Question about starter and priming solutions

[thrashandburn]

Hi guys, I'm preparing to brew a small, 2 gallon all grain batch of Classic American Pilsner. I'm planning on using Saflager S-23. I will ferment at 53 degrees, and lager at 35.

Regarding the starter: I have looked at yeast pitch calculators online, but knowing that lagers require a large starter to turn out, should I pitch more than the calculator recommends, and if so how much?

Regarding priming solution: All the sources that I've seen give priming amounts for full 5 gallon batches. I've looked at priming tables and calculators, but get confused on two levels. 1. when it asks for temperature, are they asking for the temp at which yeast was pitched, fermented, or the temp at the time of priming? 2. The value it supplies me with is an amount of sugar to use, but, how much water should be used when boiling the priming solution for a batch my size?

Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

[DarthMalt]

Starter: Use the Mr. Malty pitch rate calculator and pitch the recommended amount.

Priming: See below.

 

[Yooper]

The carbonation charts ask for temperature so that it can "guestimate" the probable amount of residual carbonation in the beer. Cold beer holds more co2 in solution than warm beer, so a beer fermented at 50 degrees will have far more residual co2 than a beer fermented at 70 degrees.

In order to effectively guess the probable residual co2 in the beer, you should use the highest temperature the beer reached during fermentation or after fermentation, and NOT the current temperature or storage temperature.

For example- you made a lager that was fermented at 50 degrees, but you did a diacetyl rest at 60 degrees. Since co2 would bubble out of the airlock more readily at 60 degrees than 50 degrees, it would be more accurate to use 60 degrees as the "temperature", even if the beer is currently lagering at 34 degrees. More co2 isn't produced after fermentation ends, so it wouldn't really be at 34 degrees for priming calculations. I hope that makes sense!

Generally, for most lagers I use .75 ounce of priming sugar (corn sugar) per gallon of beer or 4 ounces for 5 gallons. Your priming sugar should always be measured by weight with a kitchen scale for accuracy, and not "cups".

 

[tbel]

You're using a yeast that is chosen as a lager yeast because it works at the temps you going to ferment at. There is no need to make a starter, it is recommended that you just re hydrate the yeast in water close to the temperature at which it will be pitched. For instance if you will chill your wort to 56F before pitching the yeast use that same temp. water to re hydrate. I just did a Czech Pilsner and used S-23. For 5.4 gallons of wort I pitched 2 packets and it fermented out wonderfully @ 52F. I would think 1pkg for 2gallons would be fine.

 

[thrashandburn]

that does make sense, and I'm planning on doing a diacetyl rest so I'll plug that temp into the calculator. Thanks.

So is starter only recommended for liquid yeast, or non lager yeast? Why do so many sources recommend a large starter for lager?

 

[tbel]

Everything I've read says that the dry yeasts have a lot higher viable yeast cell counts than the liquid. It has nothing to do with lager vs ale strains (as far as I know). However many people recommend using more yeast for fermenting a lower temps. Using the pitch calculator will tell you exactly what you need but I like keeping it simple so I just pitched two packets as many people do.

 

[tbel]

I also did a diacetyl rest, brought it up to room temp when i was just above the expected FG. I had approx. 80% of the fermentation complete.