Uh oh... Long Lag Time... Too Long?

[premington]

I'm sure this has been discussed before... I've been perusing various threads.

This is my first lager. I made a SMASH beer--a Stella clone. Simple recipe... very sessionable and low-SRM beer (1.045). 9-1/2 lbs. of Pilsner malt, 2 oz of Chech SAAZ, and .75 oz. of Challenger. (Decided to add Challenger later... so I guess it's not a SMASH. <grin>) I'm using WLP830, German lager yeast. It's cold as hell in the garage, so I thought I'd give things a go with a lager yeast, just for fun.

I got a 1.6 L, 1.040 starter going in the garage two days before pitching. It was bubbling away quite happily at 46.6 F as we were ready to do the boil. I planned to pitch in the 50s, so I took the starter (on spin plate) inside to warm up a little as we finished the boil. Was able to cool the wort down fast, due to the cold temps outside.

My brewing buddy, who borrowed some of my stuff, forgot to bring back my oxygen. He lives about 50 minutes away, so this was a major disappointment. So I had to aerate through vigorous splashing and stirring of the wort with the wort chiller. <sigh> Not happy about this.

Okay... Time to pitch. Yeast is spinning away and bubbling with a good 1" of foam on top. Pitched it in the wort, put the top on with a blowoff tube, and set it in the back corner of the garage. Pitched temp was 52 F. The beer is currently at 45.1 F. It's dropped about 7 F since pitching.

It's been about 39 hours, and I see no activity. In fact, the blowoff tube stuck in the growler with distilled water and a dash of StarSan still shows about 1" of water in the tube. The air in the tube doesn't appear to be displacing due to CO2 production.

So, what to do? Do I bring it inside and warm it up? Do I "watch and wait"? Do I open the top of the fermenter and do a gravity check to see if anything is happening?

Being new to lagering, I'm not really sure what to do. I have a lot of thoughts of what may have gone wrong (poor aeration, shocked yeast, etc.), but maybe nothing's wrong.

I'm scatching my bald head. Hmmmmmmmmmm... Curious to hear what other more experienced lager brewers think. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[kh54s10]

The optimum temperature is 50-55 so I would try to warm it up a little. 36 hours is not significantly long, especially at the low temperature. Lagers yeasts are slower than ale yeasts. Even with an ale yeast I wouldn't be getting too worried until over 48 hours.

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

Your starter should have been plenty big enough to pitch the right number of yeast cells for your brew. I usually do my starters at room temperature inside the house, and they still take two to three days to finish. I’m thinking that doing your starter at such a cool temperature may have slowed it down, in turn decreasing the cell count that you pitched. As a result, your lag time will be longer as your yeast have to reproduce more.

Most of my lagers are fermenting after 12-15 hours, however my last one took 38 hours before any noticeable activity and it’s been bubbling away for the last 11 days now. No worries with the longer lag time unless you get out past 48 hours.

Optimum temperature range fr wlp 830 is 50-55°, so your cooler temps will slow it down some as well. You may consider moving it inside to warm it a bit to get it started and then moving it back to the garage. But I think with a little more patience, you will be just fine. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[mongoose33]

If you'd brought the yeast into the house to warm up, and it rose to, say, 70 degrees, pitching it into 52-degree wort would, I think, be analogous to crashing it. I don't pitch lager yeast this way--I do the starter on a stir plate indoors, then pitch into 70-degree wort (more or less), then slowly take it down to 50 degrees.

You don't say if you have a clear fermenter where you can see what's going on. If it's a bucket, well, buckets are notorious for not sealing and thus no bubbling--plus, you can't necessarily see if you have a krausen.

 

[premington]

Thanks, everyone, for your informative replies. Here's an update. This might be helpful for others who have the same issue as me... a ridiculously long lag time.

So I spent time digging through this forum, reading posts from people like me who have long lager lag times and are wondering what's happening. In one of the threads, I read a post by Yooper who said lager yeast are bottom fermenters, and sometimes you don't see activity out of the airlock.

Last night had been 75 hours and still no airlock activity at all. Dead! I moved the beer from the garage to under the stairs in our lower level. In the garage, it dropped to 44.4 F. Under the stairs is 52 F, so I put it there. As of last night, it was at 55.2, which I found interesting. It raised a few degrees past the ambient temperature. I could only think it would do that if it was fermenting. So I cracked open the fermenter to see what's doing.

I have a stainless steel, conical fermenter, so I have to take the top off to see what's happening.

I took it off and was greeted with a thick, rich, beautiful krausen! OMG! I took a pipette, pushed it into and through the krausen, and drew off a sample. Taste was a very light, watery beer, with a noticeable alcohol flavor, no off flavors or scents. I grabbed my refractometer and took a reading.

Yeast was pitched into a 1.045 wort. As of last night, the beer was at 1.028 (refractometer reading was corrected for presence of ethanol).

So I'm amazed! I have absolutely no airlock activity. This fermenter has a thick rubber gasket that's always performed well, and it's pretty new (only had maybe 8 batches fermented in it). I don't think it's leaking CO2 anywhere.

As Yooper pointed out, I guess sometimes lagers can ferment and produce no noticeable CO2 discharge out of the airlock.

How does that happen? There's a beautifully produced krausen over the top of the beer. Where's all the CO2 going?

 

[kh54s10]

So you have really noticed two things. You can have temperatures too low for lager yeasts and that lager yeasts ferment differently than ale yeasts.

 

[premington]

So you have really noticed two things. You can have temperatures too low for lager yeasts and that lager yeasts ferment differently than ale yeasts.

Yes... Correct. But remember, my starter was purring away at 46 F. I warmed it up a touch and pitched it into a 52 F wort. So the lag time was not 75 hours. Obviously, the beer had begun fermenting at some time after pitching, but I don't when. It went from 1.045 to 1.028 in 75 hours. The beer went from 52 F down to 44.4 F before I brought it inside. It was inside about 1-1/2 days and went from 44.4 F to ~55 F in that time. Not sure when it decided to take off. Perhaps the ~two days in the garage? I'll probably never know.

But you're correct. Lager yeasts are way different animals than ale yeasts. Makes for an interesting fermentation. It's very different than all other beers I've made.

So lesson learned to others here: If your lager beer appears to not be fermenting and you can't see inside your fermenter, after a few days, take a gravity reading. You may be pleasantly surprised!

 

[mongoose33]

As Yooper pointed out, I guess sometimes lagers can ferment and produce no noticeable CO2 discharge out of the airlock.

How does that happen? There's a beautifully produced krausen over the top of the beer. Where's all the CO2 going?

You have to have an air leak somewhere for the CO2 to exit your fermenter. If it were sealed completely and the only exit from the fermenter was through the airlock, you'd have bubbling.

************

I use a silicone tube/canning jar arrangement where I capture the CO2 from fermentation and thus, when I cold crash and the headspace contracts creating a vacuum, it draws that CO2 back into the headspace instead of outside air (and its oxygen!).

One thing I have struggled with is sometimes it works, and sometimes there is a very small leak from the fermenter such that it draws air in from the outside rather than through the airlock arrangement. So it's not always easy to create a perfect seal on these things.

 

[premington]

I agree... It seems like there *should* be a leak, but I can't imagine where.

The top to the fermenter seams with a thick, large gasket that's new and in perfect shape. It's setting nicely on it, and four large metal clasps create strong pressure on the top, pressing it into the gasket. Never had problems with it before. When I press my hand down on the top of the fermenter, I can see the water press down the blow off tube in the growler. So it's registering the pressure, and it doesn't show a leak--the pressure doesn't dissipate as it would if there was a leak someplace.

It's possible it's bubbling super slowly. I haven't sat and watched it for five minutes or ten minutes. I'm not noticing any movement from the water in the tube when watching for a minute or two.

Strange... Oh well... It's fermenting, and that's good.

Do people here recommend a diacetyl rest BEFORE fermentation is near completion, or should I wait until fermentation stops? I think I read it's not uncommon for activity to slow or stop early. Just want to make sure my next step is wisely thought out.

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

I like to do my diacetyl rest when the beer is 5 to 10 points away from final gravity.