife when she suggested I re-rack it

Thanks for the input!

-Joe