Does anyone have any notes or the actual presentation/audio for the Chuckanut Lagering seminar from this year’s NHC? I did not take any myself and was actually hoping to brew a Pilsner this weekend with some of the info I learned (and subsequently forgot :-).
Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Julian
I hope the Powerpoint from the presentation will be posted soon, but i don’t know exactly when.
Yeah, I hope so too. I also posted on Chuckanut’s facebook page requesting some info…no luck yet. I may try emailing and/or calling tomorrow…
My wife was a few rows ahead of me, sitting with a good friend, as I came in just before the start.
She said after the presentation -“Oh, that is why we do all of that stuff for lagers!”
So maybe I think it was a good talk! 
The best part was the mathematical formula for beer clearing. “Particle size is the one thing you can change”…
If there was one slide that should have not been included I’d vote for that one
Haha, I might have to agree with you there…that was a bit ridiculous and over the head of most people there (myself included)
The slide had Stokes Law on it. As you drop the temperature, the particles coagulate into bigger particles, and the R^2 term (or D^2 if it is written that way) with make them drop faster. As an Engineer, it is something you learn, and applies when making lagers, or cold crashing ales.
Stokes - Wikipedia’_law
How do you change the particle size? Finings?
That is one way. In lagers as you drop down to cold lagering temps, the particles coagulate together, and get bigger. Colder the better. He was talking about 32F/0C cold.
Isn’t there a ‘rule’ for lagering time? I seem to recall hearing 1 week for every degree Plato that was fermented??? Does that sound right? Would adhering to such a formula be a way to ensure that you give the particles sufficient time to coagulate and drop out?
That is the traditional time for lagering. More moden is 1 week/2 degrees plato. Some go even faster.
Yeah…I rarely lager that long. I am more along the 1 week/2 degrees Plato routine. Might need to give it the old traditional lagering time one of these days to see the glory in my glass!
So I’m planning on doing a 100% Pilsner malt brew (10 gal) @ 153F single step infusion for 90 mins, with mash out at 170F. I will be adjusting mash and sparge pH accordingly with lactic acid.
Boil for 90 mins.
I’ll be buying 2 smack packs of Wyeast 2124 (bohemian lager) and adding to 4.59L of starter wort.
I was planning on fermenting the starter at 60-65F for optimal reproduction, then crashing it down in the fridge until brew day so I can decant the starter beer and just pitch the slurry by raising it to 50F before pitching into my fermentor at 50F for fermentation.
I will be doing a diacetyl rest after primary fermentation for 24-48hrs, and then begin crashing down to 33F and lagering for 4-8 weeks.
Anyone see any issues with this? Any feedback or tweaks to my process would be much appreciated. This will be the first lager I attempt.
Regards,
Julian
I like to chill the wort to 45-46F, pitch the yeast also at that temp, aerate really well (I use O2), let it rise to 49-50F for the main fermentation. Control the main fermentation temp.
The D-rest should be done when the beer has a few degress Plato to go to FG, not the clock, usually 4 or 5 days for the primary. Taste the beer, warm the sample first in the microwave for a few seconds (4 or 5), as that brings Diacetyl out. No Diacetyl, you don’t need to do the D-rest.
For some beers 153F would be a higher mash temp than I would use, but that is OK for others. You didn’t say what the beer was to be.
German Pils.
Thanks for the info, I like some of those tips and will use them. As for the mash temp, I’m mashing higher because on my system with my water I tend to always attenuate really well for all the ales I’ve brewed…this will be the first lager, but I’m assuming that I should mash a bit higher, otherwise I would have gone with 150. Thoughts?
Also, are there any considerations for making a lager yeast starter vs an ale yeast starter? Do I need to wait longer for lager yeast to reproduce vs the 12-18 range for ale yeast starters. I know Jamil’s yeast calc site says 12-18 hrs is when most ale yeast have completed the bulk of reproduction…I usually use this up to 36 hours, but does this hold true for lager yeast too?
You need to use a much larger starter for lagers than for ales. Maybe 2-4x as much. Ferment it at room temp, then crash and decant.
Yeah, I’m using Jamil’s yeast rate pitching calc to determine my starter size. I’d say 4.59L is pretty big! Even for a 10 gal batch…no?
Thanks for the info above. So does 12-18 hours sound about right for a lager starter or should I expect longer as well?
I just let my starters (ale or lager) ferment out completely then crash the yeast, this usually takes 24-48 hours on a stir-plate. I always decant the beer and pitch the yeast.
I don’t have my notes in front of me, but I usually mash my german pils at 149.