Warm Fermented Lager Thread

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lagermeister1 said:
i made a Maibock 2 weeks ago fermented with 3470 at room temp 72F in my fermentasaurus under 10psi of pressure. i was drinking it yesturday and am very surprised how good it is already. my og was 1.074 and it finished up at 1.014. i have won an award with this recipe in the past fermenting cold with white labs german lager so i am very familiar on how it should taste and it is almost right there already. i am not able to cold crash but i did fine with gelatin and it seems to be starting to clear well. next batch will be a munich helles export with this same yeast. very excited about these warm fermented lagers also because my temp controlled chest freezer stopped working a few months ago.

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Did you end up making the Munich helles export? How did it come out?
 
Here it was day 4 or so. Its done I am sure. At that alcohol the yeast got right to work. I am going to rack it with lime. Haha, lot of work for some bud light lime. Now if only they made Bud Light Lime with golden promise and quality cane sugar.
Screenshot_2019-01-03-11-54-19.jpeg
 
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I repitched a slurry of MJ54 from a prior batch yesterday. It was slow to start when I first used it as a dry yeast. Do people have the same experience from slurry? I’m wondering at what point to give up on it and repitch a fresh pack.
 
I am soon to do my California common recipe, an absolute house favorite! Just got the base grain but need to find Northern Brewer hops.

Weird... I have 5.5# of hops and not a speck of NB.
 
Kegged my lemondrop pils today. Hydro sample was very tasty and lager like! Was my first warm fermented lager with MJ 54. Going to try a dortmunder export next!
 
EDF713 said:
I repitched a slurry of MJ54 from a prior batch yesterday. It was slow to start when I first used it as a dry yeast. Do people have the same experience from slurry? I’m wondering at what point to give up on it and repitch a fresh pack.
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This was my experience repitching M54. It is just one data point. Try a forum search and/ or a google search using “repitching M54”.

InspectorJon said:
So here is a picture of my Doppelbock warm fermented with MJ M54. I was shooting for something like Paulaner Salvator. This is a high bar to reach. I tried them side by side today. I have to say the two beers are very similar. The Salvator had a more substantial mouthfeel, was a little darker and was a bit sweeter. All in all I am very pleased with my results for my first shot at a Doppelbock. It tastes like Salvator. I have no temperature control system so I had not tried lager beer before reading this thread.

Some details: This was a second generation beer brewed with yeast harvested from a California Common. The CC attenuated at 73% and turned out quite well. This one attenuated at 71%. A little lower than advertised or hoped for. The flavors of both beers were very good. Fermentation temperatures for both beers were in the mid to upper 60s. I'll brew this again. Next time I will try a 2 stepped mash temperature and a longer mash. My mash conversion efficiency was lower than hoped for resulting in a lower OG, which likely accounts for the thinner mouthfeel. both beers are very clear. Cold crashed with gelatin. This one was bottled about one month ago. It was 3 weeks in the fermenter.

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Yay, the light is racked and force carbed. Thank goodness no burnt flavor from dry fire fandango. It tastes really good. Sugar was what I have been looking for with these lagers. Way lighter body. The no chill mimiced a decent boil as I had hoped. The 1 oz of pearle for 10g is just what the doctor ordered as well. Really pleased with this one, very clean. There is the slightest sulfur odor that I hope dissipates but I dont see where it can go trapped in the keg. My wife said it was good and was something to drink by the pool.
 
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InspectorJon said:
This was my experience repitching M54. It is just one data point. Try a forum search and/ or a google search using “repitching M54”.
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Turns out nothing to be worried about, it's cranking along nicely now. When pitching from slurries of other strains they start pretty quick, but M54 for me has its own timeline!
 
Miraculix said:
Brulosophy did an experiment with it and it was a success.
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i once had runaway temperatures with the WLP 860 (rumored to be the same as L17 and rumored to be the Augustiner strain - I have my doubts about the latter though) and it came out with an unpleasant fruitiness (could have been acetaldehyde?). Maybe it wasn't temperature but a different factor, Brulosophy aerates with pure O2, which I don't, and they have much quicker wort chilling than I do.

When fermented cold, WLP 860 is my favorite lager strain so far.
 
skw said:
i once had runaway temperatures with the WLP 860 (rumored to be the same as L17 and rumored to be the Augustiner strain - I have my doubts about the latter though) and it came out with an unpleasant fruitiness (could have been acetaldehyde?). Maybe it wasn't temperature but a different factor, Brulosophy aerates with pure O2, which I don't, and they have much quicker wort chilling than I do.

When fermented cold, WLP 860 is my favorite lager strain so far.
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As far as I remember, they used imperial yeast harvest, which could be a completely different strain....
 
@RoyalGallon said:
I tried the MJ84 at warm temperatures and it didn't come out well.
Very gluey / solventy. Not good. Wouldn't recommend it.
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Well that does not sound good. I have done a lot of cold brews this winter with MJ84 so was hoping it could ferment warm. My thinking was i should be familiar enough with the yeast now to notice any difference.
 
As someone who has never attempted a lager, I have considered maybe making 2019 the year I try it.

I haven't read the entire thread, but I'm hoping some of your more experienced folks could help point me the right direction.

I have rudimentary temperature control... I use a Coolbrewing Fermentation cooler bag. I do 3.5 gal batches, and in a test at one point, with water in the fermenting bucket, I was (from what I recall) able to get the water temp down to around 50*F without too much difficulty (using a couple 4L milk jugs with frozen water, and rotating daily) I could maybe get the temp lower, but would say realistically, low 50's is probably the most realistic goal I should have.

Given that, can you folks possibly point me toward a good first lager recipe that I could likely be successful at, along with the appropriate fermentation schedule?

I bottle, and am gathering an approach of maybe 3 weeks primary (all at mid 50's F??? Or maybe a few days at mid 50's, then allow to rise to mid 60's?), 3 weeks bottle conditioning at room temp, 3 weeks in the fridge maybe?

But I'm unsure of how, or if, the fermentation plan should change based on lager yeast choice, grain bill, etc (as I've only ever done ales, so lagers are a mystery to me)
 
Mothman said:
As someone who has never attempted a lager, I have considered maybe making 2019 the year I try it.

I haven't read the entire thread, but I'm hoping some of your more experienced folks could help point me the right direction.

I have rudimentary temperature control... I use a Coolbrewing Fermentation cooler bag. I do 3.5 gal batches, and in a test at one point, with water in the fermenting bucket, I was (from what I recall) able to get the water temp down to around 50*F without too much difficulty (using a couple 4L milk jugs with frozen water, and rotating daily) I could maybe get the temp lower, but would say realistically, low 50's is probably the most realistic goal I should have.

Given that, can you folks possibly point me toward a good first lager recipe that I could likely be successful at, along with the appropriate fermentation schedule?

I bottle, and am gathering an approach of maybe 3 weeks primary (all at mid 50's F??? Or maybe a few days at mid 50's, then allow to rise to mid 60's?), 3 weeks bottle conditioning at room temp, 3 weeks in the fridge maybe?

But I'm unsure of how, or if, the fermentation plan should change based on lager yeast choice, grain bill, etc (as I've only ever done ales, so lagers are a mystery to me)
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I recently brewed my first lager using this Munich Dunkel recipe from Brew Your Own Magazine using Saflager 34/70 and it is delicious:

https://byo.com/article/munich-dunkel-the-original-brown-lager-of-bavaria/

I fermented mine in a Coolbrewing cooler bag and was able to keep mine in the low 50's throughout fermentation. After about 3 weeks I let it raise slowly to the mid 60's. I also bottle and followed my usual ale bottling process and all worked out great.

If you like beers more on the malty side, I would give this one a shot as it is great and showed me that you don't NEED to have a fermentation fridge to do a lager.

Good luck!!!!
 
Thanks dkeller, I do like a malty beer, I'm going to save that link.

Do you recall how much ice you used in your bag (and roughly the ambient temps) to hold the low 50's temperature?

And to clarify your schedule... you held low 50's for around 3 weeks, then let it raise to mid 60's over what time frame? Another week?

And did you do the step mash? I do full-volume BIAB so don't really think I can do a step mash. If I do a standard mash, any suggestions for an appropriate mash temp?
 
On a more general note, using this warm(er) lager method... can a person play around with pretty much any conventional lager recipe, and just switch up the yeast to one of those talked about in this thread, and give it a go?
 
Mothman said:
Thanks dkeller, I do like a malty beer, I'm going to save that link.

Do you recall how much ice you used in your bag (and roughly the ambient temps) to hold the low 50's temperature?

And to clarify your schedule... you held low 50's for around 3 weeks, then let it raise to mid 60's over what time frame? Another week?

And did you do the step mash? I do full-volume BIAB so don't really think I can do a step mash. If I do a standard mash, any suggestions for an appropriate mash temp?
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I used a total of 4 one gallon milk jugs and just rotated always had 2 in the cooler and 2 in the freezer. I may have had and additional 64 oz bottle in in the beginning to help bring it down to the 50's, but for the most part it was just 2 gallons at a time. Our house is around 67-68f, so that helped keep the temps down.

If I recall the lowest I got was around 53f and I was fine with that seeing as some on the post fermented higher and had good results.

As for the schedule, I was religious about swapping out the ice for 2 weeks and at that point I took a gravity reading and was a few point away from my FG so I just went down to one gallon of water for a day or so which got me to my FG then let it sit without ice for another few days, maybe a week at most. It didn't get above 65 after that since the house was cool.

No step mash, just single infusion mash in a cooler for 75 minutes and did a 90 minute boil.

Planning on having on later, I take a picture and post it.
 
Mothman said:
On a more general note, using this warm(er) lager method... can a person play around with pretty much any conventional lager recipe, and just switch up the yeast to one of those talked about in this thread, and give it a go?
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Not 100% sure on this, but I want to say yes as I don't think the grain bill matters as much as the yeast strain you use does. I chose 34/70 as that seemed to sound like the best yeast to use from reading this thread.
 
dkeller12 said:
Not 100% sure on this, but I want to say yes as I don't think the grain bill matters as much as the yeast strain you use does. I chose 34/70 as that seemed to sound like the best yeast to use from reading this thread.
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Thanks for the input.

Think I'll make it happen sometime this spring. :)
 
dkeller12 said:
I used a total of 4 one gallon milk jugs and just rotated always had 2 in the cooler and 2 in the freezer. I may have had and additional 64 oz bottle in in the beginning to help bring it down to the 50's, but for the most part it was just 2 gallons at a time. Our house is around 67-68f, so that helped keep the temps down.

If I recall the lowest I got was around 53f and I was fine with that seeing as some on the post fermented higher and had good results.

As for the schedule, I was religious about swapping out the ice for 2 weeks and at that point I took a gravity reading and was a few point away from my FG so I just went down to one gallon of water for a day or so which got me to my FG then let it sit without ice for another few days, maybe a week at most. It didn't get above 65 after that since the house was cool.

No step mash, just single infusion mash in a cooler for 75 minutes and did a 90 minute boil.

Planning on having on later, I take a picture and post it.
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Mate, this is the warm fermented lager thread :D

You can go with 3470 up until room temperature, no problem with that. But even better, use Mangrove Jack california Lager. I have fermented this one at 30c (86f) and only got a little bit of fruity esters. At room temperature it is perfectly clean.
 
Tulsahomebrewer said:
Wyeast 2001.......my instructions say this yeast works best between 45-50F. But it seems to have worked well at 67-70F.
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FWIW, 2001 Urquell H-Strain is a current seasonal release, along with 2352 Munich Lager II which is one of those rare lager yeasts whose official temperature range drifts into the 60s F (62F to be exact) so might be worth a go?

White Labs have WLP815 Belgian as a current seasonal, with WLP860 Munich Helles planned in Q3 and WLP885 Zurich in Q4.
 
My helles with wlp830 has a bit of a burnt rubber/sulfur off flavor the last pilsner(wlp840) I did also had this same flavor but after a week in the keg it was gone. Anyone else experience this ? I thought it was from over dry hopping it but after reading another thread , BJCP says it is due to yeast. https://www.bjcp.org/docs/OffFlavorFlash.pdf
 
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I'm sure several of you have done something like this but I will be doing my second batch of a 2112 "lager" this weekend. Its your basic pills recipe but with wyeast 2112 at room temperature ferm. I have found that initially it tasted a little more like a blonde ale but after it lagered in a keg it became a bit more like a lager. Even if it wasn't a true lager it was easy to drink and a big hit with a crowd that generally only go for BMC (like my wife).
 
Mothman said:
Oh, another question... using these lager yeasts at a higher temperature, do FG predictions (eg in Beersmith) still work out ok? Or does it throw the attenuation off?
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I've done three warm fermented lagers using W-34/70 and BeerSmith FG perditions are just as accurate as all the ales I've brewed. I'm kegging a German Pilsner today. The Marzen and Munich Dunkel both came out great. I've been using recipes from "Brewing Classic Styles" and I'm very happy with the results so far. Also just put a Vienna Lager in the fermentation chamber.
 
I have 3 lagers which are currently fermenting with W-34/70: an India Pilsner DH, a Vienna Lager and an India Schwarzbier DH. I started the fermentation at around 63-64F and now resting at around 70F, just before dry hopping. Hopefully, they turn out well. Will surely post results later on.
 
thehaze said:
I have 3 lagers which are currently fermenting with W-34/70: an India Pilsner DH, a Vienna Lager and an India Schwarzbier DH. I started the fermentation at around 63-64F and now resting at around 70F, just before dry hopping. Hopefully, they turn out well. Will surely post results later on.
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I start mine out at 64-65F and once it’s at FG raise the temp up to 68F until it gets kegged. I typically only ferment for 2-3 weeks. I’ve also found it takes a good month lagering to clear up nicely. I’m inpatient and would love to be able to speed up the clarifying. Gelatin helps a little but not like in ales. Obviously fermenting lager yeast warm plays into the clarity issues I’m having.
 

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