Pitching yeast when it comes to Lagers

[Rugger1978]

I have a question that I just can't seem to find a consistent answer online for. That is, when it comes to lagers, you pitch the yeast at room temp (68-78). But then do you immediately put it in your lagering fridge at 48 degrees? Or do you let it sit at room temp until fermentation begins (1 or 2 days) and then put it in the lagering fridge? Once you put it into the lagering fridge, do you drop the temp slowly over a period of a few days or all at once?

What are your experiences with lagers and what has worked best for you?

[Rob Martin]

I cool the wort to 70 (except in the hottest part of the summer when the ground water is too warm) with whatever wort chiller you are using. I then pitch a huge amount of yeast and immediately place the fermentation vessel in whatever cool environment it will ferment at.

For the yeast build-up, I step it up four times (5 if you include the smack pack itself) starting with 850 mL where at the end, the yeast has fermented through nearly 3 gallons of starter. I pour off the spent liquid and pitch the slurry only.

Because I do 10 gal batches, it takes close to 24 hours to bring the 10.5-11 gallons of wort down to 45-55 deg fermentation range. With the large pitch of yeast, it is fermenting by the time it gets to that lower range.

[Rob Martin]

If you are doing 5 gal batches, I would still pitch a relative large amount of yeast, maybe pushing 1.5 gal of starter. Since the 5 gal would cool quicker, maybe let it sit at room temperature for the remainder of the day (presumming you brew morning and afternoon) or just barely overnight (if you brewed in the evening) and put in colder area after 4-8 hours. This would help the yeast get going before it cooled off too much. Not sure how this idea would work, just a suggestion. Maybe someone who lagers 5 gal batches could pitch in.

My biggest piece of advice is...pitch a TON of yeast. You want active fermentation right as soon as possible. The antithesis of this is hefe's. Those you under pitch to stress the yeast. Lagers, you want to pitch a lot so they are not stressed therefore ferment cleanly without any off tastes.

[Rugger1978]

Okay that's good to know about the Hefe, since I'm doing my first all-grain Hefe this friday night. A 10 gallon batch that's broken into two 5 gallon carboys. I'm just going to toss the liquid yeast straight from the vile (using White Labs Hefeweizen) into the cooled wort.


Wow a 3 gallon starter? Are you doing all four stages at room temperature or lagering temperature? If room temperatre are you cold crashing between each stage? And I take it your just using some light DME for the wort?

Thanks a lot for all the help. It's nice to have a communtiy of homebrewers so close to where I live.

[Blktre]

Typically you want to pitch the yeast starter at lager temps. Meaning the wort and the starter should be at the temp you want to ferment at, around 50*. Off flavors, mainly Diacetyl will form within the first 12 hrs of fermentation at warmer temps. What this means is you need to pitch big, healthy starters and aerate well. Some lager strains dont produce as much Diacetyl as others. In this case pitching warm and gently bringing down temps within the first 12-24hrs will work most of the time. Just remember also yeast love staying at the same temp and going from cold to warm, but not going warm to cold.

If you are not sure what to do, take a look at your strain. If it says its a Diacetyl producer I would pitch at lager ferment temps as described then at the tail end warm the beer up to atmospheric and let the yeast consume those off flavors. I did some digging around and JP has a few pretty good paragraphs about your question...

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter10-4.html

[Rugger1978]

Great thanks for all the advice guys. Not sure how I missed the JP's page. I even have the book, lol.