I haven’t brewed a lager in quite some time. But, we brewed a Marzen (and my standard Amber) yesterday. This morning, the Amber is bubbling like crazy, nothing from the Marzen. It seems I remember that lagers do take longer, but it’s been a couple years since I brewed such.
They take longer to start, and to finish up at FG.
Yes, everything happens more slowly at lower (lager) temperatures
Lagers take longer to start if you do it right…meaning pitching at low temps. Some people want a fast start and pitch at higher temps, but I’ve found that sacrifices flavor for fast start. IMO, really short lag times are overrated!
I got it down to about 58 with my plate chiller. And pitched at that time. Now have it at 50 degrees, with temp probe taped to side of bucket with some insulation. The only problem is now I can’t use that freezer for anything else.
That is a problem with lagers, yes. But it helps to just brew a string of lagers while your freezer is set at those temps.
I brewed a dunkel yesterday. And before I put the fermenter in the freezer to cool down to pitching temps (because the ground water seems to be like 70F right now) I took about 1 to 2 quarts of the cooled wort and pitch my harvest 2124 yeast into that to start it up. I pitched it a few hours later. The wort wasn’t cooled quite as much as I wanted, it was still like 58F. But it started fairly quickly, which I’m starting to think is a bad thing now since I thought it meant I’d pitched enough yeast, but the wort was probably just a little warmer than it should have been (run on sentence, sweet!). Last time I think I waited longer, like 5 or 6 hours, and the wort was chilled to pitching temp. Don’t know why I didn’t this time…oh well.
Next time, you might want to try waiting to pitch. That is, chill it as far as you can with your plate chiller then stick it in the freezer. Wait until it gets below 50F and then pitch. Pitching as soon as possible isn’t really the be all and end all.
Indeed. My problem was that I let a drop of chiller water fall into the wort when it was at about 120F and so I got super paranoid about infection. So I only gave it 3 or so hours in the chest freezer to cool down and wanted to get the yeast pitch as soon as I could. I guess it’s wait and see now…
not true. they tend to vanish faster for me 8)
+1 After the proper amount of time lagering, time is inverted.
OK, I sure did something wrong. Yesterday, I figured I would check the gravity on this beer. as soon as I got my tube filled I tasted it. WOW, was it sweet. OG was 1.060, yesterday it was 10.58. Obviously something went wrong with that yeast. But, I went down and got some dry lager yeast. hydrated, and pitched. This morning, just starting to barely bubble.
I hope I saved it. There were no off flavors, just SWEET.