yeast choice S-23 or MJ76

[sdt7618]

Having just bottled my second batch of lager Young's harvest Lager dry hopped with cascade, I made a right boob by just chucking in the hop pellets rather than in a muslin bag!

So not wanting to re-use that yeast again what is the best one to use on further Lagers, also open to options not above. But Have a MJ76 in my brew box.


Have about 7 lager kits to get through

2 harvest Lagers, plan is to dry hop 1 with amarillo the other with mosaic
2 harvest Pils, plan is to dry hop 1 with amarillo the other with mosaic
Coopers Cervesa,
Wilko Cervesa
and a Festival NZ Pilsner.


So as you can see am giving my brew fridge and lagering fridge a right good work out. to be fair though at between 8-10 weeks cycle is provided a welcome relief to bottling every 2-3 week:whistle:

should have a good stock come end of may as already have 80 bottles carbing/conditioning of lager on top of my warmer fermented ales/beers.

 

[Poochops]

I brewed the festival kit using saflager w3470 at 12 degrees, it came out lovely, crisp and very clean tasting and let's the hops come through lovely. I ration my stash of this even to myself!

 

[sdt7618]

Cheers, had the MJyeast and have used that on the next youngs kit but will probably go to the saflager for the festival kit and then onto the cervesa.

 

[Clint]

What temps and for how long are you fermenting? Better still run me through your process....

Cheers

Clint

 

[sdt7618]

What temps and for how long are you fermenting? Better still run me through your process....

Cheers

Clint

Clint,

Basically prepare your kit as you would normally, and when ready to pitch the yeast do so at about 18 degrees( thats my choice) and bung it in the brew fridge. I normally set the inkbird to run at 12 degrees. after about 1 week I raise the temp to 15 degrees for a few days to let the yeast go for it, then drop it back to the 12 degrees.

After 3 weeks in the FV I would dry hop for a week and then rack into a secondary. this would go into a lagering phase. Anywhere from 4-6 weeks at as low as you can get it. Did my first one at 2 degrees and came out crystal clear! but now using a fridge so probably some where around 4-6 degrees.

A few days before bottling I pop some more hops into the secondary inside a bag to get some more flavour into the kits( been using Harvest lager and Harvest Pilsner which were on sale from tesco's)

Bottle as normal, I batch prime so use a bottling bucket and wand. you do need to leave it to carb somewhere warm for a lot longer than normal as the quantity of yeast left is really low I have found that 4 weeks is the bare minimum for carbing. then let condition.

Its a really long process, but I have now got into what is a six week cycle of always having a lager fermenting and one in the fridge lagering. Come summer I should have about 200 pints of well lagered and conditioned brew.

I am also running an ale FV inside the house to make " normal" brews to keep stocks up whilst I am going. Like now I have a sundew and wherry conditioning and Bulldog evil IPA in the FV which has been there just over the week. along with all the odds and sod I had brewed previously.