my first use of a lager yeast. Questions...

[nightsod]

Hey there.
As per the title, I'm brewing my first lager - a BotW Dark Munich Lager.

It's in an FV fitted with an airlock.
It's at 14degrees. (a Brewferm yeast with a temp range of 12 -15 degrees.)
The yeast went in at 7:42 last night. now 10:12am.

Am I being impatient, or should I expect to see activity in the airlock yet?
Or anyone have some basic advice for a lager yeast?

Thanks,

John.

 

[BrotherMalice]

I would keep an eye on it but it can take a while to get going depending on temerature etc also can be due to not having a perfect seal on the FV and going through there rather than the airlock, my first brew took almost 24 hours to get going but then it was fine :)

 

[Laurin]

An easy and cheap way to make your fermenting bin airtight if its not is to just wrap some cling film around the edge (2-3 layers) and then just press the lid back on. Worked perfectly for me.

 

[nightsod]

An easy and cheap way to make your fermenting bin airtight if its not is to just wrap some cling film around the edge (2-3 layers) and then just press the lid back on. Worked perfectly for me.

Doesn't that seal it completely? How does the Co2 escape?

 

[zgoda]

Lager yeast are slow to start if there's not enough active cells, which is the case usually. You'd need 2-3 packets of dry yeast or 2 packets/vials of liquid - or appropriate (4 litres!) starter, see for yourself in mrmalty calculator, it is right in calculation. And even in such case it may be as long as 24 hrs before you could see anything like foam, bubbling airlock or drop in gravity because low temperature slows yeast metabolism.

My practice is to brew small beer (1.040-ish) and inoculate with a 2 litre starter made of single packet/vial. Then collect as much clean slurry as i can and brew something bigger. In homebrew practice you cann't overpitch lager yeast.

This small beer is later fed to my neighbours/employees/postman/father-in-law and i can enjoy proper lager.

 

[nightsod]

That's really interesting.
I only have the packet of yeast that was supplied with the kit though.
By what has been said, 24hrs to start up isn't abnormal. I'll worry about this batch if it isn't behaving by tomorrow morning.

 

[Laurin]

You just cover the rim but not close the opening totally. Think of it as a massive rubber seal ring.

 

[Hollow Legs]

Hi nightsod

Next time try a starter, ie the night before you start your brew add the yeast, yeast nutrient and water at 30degrees to a sealed container, this will hydrate the yeast and it will feed on the nutrient making it ready to start feeding on your brew, also takes less time to ferment out apparently

Good luck

 

[nightsod]

Thanks.

I'll look into making a starter next time, sounds good. It's what I do for bread and I often think of the overlap in the processes.

It's started working. It's glacial in pace compared to the ales I've done previously but it's produced its first *plip*. That always feels like an achievement.

:)

 

[Aleman]

Next time try a starter, ie the night before you start your brew add the yeast, yeast nutrient and water at 30degrees to a sealed container, this will hydrate the yeast and it will feed on the nutrient making it ready to start feeding on your brew, also takes less time to ferment out apparently

If you don't know what you are recommending please don't make such a recommendation.

Firstly . . . Don't do it in a 'Sealed' Container it stands a good chance of exploding

Secondly . . . understand the difference between a starter and rehydration

Rehydration is adding dried yeast to 10 times its own weight of warm water (temperature is yeast strain dependant), leaving it for 15 minutes before stirring and then pitching into the wort. Making a starter uses malt yeast nutrient, and is used when you don't have enough yeast to pitch in the first place.

Thirdly . . . understand that dry yeast does NOT need a starter, but does require rehydration.

Properly rehydrated an 11g sachet of dried yeast contains enough yeast to ferment 5 gallons of beer at 20C (You need to pitch much more if you are pitching at lager fermentation temperatures) . . . so it is pointless pitching into 500ml or 1L of a starter wort, it will use up the energy reserves the manufacturer has built up in the yeast cells prior to drying, leading to a less than perfect fermentation. It will also chew up the sugars really quickly without any reproduction.

 

[nightsod]

Thanks.

I'm glad to see that it's become reassuringly complex again!

 

[BrotherMalice]

Any activity now?

 

[Aleman]

I'm glad to see that it's become reassuringly complex again!

Well to answer your original post in a round about way, the colder you pitch yeast ideally the more yeast you should pitch fermentis quote 80g/hectolitre for pitching at 20C and 300g/hectolitre if you are pitching below 10C. If you don't do this the 'lag time' is extended, and it is during this phase that undesirable compounds may be produced by the yeast that need to be cleaned up later in the ferment (which they do anyway). 24 hours isn't bad . . . I've had a lag time of 4 days (pitching a propagator pack of wyeast into wort at 4C), and the beer turned out fine.

One way to avoid using more yeast packages is to pitch warm and then cool to fermenting temps when fermentation has started, so pitch the yeast at 18C let fermentation start and then cool the wort down to fermentation temps . . . This will produce some funky flavours but again raising the temp toward the end of fermentation (to say 16C the 'diacetyl' rest) will ensure the yeast cleans up after itself.

In all cases dried yeast should be Properly Rehydrated before use

 

[shearclass]

In all cases dried yeast should be Properly Rehydrated before use

Slightly off topic this...

I akways rehydrate my dreid yeast as you suggest above. However i recently bought a few packs of wine yeast which said on the packets that it should not be rehydrated. Can you suggest why this might be the case?

I rehydrated it anyway, and it seems to have fermented ok (currently down to about 1.000). The Yeast was Vinter's Harvest.

 

[nightsod]

(Yes thanks, it has started - slowly but surely.)
Excellent stuff.

It's this sort of detail I was hoping to be advised of. That's a significant difference in amounts depending on temperature. I also find your mention of a four day start reassuring.

For this, I followed Brewpaks instructions: Rehydrate the yeast @ 25-30 deg. Leave for ten minutes.
Pour into the brew, which was then at around 17 deg.

It is now producing co2, albeit gently yet, at a very steady 13 degrees. The Brewpak instructions specify 15degress.
The yeast (A brewferm yeast, it came with the kit.) suggests 9 - 15 degrees optimum.

 

[nightsod]

*update*


It stayed pretty much inactive for 6 days; by seven days the airlock was giving maybe one *plip* an hour and by eight it was fermenting away like an ale
yeast. There was a 5mm layer of pure white froth visible on the surface through the fv. It is now day eleven and we're down to a *plip* every five minutes or so, with the froth dying back a little.

I'm aching to look inside as it's my 1st lager, but I think it's best to wait!

Thanks again for the advice to wait. My first inkling was to go poking around the brew with a spatula. Glad I didn't!