pint of lager
brewing on the verandah
- Joined
- 9/5/04
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- 2,287
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The true answer to so many brewing questions is, "it depends." And often we do not have a good idea as to what guidelines "it depends" on. Often information bleeds down to the homebrewer from commercial brewing, where they have much greater control over ferment temperatures, and can measure and control variables that we as homebrewers do not have access to.
Consider the humble "pitch a truckload of slurry" approach. This may work ok for the slower lagers, but for ales, it can be a recipe for runaway ferments, which may lead to high and excessive ferment temperature.
Clayton Cone's articles are great, and well worth any yeast user/abuser to read. He has about once a year appeared on HBD and answered brewers' questions over a week of digests. Make sure everyone has put Nonicman's link in their favourites, or print out the questions and answers.
Beerisgood is interested in chilling lager yeast starters. I regularly do this. This is my brewday procedure, 45 litre batch size for lagers:
Prior to brewday, I will build up from petri dish to 3-4 litre starter, with small zinc additions and nutrients using og 1.040 starter from cheap supermarket kits.
On brewday, the starter which is actively fermenting is chilled to drop the yeast. Halfway through the sparge I run off about 3-4 litres of wort, boil for 30-45 minutes, chill in the sink, pour the old starter solution off the yeast slurry, pour in the fresh wort, aerate well with a ss stone and continue aerating on and off (excess foam stops me aerating continuously) untill ready to pitch the starter to the fermenter.
Half the wort is run off from the boiler through the CFC, allowed to stand for 10 minutes, then racked off the coldbreak into the fermneter. Starter is pitched and the wort aerated on and off for about 6 hours. The rest of the wort is chilled and collected in a spare fermenter, allowed to chill to air temp, around 5 deg, and next morning, racked into the fermenter with no more oxygenation.
This gives my lagers a good start to ferment. The wort is chilled to fermenting temperature prior to pitching the yeast. Next morning, there is plenty of foam on the surface prior to adding the rest of the wort.
Consider the humble "pitch a truckload of slurry" approach. This may work ok for the slower lagers, but for ales, it can be a recipe for runaway ferments, which may lead to high and excessive ferment temperature.
Clayton Cone's articles are great, and well worth any yeast user/abuser to read. He has about once a year appeared on HBD and answered brewers' questions over a week of digests. Make sure everyone has put Nonicman's link in their favourites, or print out the questions and answers.
Beerisgood is interested in chilling lager yeast starters. I regularly do this. This is my brewday procedure, 45 litre batch size for lagers:
Prior to brewday, I will build up from petri dish to 3-4 litre starter, with small zinc additions and nutrients using og 1.040 starter from cheap supermarket kits.
On brewday, the starter which is actively fermenting is chilled to drop the yeast. Halfway through the sparge I run off about 3-4 litres of wort, boil for 30-45 minutes, chill in the sink, pour the old starter solution off the yeast slurry, pour in the fresh wort, aerate well with a ss stone and continue aerating on and off (excess foam stops me aerating continuously) untill ready to pitch the starter to the fermenter.
Half the wort is run off from the boiler through the CFC, allowed to stand for 10 minutes, then racked off the coldbreak into the fermneter. Starter is pitched and the wort aerated on and off for about 6 hours. The rest of the wort is chilled and collected in a spare fermenter, allowed to chill to air temp, around 5 deg, and next morning, racked into the fermenter with no more oxygenation.
This gives my lagers a good start to ferment. The wort is chilled to fermenting temperature prior to pitching the yeast. Next morning, there is plenty of foam on the surface prior to adding the rest of the wort.