I am getting back into brewing after about a decade away (I finally have the space to do things right). And I am glutting for punishment and starting with a Vienna lager. Pressure fermenting (Fermzilla) seems to make it so I can finally get a lager to work at the ambient temps of my basement (68f).
I’m looking to see if anyone has experience with s-23 under pressure. Basically, how long it usually takes under the conditions outlined below, or any helpful hints? I may have already done some things wrong, but it’s an exbeeriment.
Oxgigenated before pitch with a stone for 15 seconds
Direct pitch at 70f
Pressure at pitch - 15psi
I have a party tap to take samples once I get five days in. The wait will kill me, but I don’t want to waste those precious oz with anxiety. So any hints from experience would be fantastic.
From poking around the forums, where I started seems to be the closest to a consensus I could find. I figured that asking directly may bring people out of the woodwork.
Great yeast under pressure, balanced profile with hints of imitation vanilla extract on the nose. Direct pitch and set head pressure will add a day to fermenting, you should be done in 6 days tops. The yeast handles up to 30 psi no problem, just slowly back it down if you want to repitch part of it again.
Thanks. This is pretty much what I was looking for. I’m 4 days out from pitch and the constant release from my homemade spunding valve (put together with parts from my company’s HVAC stock for $20) is done. The PRV I used is only rated for 15psi (and it’s accurate) so I couldn’t go whole hog at 20-30 psi as many recommend.
I will take a reading tonight, hopefully cold crash Friday, keg transfer Saturday, and have something close to drinkable Sunday.
From all the research I did before starting this, while not a 100% match, it’s 95% or better. Side-by-side comparisons of a split batch (countless youtube videos on the topic), people can tell there was something different between them, but drinking one without a comparison seems to be nearly imperceptible. For me, if I can get a clean lawnmower beer grain to keg in a week, I’m sold.
You might want to give the beer a chance to lager for a week or so after racking to keg, as I see general beer improvement as a little more bit of lagering is allowed to occur. The beer will be drinkable after cold-crashing, but it will improve with a little more storage. At least that has been my experience. Also, 15 psi for a lager is perfectly fine. For what it is worth, I cold ferment under pressure - for me pressure fermentation is about the reduced esters and the use of pressurized vessels to avoid cold-side O2 exposure.
I purge my empty kegs with the CO2 blow off of actively fermenting beers by filling them with sanitizer and connecting a spunding valve in line to purge and then switching the spunding valve to the out post on the keg after it has purged out all sanitizer to set some head pressure on the now empty, sanitized CO2-purged keg (remember to change QDC’s on the spunding valve though!).
If you like the results with S23, I can give some tips to accelerate turnaround time with it, without sacrificing quality. I have made 400 gallons+ with S23 under pressure, it’s a solid yeast!
My version of cold crashing is actually going to be in a repurposed keg with a floating dip tube. I don’t have anywhere that the Fermzilla will fit to cold crash in the tank. I was planning on turning my kegerator on max and just letting it sit. Maybe per your recommendation, I just let it sit for a week or so and pull a few off the top for quality control. I was already planning on mixing up a full keg of sanitizer and pressure transferring the sanitizer to the final before I did my cold-crash routine.
I’m all ears. Coming from only doing ales for ages before my break, I generally appreciate a bit of character. My friend that convinced me to get back into brewing uses s-23 constantly, just cold fermenting. He’s never pressure fermented, hence why I had to ask this community.
I was debating having the temperature a bit higher just to speed things along, but didn’t have a good way of controlling it. I have some Arduino projects that are formulating in my head, but I didn’t want to hold off a brew day for a week when I could have beer ready for when I sit down at the workbench.
Here’s some things that really help me move things along. The morning of brew day make a 500ml vitality starter with 1 tsp goferm protect evolution (I use fresh frozen hopped wort from the previous batch) using only 1 sachet of yeast. With the few hours this vitality starter has, it will chew 8-12+ points in the first 24 hours vs 1-3 points from just sprinkling in dry yeast into the fermenter. No need for any oxygen or aeration at all either. Pitch at 58-60 if possible and let it natively build pressure to your desired level, don’t worry if the temperature slowly rises as it builds pressure. If you use clearzyme or clarity ferm at pitch you won’t need any other finings like gelatin. Once kegged bring it to 30°F for 24 hours and then adjust the temperature to your preferred serving temperature. With the above steps you should be serving a very tasty clear lager in just 14 days. With Nottingham I can confidently serve a gin clear cream ale in 7 days using the above process.
Red and white, I’m intrigued by the vitality starter. Is that the amount for a 5 gallon batch? My SOP uses a lot of yeast and it would be good to save some money on dry yeast with your method.
I have a slightly different procedure that results in drinkable lager in about 14 days. If you can give it another 7 days lagering even better.
Pitch dry yeast into 50F wort at a rate of 1.9 grams per liter. Have had success with cellar science German, Berlin, Baja and Diamond lager.
Let fermentation raise temp to 54F and around day 5-6 cap fermenter to 15 psi. Remove settled yeast.
On day 7 start lowering temp 2-3F per day. When at 35-37 either keg with gelatin or lager another week.
Yes the starter is for 21L in the fermenter. I think you will be pleasantly surprised how well the above starter works. No stir plate either, just a couple gentle swirls to get the co² out. The goferm protect evolution provides many building blocks for the yeast that they can readily use only in the absence of oxygen.
I’m very familiar with Diamond and Berlin (which is super similar if not exactly S23 or an S23 blend). With these yeasts you might try fermenting around 55-58°F. In side by side split 10 gallon batches I couldn’t tell the difference in the glass. It does speed up the ferment, but still equally clean in my experience. Hopefully some of this helps.
Thanks for sharing this. Do you have any other ale strains that you have experience with fermenting under pressure? I generally ferment my ales under maybe 2 PSI (just enough to lightly close my spunding valve), then let it pressurize at the tail end of fermentation. I’ve never really thought to try running them under 15 PSI like I do with lagers, but I could see benefits in something like an IPA, where you’d potentially be offgassing less hop aromatics during active fermentation.
Your welcome! I regularly use Verdant, Notty and now London, I’m really a lager guy though. Notty is clean no matter what, so it’s dead easy. Verdant is tougher to slow down the esters even at a natural build to 10 psi, above 15 psi it slows down the Apricot a good bit. London is tricky, because how violent and fast it is, you have keep it low at first (2-3 psi to retain esters)and ramp pressure quickly at high kräusen if you want to fully carbonate it before it’s done, which is my preferred method with every yeast.
It is said most ale yeasts create esters in the first 36 hours, lager yeasts can for double or triple that. I tend to agree with those sentiments. I have experimented with more simple sugars in the wort for increased ester production like zee Germans do with hefeweizen and I have seen an increase with Verdant and London. Hop aroma and flavor does improve with pressure fermenting, but it’s hard to quantify.
I have a few desert island beers that I brew a lot and usually only change 1 parameter each time. I’m not the smartest guy in the room, but I try to be observant and take very good notes. Every yeast is different and on my gear with my wort composition and pressure schedules I will likely get a different result from someone doing the same exact thing simultaneously next to me on their rig. I do lots of 10 and 15 gal batches in 2 or 3 different all rounders to learn faster. Full disclosure, my huge family is here every Sunday and help me get rid of beer quickly so I can brew more, no way I could go through that much otherwise. If you have any other questions, fire away. Since nobody is an expert in pressure fermentation yet, we need to share away to get to the bottom of it.