Warm Fermented Lager Thread

SSBrew - 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Seems like we are re-tracing the roots of San Francisco pioneers who introduced Steam Beer, produced with lager yeast fermented at ambient temperatures, originally in the 1800's. Anchor used the process in the 1800's along with many other breweries that produced Steam Beer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_beer
 
Last edited:
I've been brewing lagers warm for a long time now, namely 34/70 at ale temps but tonight have thrown a warm wort over a slurry of WLP830 bock lager yeast at 83 fahrenheit cooling to 17 where it started violently bubbling away almost immediately so this is probably my most extreme yet and will keep you guys posted in a few weeks time

I started fermenting warmer due to actually not being able to detect any difference apart from time in the cold Vs warm batches so just stuck with the fast lager
 
Well the jury's out on my hot-start Munich dunkel. It's beginning to condition up and is a bit "hollow" tasting. Aroma is great. Sweet, bready with a touch of raisin from the melanoidin. No hints whatsoever of fermentation by products, just that hollowness to the body. I did miss OG by 8 points though and used some sucrose to boost abv but that has added to a lower fg so attribute to that factor
 
What yeast did you use, if I might ask? I also made a warm-start Helles and I'm a bit underwhelmed. This is a beer for a competition and it's not bad, but it's far from "great".
 
This was German Bock lager Wyeast but I've also used Danish lager and lots of 34/70 Weihenstephener.

Really can't note any difference in taste or aroma cold or warm and to be honest will just continue to ferment at ale temperatures. Critiquing the latest again last night the fermentation character was excellent. Very clean with only malt aromas, it's just my recipe that sucked on this particular occasion (Munich 1 which didn't convert properly, 2% melanoidin) it's possible the Helles you're referring to is just a recipe you're not fond of too. I find I'm really picky on Helles and also that it takes many months of lagering to really taste good, that's just too long for me to wait
 
Craft_brewer said:
This was German Bock lager Wyeast but I've also used Danish lager and lots of 34/70 Weihenstephener.
Click to expand...

How did the Danish Lager do, was that wyeast 2042?

Also what temp and under pressure or not?


I am doing a cold ferment of 2042 and was thinking about doing a warm fermented lager with some of the yeast cake. Have not decided if I will do it under pressure or not.
 
ba-brewer said:
How did the Danish Lager do, was that wyeast 2042?

Also what temp and under pressure or not?


I am doing a cold ferment of 2042 and was thinking about doing a warm fermented lager with some of the yeast cake. Have not decided if I will do it under pressure or not.
Click to expand...

It actually is the only yeast that finished dry for me (1.006 when I'm used to 1.010) and took a long time to condition as usual for a light lager, but it was very neutral really and had a nice crisp character I liked and didn't quite get from anything else I've tried. This was White Labs "Copenhagen lager" but hear it's same product as Wyeast Danish
 
Nubiwan said:
You cant just go spouting you will make good lager because you've made it the way germans did. Nor thats its not a lager because its brewed warmer. Lagering simply implies storing beer longer cooler.
Click to expand...
I’ll admit to not having read all 41 pages of this thread. I was at a fellow club member’s house about a week ago. He had a cold fermented beer and a warm fermented beer made with the same yeast and the same recipe. He gave me the triangle test and I could not tell any difference in any of them. I believe he said it was Wyeast 2124, a variation of the 34/70.

I myself have been just warm fermenting lager recipes with ale yeast. And am getting results I like. So far I have used Wyeast 1332, 1056, 1968, and 1099. Wyeast actually lists blonde ale under a few of these as styles favorable for the yeast. So I thought why not? Ferment at ale temps with ale yeast then store the finished beer cold for a couple weeks. So far believe it or not I think 1099 was my favorite of these and I’m about to do that one again. It drops pretty clear too.
 
STRAIN:
1099

WHITBREAD ALE
™
Species: Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Profile: A mildly malty and slightly fruity fermentation profile. It is less tart and dry than Wyeast 1098 British Ale. With good flocculation characteristics, this yeast clears well without filtration. Low fermentation temperatures will produce a clean finish with a very low ester profile.
Metric Temperature Range: 18-24 °C

18C or 64F is considered low fermentation temp for this strain. All of us should be able to get there!

...And as a bonus, after I ferment my lager with it I can re-use it to make a bitter, ESB, English Pale Ale or English IPA. Win, win.
 
Last edited:
Just wanted to tap into this thread, as I’ve been lurking on it for a while.

I just brewed my first warm fermented lager. I can report that I had great results with WLP810 San Francisco Lager fermented between 60-70*F

I mashed in my Pilsen heavy grain bill a month ago today, and just kegged it yesterday. OG was 1.051, and it finished at 1.009. Apparent attenuation of 82%, this was unexpected from WLP810 which had listed an expected attenuation between of 65%-72%.

I cold crashed this beer for about 5 days, and she came out crystal. Only used a primary bucket, no secondary racking. The aroma from the bucket was that of a lager, and upon tasting the hydrometer sample- which was a bit yeasty- it definitely tasted like the real deal. Perhaps i’m not a refined “lager connoisseur” but I definitely enjoy them. I liked this beer un-carbonated and I cant wait to try it when she’s properly bubbly.

Just wanted to say thanks to @applescrap for starting this thread. The thread gave me confidence to warm ferment lagers and I couldn’t be more happy with the results.

If you’re on the fence about warm fermenting like I was, just try it. It may very well open the door to using lager yeast.

I’ll be back on this thread in a few weeks to post my fellow beer drinking friends’ opinion on this beer.
 
Another trick/tip/cheat for lagers (anybody doing it?) is melanoidin malt. It is supposed to replicate the flavor of a decoction mash. I used it in a beer I made recently. The flavor is great but the issue I have with it is color. It is somewhere around 30L so even 3 oz pushes a 5 gallon batch out of the 5L range. Tough to make a golden lager with it. It would probably add to a Vienna lager or an amber lager though.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
Don't think this has been posted, Fermentis have done some experiments to demonstrate the robustness of 34/70 to different temperatures (and pitch rates etc) :

https://fermentis.com/en/rediscover-saflager-w-34-70/
Just for translation :
12 Plato = 1.048 SG, 16 Plato = 1.065, 20 Plato = 1.083
12°C = 54°F, 16°C = 61°F, 20°C = 68°F
100g/hL = 20g in 20 litres = 18.9g in 5 US gallons = 2/3oz in 5 US gallons

Standard Fermentis pack size is 11.5g, so effectively what they're saying is most of their tests were pitching 2 packs per homebrew, C5* is 4 packs per homebrew, C6 is half a pack of yeast per homebrew - and sees an increase (more than doubling?) in "off notes" that is the only obvious variation in all the trials (apart from what's going on in "sweet" which I can't really see).
View attachment 679672
View attachment 679673
Click to expand...

If anyone's interested, Anne Flesch of Fermentis is interviewed about this study here :
https://www.masterbrewerspodcast.com/216
 
^ I find it fascinating that the lowest temperature Fermentis tested was 12C (54F), i.e. didn't test truly cold traditional lager fermentation temperatures. Basically, they proved that the strain performs very similarly at various warm temperatures as it does at other warm temperatures.
 
Would have been nice if they included a range that went lower, but the ideal temp range they list for that yeast is 12°C – 15°C (53.6-59°F).

I wonder how they arrived at that number?
 
So guys, I have a question related to this thread. We are fermenting lager strains warm - but why? Is it for the clean fermentation profile, or just because we want true lagers? I'm asking as I made a pseudo pilsner the other day and was too lazy to use lager yeast, so I ended up just using what was right before me - S-04.

I made the beer with pils malt, a bit of melanoidin for colour and a dash of dextrin for head retention. I made it using Perle hops for both bittering and a late addition and when cooled I pitched S-04 at 17°C and it fermented there until completion. I bumped the temp to 20°C and when it sat there for a few days I dropped to 10°C in prep for gelatin fining.

However, life got in the way and I kinda forgot about the beer in there, and after 2 weeks I opened the fermenter, remembered it was in there and hastily kegged it. I pulled a sample and I'll be damned - it has to be the most lager-ish ale I've ever made. It's clean, the hop profile is spot on and while the colour is maybe a bit too dark (too heavy with the melanoidin), it's a really really fine beer. The S-04 fermented SUPER clean at the slightly lower temperatures and from the initial taste I couldn't pick up much issue with the yeast AT ALL.

On the other hand, I've made a true lager not long ago as well, using a good recipe and fermented with Lallemand's Diamond Lager yeast. I made a starter to pitch the correct amounts and after slow fermenting at the yeast's perfect temps (11°C) I lagered the beer for 6 weeks before kegging. It's been in the keg now for a month, and it's only starting to drop it's yeast flavour now. I treated it perfectly, fined it well and for starters, the beer refuses to clear. There's a permanent haze (not chill haze) that doesn't drop. On top of that, there's a definite yeast flavour in there. It's not off, like phenols or whatnot, it actually tastes like yeast. Like sourdough, almost.

Now don't get me wrong, I love me a good lager. I'm a sucker for a pale, clear, easy drinking lager any day of the week and I've made a few really cool ones - but it can't be just me who thinks that maybe lager yeasts are (gasp) overrated?

So my question again - why do we keep sticking to lager yeasts?
 
I don't know what is clean for you, but s04 never fermented clean for me. The only thing it did was throwing off sulfur, when fermented low, which actually is lager-ish. Maybe that's what you are getting as lager type flavour?
 
Actually not sulphur at all, no. S-04, for me, ferments a lot cleaner when fermented on the cooler side (and pitched sufficiently) that I can honestly say it's one of the cleanest yeast I have used in a long, long time. The only yeasts that ferment cleaner are HUGE lager colonies, like when I pitch on top of a lager yeast cake, but that doesn't happen often.
 
Toxxyc said:
Actually not sulphur at all, no. S-04, for me, ferments a lot cleaner when fermented on the cooler side (and pitched sufficiently) that I can honestly say it's one of the cleanest yeast I have used in a long, long time. The only yeasts that ferment cleaner are HUGE lager colonies, like when I pitch on top of a lager yeast cake, but that doesn't happen often.
Click to expand...
Hmmm... I tried it at around 16c with a 1.042 blonde wort, was not clean to me. But I might have enforced esters by adding 10% invert. But I got a little bit of sulfur, which actually was kind of nice in that one.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
If anyone's interested, Anne Flesch of Fermentis is interviewed about this study here :
https://www.masterbrewerspodcast.com/216
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting this as well.

I sat down and listened to the whole thing, and I'm trying to remember if there was anything in the podcast that I hadn't read before. For the most part, it sounded like they were rehashing the figures from the sensory analysis mentioned in the "Rediscover..." link.

Basically, a pils made with w34/70 can be fermented at 20C, at a 5g/L pitch rate and it won't taste noticeably different from one fermented cold, at a 10g/L pitch rate. They didn't rehydrate or oxygenate in their studies.

I'm sure I'm leaving some things out, but if anyone else noticed any takeaways from the podcast, feel free to post, so that people who don't like listening to podcasts (like me) can get the information as well.
 
Last edited:
@Toxxyc, I have had the same experience with S-04 recently. I wanted a characterful estery Australian sparkling ale, but what I had on hand was S-04 so I used that, fermented warm at about 70-72 F...... and it turned out so very clean that I renamed it to be a lager. After that batch, I will be using S-04 a whole lot more in the future. It might turn out even cleaner than trusty US-05.

This was not always my experience in the past. Years ago I had S-04 batches that turned out to be sulfur bombs, or just nothing spectacular. My opinion has changed. I think this is a very useful yeast. It makes me wonder also if quality control by the manufacturer might have improved or something, but who knows.

For those who disbelieve.... I encourage you to just try it again on a new batch and see what you think.
 
ebbelwoi said:
if anyone else noticed any takeaways from the podcast, feel free to post, so that people who don't like listening to podcast (like me) can get the information as well.
Click to expand...

That was pretty much why I posted it - I can't be bothered to listen to podcasts but I know some people like them, and usually these kinds of things are just rehashing the article but can have the odd extra insight, but not enough for me to bother listening to the whole thing.
 
dmtaylor said:
@Toxxyc, I have had the same experience with S-04 recently. I wanted a characterful estery Australian sparkling ale, but what I had on hand was S-04 so I used that, fermented warm at about 70-72 F...... and it turned out so very clean that I renamed it to be a lager. After that batch, I will be using S-04 a whole lot more in the future. It might turn out even cleaner than trusty US-05.

This was not always my experience in the past. Years ago I had S-04 batches that turned out to be sulfur bombs, or just nothing spectacular. My opinion has changed. I think this is a very useful yeast. It makes me wonder also if quality control by the manufacturer might have improved or something, but who knows.

For those who disbelieve.... I encourage you to just try it again on a new batch and see what you think.
Click to expand...
Strange. Maybe they changed something in the manufacturing process, or they somehow changed the base they are multiplying it from?
 
Miraculix said:
Strange. Maybe they changed something in the manufacturing process, or they somehow changed the base they are multiplying it from?
Click to expand...

It really does seem like a whole new yeast, as if their source became contaminated or mixed up with a clean lager yeast. It's really really clean. And come to think of it, I've brewed not just one but two batches with S-04, and both with the same super clean results that I loved. And now for a Scottish ale batch that I'll be brewing tonight or tomorrow, I was considering using S-04 as well... but now I am thinking, it's just TOO clean so I think I will use something else! Maybe BRY-97, I haven't used that one in a long time. I'll have to see what else I've got in storage. I always keep various dry yeasts on hand, for years and years, because hey, they don't go bad. Meanwhile, the Wyeast 1728 that I bought last week is utterly DEAD even after 4 days in the starter, so that ain't happening unless I experience a miracle in the next 36 hours.
 
dmtaylor said:
It really does seem like a whole new yeast, as if their source became contaminated or mixed up with a clean lager yeast. It's really really clean. And come to think of it, I've brewed not just one but two batches with S-04, and both with the same super clean results that I loved. And now for a Scottish ale batch that I'll be brewing tonight or tomorrow, I was considering using S-04 as well... but now I am thinking, it's just TOO clean so I think I will use something else! Maybe BRY-97, I haven't used that one in a long time. I'll have to see what else I've got in storage. I always keep various dry yeasts on hand, for years and years, because hey, they don't go bad. Meanwhile, the Wyeast 1728 that I bought last week is utterly DEAD even after 4 days in the starter, so that ain't happening unless I experience a miracle in the next 36 hours.
Click to expand...
I had some dead dry yeasts. Takes years, but it happens. Just recently a three year over the expiry date lallemand abbey wouldn't do anything after two days .. had to throw in mj 42 for rescuing attempts. That worked after half a day. ... The mj was also oooold, didn't have a date on it.

Maybe thes04 yeast is actually new. Sounds more like notty to me :D
 
Interesting about S-04 - not a yeast I use much. But I heard various dark rumours from commerical brewers here around the time of the White Labs diastaticus contamination a few years ago, that some Fermentis yeasts were...not behaving like pure cultures, shall we say. There's also been microbiological evidence in the past that Notty was definitely not composed of 100% of the same strain.

So my suspicion is that QC across the industry was not great, but a few years ago the multi-$m lawsuit against White Labs provided some motivation to clean things up across the board.

That's purely my speculation though.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
That was pretty much why I posted it - I can't be bothered to listen to podcasts but I know some people like them, and usually these kinds of things are just rehashing the article but can have the odd extra insight, but not enough for me to bother listening to the whole thing.
Click to expand...
I think there was a minor insight somewhere in that podcast, but I'd forgotten it by the time it was over. Maybe it was her confirmation of ale pitch rates at ale fermentation temps. Maybe not.

At any rate, thanks again for posting the podcast link, but also thanks again for posting the link to the original article.
 
dmtaylor said:
@Toxxyc, I have had the same experience with S-04 recently. I wanted a characterful estery Australian sparkling ale, but what I had on hand was S-04 so I used that, fermented warm at about 70-72 F...... and it turned out so very clean that I renamed it to be a lager. After that batch, I will be using S-04 a whole lot more in the future. It might turn out even cleaner than trusty US-05.
Click to expand...

No breadiness on this batch? Had you gotten it in the past?
 
Question for you all. i have been using 34/70 for some warm ferments under pressure but get a lemon like taste from his yeast it seems. First off i thought it was chemistry or maybe too much latic acid. Does anybody get the same and if so do you have a yeast to suggest? I have a Lallamend Diamond version in the fermentor currently to see what difference I get.
 
Bohern said:
Question for you all. i have been using 34/70 for some warm ferments under pressure but get a lemon like taste from his yeast it seems. First off i thought it was chemistry or maybe too much latic acid. Does anybody get the same and if so do you have a yeast to suggest? I have a Lallamend Diamond version in the fermentor currently to see what difference I get.
Click to expand...
No, never heard of it, must have a different reason than the yeast.
 

Similar threads

S
Lager fermentation temp interrupted by vacation
Replies
7
Views
319
AlexKay
A
W
Ale Yeast Under Pressure
Replies
29
Views
2K
wdavis2003
W
U
Lager Yeast Pitching Temperature
Replies
11
Views
614
bailey mountain brewer
bailey mountain brewer
Clint Yeastwood
Pressure-Fermented Lager: Necessary to Pitch Cold?
Replies
18
Views
3K
dwightr8
dwightr8
Clint Yeastwood
My Plan for Primary Dry-Hopping
Replies
3
Views
553
Clint Yeastwood
Clint Yeastwood
Brewer's Friend 300

Latest posts

Back
Top