I am doing a lager, it has been about 11 days, fermenter at 50 F. I was going to check to see if the gravity was low enough to start the Diacetyl rest, but I thought the Krausen should have dropped by now.
There is still the nice brown layer on top of the wort and the bubbles come about every 8 to 10 seconds.
should I wait until it all drops to the bottom before I check the gravity reading?
This sounds like a perfect time to start ramping up the temps. Don’t worry about taking a gravity reading right now. Bump up your temps to around 55F for 1 day, then 60F the next day, then 65F the day after and hold at 68F for 2-3 more days prior to packaging.
I always start bumping up my temps on my lagers as soon as the krausen starts to drop back into the beer in this fashion.
+1 Or, instead of packaging at 2-3 more days, you could drop the temp to 30-34F and lager for a week or so (don’t know if that much is necessary, but it can’t hurt) then gelatin fine and wait another day or two before packaging for a sparkling clear beer.
it has been 13 days now, checked the gravity and it was at 1.013 so I think I am going to start the Diacetyl rest.
Next time try heating the hydrometer sample up to about 170, microwave is fine. Let it sit covered for a few and smell-taste. Maybe it already is diacetyl free. Same thing after your D rest… maybe its still there and needs more time.
good idea to do that little test. I will do that
Thank everyone for the feedback, it is appreciated.