lager lag times?

[Brant]

24hrs post pitching a 2L starter of Wyeast Munich Lager and no activity yet. Anyone have lag times with lager yeast this long?

[Wild Bill]

Yeah that does not sound out of line for the info provided. I would say that you may have underpitched a little. Give it another 12 hours and then I might go looking for another vial to throw directly in there.

To get a better idea of what is going on we would need your wort volume, the wort temp, the gravity, whether your starter was stirred, if you have been regularly aerating, etc.

I just brewed 10 gallons of a 1.055 bo-pils this weekend that took 24 hours to start at 50*. I used 2 vials in a 4 liter stirred starter. When I ran the numbers on Jamil's calculator I think I should have had 6 liters or so. I also aerated the batch 4 times with pure o2 over the course of that 24 hours.

[Brant]

Yeah that does not sound out of line for the info provided. I would say that you may have underpitched a little. Give it another 12 hours and then I might go looking for another vial to throw directly in there.

To get a better idea of what is going on we would need your wort volume, the wort temp, the gravity, whether your starter was stirred, if you have been regularly aerating, etc.

I just brewed 10 gallons of a 1.055 bo-pils this weekend that took 24 hours to start at 50*. I used 2 vials in a 4 liter stirred starter. When I ran the numbers on Jamil's calculator I think I should have had 6 liters or so. I also aerated the batch 4 times with pure o2 over the course of that 24 hours.

yea using the yeast pitching rate calculator my starter was 200 mL under volume for a stir plate. I had to crash cool the wort per Jamil's book instructions so I think my yeast might have just gone dormant. It ended up that I was able to oxygenate a second time last night due to its inactivity. Good news though, I just got home and its blurping away. Never figured the krausen would be so small though.

[Wild Bill]

Glad to hear everything is falling in line for you. 200 ml under is not bad at all really. I think you were just looking at normal lag times for a lager. If possible I would apply healthy doses of O2 every 4 to 8 hours on any lager or high gravity ale until fermentation begins.

Crash cooling your starter is just fine. It helps drop the yeast out of suspension and allows you to decant most of the fermented "beer" off. Before you pitch it let it warm up a bit so it is close to your wort temp and you will be good, no worries about it going dormant.

As for the krausen, it will build up. Starting a lager out cold is like watching a fermentation start in slow motion.

Enjoy!

[Brant]

day 4 of fermentation and its bubbling away. about an inch of krausen right now too. Any suggestions on how long to let it go for? 2 weeks? also, great picks of the basement bill. Was that a copper plated bar?

[boobookittyfuk]

man, when you do a starter for lager, make it bigger....like 3-4L of starter so that you can actually increase the number of yeast cells. You need high pitching rates for lagers or you will not get that clean fermentation. Better yet, you'd be best off pitching 2 packages of liquid yeast then to do a 2L starter.

as for fermentation time, i'd go 4 weeks on primary, transfer it to new carboy then start to drop the temp slowly to 34F (like 2 degrees per day). Then lager the thing for 6 weeks.....its a long wait, but worth it.

[Wild Bill]

Sorry it took so long to get back to you, I hate it when work gets in the way of my brewing hobby. Even if it does support it in the first place...

Anyway, I do exactly what BooBoo said. It's what I have gleaned from listening from Jamil. Let the beer finish out and then sit at your fermentation temps until it cleans things up. If you were more in a hurry you could do a diacetal rest when the fermentation nears completion (bring it up to 60 degrees for a coupple of days) then slowly bring it down to lagering temps. but you still need to lager it for 4 - 8 weeks. IMO lagers just take time, what's the difference between 2 months and 3.

As for the bar yes it's copper. I got the copper sheets after the first time it doubled in price but before the last two times. I have pretty high standards and It is one of the few things that actually turned out better than I had hoped.