So I brewed a lager again. Not sure why I feel compelled to get this right!! 5th try. So I left in primary for 12 days at 50* then 4 days at 60*. Then transferred to secondary. Reading was 1.020. Did I transfer to late? Should i have left on yeast cake till 1.012? Will enough yeast be in suspension to finish beer?
Yes, you should have left it on the yeast cake. I have no idea why people feel compelled to hurry lagers along. Let 'em rot on the yeast cake for a month. Until it is done.
And ignore that stupid diacetyl rest. If you pitch enough yeast, and wait until they are done, you will never, never, never have any diacetyl in your beer.
I have been home brewing for 25 years, have brewed over 100 batches of lager, and have had diacetyl only once - when I stopped a Czech pils fermentation early with Wyeast 2001 Urquell in order to intentionally get some residual diacetyl in the beer to get that Urquell mouthfeel. After three weeks in the keg, all that diacetyl was gone.
First of all, hold off on judgement until the beer is done. If everything tastes OK in the end, then no harm/no foul. Second, it’s always best to let primary fermentation complete on the full yeast cake, along with some extra time for some warm conditioning so the yeast can clean up byproducts like diacetyl.
Everyone is different, but for my normal gravity lagers I pitch at 45F, then let it free-rise to 50F for 5-7 days. From there I bump it a degree or two every day or two. I pull it from the fermentation chamber around day 14, and let it d-rest at room temp for 2 days. At that point I take a taste sample. If everything tastes good, I cold crash at 30F for 3-5 days, then transfer to a keg for lagering (with gelatin if needed). Because I wait until the yeast is completely done before lagering, I don’t feel the need to lager on the yeast.
John Palmer in How To Brew suggests transferring at about 70% then to slowly bring down the temp while the remaining yeast clarify and clean the beer hence lager. I think I that I should have waited like all the ales I have made, but reading that made me question. Hopefully it comes down a bit more, time will tell.
You can overthink the crap out of them, or you can let them sit at 48-52°F for a month and do nothing, then keg or bottle, and they will be fine. Your choice. Some guys enjoy tweaking their temperature controls every day or so. Me, I would rather let them rot. I have other things to do.
Before we get out of whack here, what was the OG? Did you use a refractometer or hydrometer to make final reading?
I think if you asked John these days he’d have a different answer.
That gravity was probably about all it was going to come down to if you had it in the primary for 16 days. It should’ve been finished by then. My guess is you underpitched or under aerated, or both. Pretty easy mistakes to make on a lager fermentation.
Like others have stated, you didn’t need to rack. I pitch at 45F, let rise to 48-50F. Let it roll there for the first week, then I let the fermenter free rise to the mid 60’s for a week, then keg. By the time I’m ready to let free rise to 65F, the gravity is usually about where it should be for FG, give or take.
Marshall explains it pretty well for what many follow for lagers:
Cheers