Lagering with WLP800

[chicanuck]

Howdy Brewnoser's,

Snowy day out there and I am procrastinating my shoveling duties, so I will throw a question out. I have been all grain for over a year now and have made only ales that I have been fermenting at ~64-68F or so.....no issues with my set-up yet. I have been measuring my basement temperatures this winter and it has been consistently 45-52F over the last month, so I thought now would be a great time to try and lager a pilsner down there.

So yesterday I brewed up a 5 gal batch of Bohemian Pilsner based on the Brewing Classic Styles by Zainasheff (pg.60), I substituted Tettnanger for Saaz but the rest of the recipe is very close. The only other small change I made due to the temperature (-19C at brew time), I boiled for 90 mins and added more water as it took longer then normal to bring the wort to boil.

For yeast I used 1 vial of WLP800, best before date of Sept-15/13 and made up a 3L starter on Dec-31, so two days on a stir plate before pitching. There was very little activity from the yeast, even with the stir plate but the temp was ~50F during this time. Anyway, no problem with the brew day, I chilled the wort to ~68F and pitched the 3L of yeast starter. It has been ~24 hours and the beer is sitting at ~48-50F, I know that lager yeast is bottom fermenting and I can see that from the attached photo I just took.

I am really worried about activity yet, but should I stir up the yeast to get things moving or are things already in motion and it is time to sit back and have a homebrew? Also, the book is telling me to leave the beer as is in the carboy for at least 4 weeks, should I follow this plan or perhaps wait longer?

I guess I should go shovel....boo.

- chicanuck

[chicanuck]

Opps, I meant I am not worried about activity yet as it has only been 24 hours but was just throwing the question out there as this is my first experience with lager yeast.

[berley]

I've brewed lagers before that haven't shown much activity the first 24 hours... you really have to give it at least 48 hours before you start to worry.

That being said... a 3 L starter seems big, but with a best before date of September, there probably wasn't a lot of viable yeast in that vial. Not saying that you couldn't build up what was still alive, but it may have required a smaller starter to start with, to "wake up" the yeast, and then start building from there. You also don't have to worry about temps with a starter being at 50 F or so, even though it's a lager yeast.

When you pitched the starter at 68 F, did you immediately drop the temp of the wort to 50 F for fermentation? Or was it gradual?

[berley]

Opps, I meant I am not worried about activity yet as it has only been 24 hours but was just throwing the question out there as this is my first experience with lager yeast.

Saw this after I posted, sorry.

[berley]

One more question... how did you aerate the wort? Just asking because there doesn't seem to be much headspace in your carboy, unless you aerated in a bucket before and then poured it in?

And your other question, I would lager the beer in secondary for at least 4 weeks... I think that's what Jamil recommends for that recipe?

[chicanuck]

The 3L yeast did seem big and is the reason there is very little room in the carboy as I didn't really consider that extra volume as my starters are always smaller for ales. With the best before date of Sept-15/13, Beersmith claims I needed ~400 billion cells which was ~2L......I decided to play it safe and over shoot, 3L claims ~500 billion cells. I also have another vial of WLP800 in the fridge with the same date, perhaps I could warm that up and pitch it in as well.

Realizing that the space was going to be tight, I poured the starter into the carboy and then used a funnel to move the wort on top of the yeast. I used a stir stick to move mix up the wort for a few minutes and also rocked the carboy around last night.

That recipe does call for 4 weeks, which is the plan right now.

[berley]

Hmm. Something isn't right... I've never used the Beersmith yeast starter calculator, but if you use Mrmalty's (mrmalty.com), and you put in a yeast starter for a lager, production date May 13th (b/c White Labs is 4 months prior to the best by date), a gravity of 1.050 for 5 gallons, on a stir plate... it says you need a 4.6 L starter when you use 7 VIALS. That's one expensive yeast starter!

But I can guarantee that you wouldn't get 400 billion cells with a 2 L starter for yeast that old... you'd be lucky to have 10% of the 100 billion cells alive at that point. You can't go from 10 billion to 400 billion with one 2 L starter, unfortunately.

I can see what you mean about the volume... next time you make a large starter, you can prevent this by making it several days in advance, so that you can set it in the fridge to let the yeast settle, and then decant off most of the liquid, to prevent pitching an extra 3 L of beer.

[Tony L]

You pitched 50f starter into 68f wort 24 hours ago and cooled to 50f?

You should have some action in the next while, even if you didn't aerate well enough.

My Modus operandi would be to pitch enough yeast into well aerated or oxygenated wort AT 50f. Doing it this way I still get a 48 Hr lagtime but it usually kicks into gear pretty fast after that.
I would relax and give it another 48 hours if you have good sanitation before going with more yeast.

[Ladd]

WLP800 is a great yeast but is slow as hell both in starting and in fermenting. I did a few Pilsners with it and they both fermented steadily for about 3 weeks so be patient. I was really happy with the results though.

If I could also offer a couple of suggestions, I agree with Berley on the starter. I would cold crash your starter next time and just pitch the yeast slurry. Everything I have read or listened to about starters recommends that you should try not pitch a starter with a volume greater than 5% of your total batch size (1L in 20L max) to eliminate both the possibility of any off flavors from the starter and the fact that it dilutes out your OG since you are adding more volume. With pitching warm and then cooling to ferment temperature I would also do a D-rest (slowly raise the temp 5-10 degrees warmer than your ferment temperature) to fix up any diacetyl produced by the warm pitch temp.

Good luck and let us all know how it turns out!

Edit - spelling

[chicanuck]

The yeast on the stir plate was in my basement, which has been about 50F the last few days. I used a immersion chiller to bring my boiling wort down to ~68F and then racked it onto the yeast starter (at 50F) in a carboy, so I don't know how long it took for the 68F wort to reach the ambient temperature of ~50F.

If I am only getting ~10 billion cells with a single old vial, I guess it will not help to pitch in the second vial at this point. Thanks for the help, I planned for this beer to take some time.

[chicanuck]

It has been over 48 hours and those little yeasty's have started, my blow off tube is burping every few seconds......everything is right in the world again.

Now time to crack a beer and watch some wild card games, my favorite NFL weekend.

- chicanuck

[Tony L]

Looking good.