Lager yeasts take around 3 weeks to fully ferment the sugars into alcohol. During this process, they also create a compound called Diacetyl which has a pronounced butterscotch candy flavor. Diacetyl is produced by all yeast during first few days of fermentation, and is cleaned up by the same yeast after primary fermentation is complete.
If left alone, the cleaning process will take upwards of 3 weeks. It is a good idea to taste your lager every day using a thief until you can no longer detect any butterscotch. Slowly lower the temperature from the 60s of your diacetyl rest to the low 40s or upper 30s and hold it there for a few more weeks. Be sure to lower the temperature slowly!
This keeps them healthy for the next phase of fermentation. If you lower the temperature too quickly, they will be shocked into releasing a large amount of esters into the beer, potentially altering the flavor profile. The lagering process will assist in flocculation, allowing the solids to fall out of suspension and settle on the bottom of your vessel, producing an exceptionally clean final product. Once complete, it is time to keg or bottle.
Remember to sanitize your serving vessel before transferring. Keg or bottle your beer, and enjoy! Dry Lagers has a very crisp and refreshing mouth feel with a heavy hop and bitter taste.
Is Drinking Lager Good for You? Drinking beer in moderation has been proven to have health benefits. Drinking beer regularly in moderation can reduce your chance of heart diseases, alzheimers and migraines. It can also give you stronger bones and prevent type 2 diabetes. Remember to drink in moderation since overdrinking can lead to negative health implications and in the worst cases, death. Hello, my name is Simon. Together with a group of writers I write about brewing beer and making wine.
We all share a passion for the great things in life, such as making stuff from scratch. The business of HomeBrewAdvice is to bring you great information, stories and product reviews from brewing at home, and making wine.
Image: Pixabay. In case of cold break removal through flotation, the aeration of the wort is achieved during the flotation process.
Once the yeast is well distributed this equals about 15 x 10 6 cells per ml wort. When it comes to pitching and primary fermentation temperatures cold and warm lager fermentation exists. This should however not be confused with warm vs.
There is no warm pitching in commercial German lager fermentation. Once the yeast is pitched it takes about 24 hours for the low Kraeusen to develop.
High Kraeusen starts on the 3rd day, when the maximum temperature is reached and lasts until the 5th day. At this time yeast growth slows down and the yeast starts to flocculate. This is when the beer is slowly cooled at a rate of 0. The remaining fermentable extract is 1.
Many breweries mix beer from different batches in the lagering tanks to compensate for fluctuations in color, bitterness, attenuation and other parameters. During the secondary fermentation a.
This system, called Spundungsapparat, ensures the proper carbonation of the beer during lagering. It is also more economical for a brewery to use the CO2 produced during fermentation. Key for a good lagering is control of the yeast contents and temperature profile such that the fermentation slowly continues during the whole time the beer is lagered. Only this allows for the processes to happen that are commonly referred to as maturation: reduction of diacetyl, acedealdehyde, higher alcohols etc.
The lagering takes between 4 weeks and 6 months. At the end of lagering the beer has the desired attenuation, which is generally a little higher than the limit of attenuation. Export style beers can have an attenuation as close as 0. A difference between actual and limit of attenuation means that there are fermentable sugars left in the beer which are a vital part of the flavor profile, but larger percentages of these sugars result in in a less shelf stable beer.
The process described above is how the best lagers are brewed. But it is very difficult to handle for the home brewer. Because of that all home brewing instructions that are given in the state of the art home brewing literature are based on a lager fermentation process that is referred to as accelerated fermentation and maturation in commercial brewing.
Even many commercial lager breweries use this accelerated process due to time and tank space constraints for the production of their lager beers. The key to this is their Beechwood ageing process where the porosity of the beechwood allows for a greater contact area between the yeast, which flocculated onto the beechwood strips, and the beer resulting in a shorter maturation time.
The following sections go into more detail about the home brewing process for lagers and try to explain the different approaches to the process that are done by different brewers.
Proper pitching rate is important for brewing lagers, especially if cold pitching see next section is chosen. Jamil Zainasheff from the Brewing Network has a nice pitching rate calculator on his web page. This tool allows you to calculate the amount needed for proper ale and lager fermentation based on the original gravity of the wort and the viability of the yeast. The problem with pitching based on a pitching rate is always knowing how much yeast one actually has available.
Without a Hemocytometer it is hard to count yeast cells. That's why determining yeast amount based on the volume of yeast sediment is more practical for the home brewer. The pitchable liquid yeast products that are out there White Labs vials and Wyeast Activator packs are not a sufficient amount of yeast for lagers when pitched cold.
This means you need to propagate yeast by growing them in wort. Essentially you are making a starter but you are expecting more than waking up the yeast; you are expecting yeast growth.
That's why the starter needs to be fairly big and needs to be prepared a few days in advance. How big depends on your equipment and how early depends on the temperature at which you keep the starter.
If you don't have a stir plate and need to shake the starter once in a while to keep as much of the yeast suspended as possible, you should make a qt starter. These amounts assume that you want to grow yeast from a White Labs vial or a Wyeast activator pack. Experience will tell you what works best for you. Temperature: As much as there is debate about warm pitching vs.
Brewers however generally agree that yeast should be propagated at or slightly above primary fermentation temperature because the yeast should not get used to living and performing at higher temperatures than the primary fermentation temperature. Growing yeast at primary fermentation temperatures also avoids shocking the yeast when pitched because its temperature is already close to pitching temperature. The yeast propagation guidelines from the yeast bank Weihenstephan also suggest that the last stages of propagation are done close to fermentation temperatures.
Reusing an existing yeast cake is the easiest way to get a proper pitch of yeast. But is it recommended that the wort is not simply racked onto the old cake but that the yeast is taken from the primary fermenter and pitched according to the necessary pitching rate for the beer to avoid over pitching.
After that the yeast performance starts to suffer significantly and it might be necessary to make another propagation step with that yeast to recharge its glycogen reserves. Among home brewers there is is often debate regarding the proper pitching temperature for lagers. Some say that you need to pitch warm to allow for better initial growth of the yeast and others say that you need to pitch below the primary fermentation temperature.
To understand that both sides have valid arguments one has to understand where they are coming from. Warm pitching has been introduced by home brewers and yeast manufacturers because it allows for pitching a lager with a smaller pitching rate and leads to a shorter lag time which is less concerning for the first time lager brewer.
That's why warm pitching was suggested in the "Your first lager fermentation" section above. Industrial lager brewing only does cold pitching because the proper pitching rates and yeast health can be ensured.
Because of the initially higher fermentation temperatures, warm pitching is associated with an increased level of ester, diacetyl and fusel alcohol production which are components that, at higher levels, are not desired in a lager. Diacetyl will be reduced by the yeast during the maturation of the beer but most of the esters and higher alcohols can carry over into the finished product.
That's why cold pitching is also recommended for the home brewing of lager beer as long as a proper pitch of healthy yeast is available. If this is not the case, cold pitching can lead to a very long lag time and sluggish fermentation. Make sure to break up all clumps. If you have a stir plate, stirring the wort and yeast for a few minutes will take care of that very nicely.
Most brewers use a fridge or freezer chest with an external temperature control for this. Expect the fermentation to start within 16 - 36 hrs. For lager fermentation the lag time should not be too short.
Because of the low beer it is actually beer since yeast has already been pitched temperature there is less risk of contamination since the metabolism of the bacteria and wild yeast is also reduced.
The lag time also appears longer for lagers because the colder beer can absorb more CO 2 before it is forced out of solution and forms the Kraeusen. If you are concerned that your yeast isn't active after pitching, measure the pH of the beer.
If it dropped from the lower to mid 5's at pitching time into the upper 4's 12 hrs after pitching, the yeast is doing alright. The lowered pH already provides additional insurance against infections. Oftentimes you can also see a stratification of yeast. In this case the very top layer of the beer seems darker and less cloudy. The yeast is in suspension in the cloudy beer just below that layer. I have had low Kraeusen formation as late as 48 hrs after pitching.
Though I don't like it to take that long, the beer turned out just fine. When brewing lagers I strongly recommend that a Fast Ferment Test is done. Palmer [Palmer, ] was referring to brewing lagers as flying blind because you don't know when they are done fermenting. With a FFT you will be able to determine the FG of your lager well before the actual batch has finished fermenting.
This is especially helpful for all grain brewers because the final gravity of the beer can greatly be influenced by mashing. Help Support Homebrew Talk:. B33rL0v3r Active Member. I'm doing an Oktoberfest thats been fermenting for about a week now in my new fermentation chamber. OG was 1.
How long do I leave it in primary? I used Wyeast Octoberfest Lager Blend Should I transfer into secondary eventually? Should I just be taking gravity readings?
Or do lagers need more time after fermentation before bottling? BigB Well-Known Member. Lagers take longer to ferment than ales do. A diacetyl rest is nothing more than allowing the fermenting beer to warm up to room temperature for days At any rate, a general rule of thumb is to let a lager ferment for 10 days, then diacetyl rest for days.
I personally transfer to secondary at this point but others don't transfer at all. Then cool to lager temps degrees F and leave it for weeks. Then you would bottle or keg as normal
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