# Noob Saflager S-23, Final Gravity At ~1020 ?



## orwell_g (17/3/10)

Hey guys,

I've put down a kit and kilo (with a bit more dextrose) of a cooper's canadian blonde. The yeast that got recommended to me from my LHBS was the Saflager S-23. I dry pitched the yeast (one pack) at 20 degrees, then brought down to 11 degrees for fermentation. The starting gravity was 1042. Based on the attenuation of the saflager, fermentis states 72-75% attenuation. With some rough calculations:

42 (gravity points) x 0.75 (estimated attenuation percentage) = 31.5
42 - 31.5 = 10.5 = approximately 1.0105 final gravity

It's been in for 17 days and the hydrometer readings between today and 3 days ago has been just 1 point drop in gravity. It seems like it's either slowing down, or is stopping at around 1020. I gave the keg a bit of a swirl around this morning and upped the temp to 12 degrees to hopefully get it going again, just thought I'd also ask a few questions in the meantime before I get home after work:

- Is my estimated final gravity way off?
- Do I need to get another Saflager-s23 to get it going to my estimated final gravity?
-- I can to my LHBS today, but would be preferred to know if I need it first 

Hopefully this isn't going to finish at 1020, as that would be an exceedingly light beer ...


----------



## Screwtop (17/3/10)

orwell_g said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> I've put down a kit and kilo (with a bit more dextrose) of a cooper's canadian blonde. The yeast that got recommended to me from my LHBS was the Saflager S-23. I dry pitched the yeast (one pack) at 20 degrees, then brought down to 11 degrees for fermentation. The starting gravity was 1042. Based on the attenuation of the saflager, fermentis states 72-75% attenuation. With some rough calculations:
> 
> ...



Orwell,


(42-17)/42=59% current AA%

Kit and Kilo of what? plus dextrose. Search string = "extract +fermentability"

This will help also Yeast Pitching Rate Calculator then bookmark the site.

Cheers,

Screwy


----------



## orwell_g (17/3/10)

orwell_g said:


> I've put down a kit and kilo (with a bit more dextrose) of a cooper's canadian blonde.





Screwtop said:


> (Kit and Kilo of what? plus dextrose.



Apologies,

Cooper's Canadian Blonde + 1kg Brew Enhancer 1 (250g maltodextrin + 750g dextrose.) + 300gm of Dextrose + water + saflager s-23 yeast.



Screwtop said:


> (42-17)/42=59% current AA%



I'm assuming that is Apparent Attenuation, and looks a bit low ... Am I right in saying that?

Based on the ingrediants as well, I would have expected much lower than 1020 ... A kit and kilo will generally hit around 1010 from what I've been told ...


----------



## orwell_g (17/3/10)

Based on that yeast calculator it also recommends 1.7 11gm packs of yeast ... Which means I'm under on what I should have pitched with according to that ...

Recommendations based upon this? Do I get another yeast pack? OR just let this one go and have a 3% lager ... ?


----------



## zabond (17/3/10)

brewcraft calc estimates sg 1043 22 ltrs fg 1007 5.4%ac havent used saf-23 but maybe up the temp 2*/day to 16-18* to give it a kick


----------



## praxis178 (17/3/10)

orwell_g said:


> Apologies,
> 
> Cooper's Canadian Blonde + 1kg Brew Enhancer 1 (250g maltodextrin + 750g dextrose.) + 300gm of Dextrose + water + saflager s-23 yeast.
> 
> ...


Plugging your numbers into beersmith I get a corrected gravity (it's fermenting, so dissolved CO2 and ethanol will skew the readings) of 1.003...... So if the numbers don't change for a couple of days I'd say get her bottled! (that's a real attenuation of 75.4% about the upper limit for this yeast anyway, if those numbers can be trusted  )

I did have to convert your SG reading into Brix to feed it into the refractometer tool (a refractometer is recommended for measuring fermenting wort as CO2 bubbles won't really affect the output), so there is a bit of error there, but should be good to a reasonable degree.


----------



## orwell_g (17/3/10)

Thomas J. said:


> Plugging your numbers into beersmith I get a corrected gravity (it's fermenting, so dissolved CO2 and ethanol will skew the readings) of 1.003......





ZABOND said:


> brewcraft calc estimates sg 1043 22 ltrs fg 1007



1.003 and 1.007? That's even lower than 1.010 I was expecting ... Have I mis-understood something here? This is my first lager, so go easy on me ...  Basically it looks like the fermentation has stopped? More yeast?



Thomas J. said:


> So if the numbers don't change for a couple of days I'd say get her bottled!



Bottle at 1.020? I wanted to at least do a diacetyl rest, not sure if I'm too late, and will have to see how I go when I get home and do another reading ...

Also wanted to lager for 2-6 weeks to get the cold conditioning done, I'm nervous that if the yeast has gone dormant or whatever, there may be a lot left when going to bottle. 

So don't really want a whole lot of lager grenades going off while carbonating. Also don't really want a 3% lager ...  

BTW it was totalled to 23 litres as per the kit instructions ...


----------



## Nick JD (17/3/10)

What's it taste like?


----------



## orwell_g (17/3/10)

At the moment the wort tastes quite sweet, needs a diacetyl rest too I think (again, first lager, so could be wrong, it's happened a few times before ) as I can taste some buttery tones as well ...

In saying that, I've noticed the clarity is much improved (not as cloudy as I remember at least ) as well from previous readings ...


----------



## Screwtop (17/3/10)

orwell_g said:


> Apologies,
> 
> Cooper's Canadian Blonde + 1kg Brew Enhancer 1 (250g maltodextrin + 750g dextrose.) + 300gm of Dextrose + water + saflager s-23 yeast.



ok so to the hopped extract in the can (which can be low in fermentability) you added 250G of maltodextrin (unfermentable) and 750g of dextrose (highly fermentable) and made X litres of wort. Assuming this will give you a fermentable wort for your yeast to work on then pitching a suitable amount of yeast should achieve somewhere between 1.010 and 1.011 when it's done. Maybe a small active starter made from 100g of DME in 1L of cooled boiled water and pitched at high krausen might bring it down further. 


so 1.010


Thomas J. said:


> Plugging your numbers into beersmith I get a corrected gravity (it's fermenting, so dissolved CO2 and ethanol will skew the readings) of 1.003...... So if the numbers don't change for a couple of days I'd say get her bottled! (that's a real attenuation of 75.4% about the upper limit for this yeast anyway, if those numbers can be trusted  )
> 
> I did have to convert your SG reading into Brix to feed it into the refractometer tool (a refractometer is recommended for measuring fermenting wort as CO2 bubbles won't really affect the output), so there is a bit of error there, but should be good to a reasonable degree.




Where did you get this from TJ?? Does this make sense to anyone else??

Screwy


----------



## manticle (17/3/10)

The buttery could be diacetyl so worth getting that rest in. If it's sweet and buttery I reckon it's still got some time.

I'd aim for around 1016, then bring up temp to drop the last few points but there's probably no harm in bringing the temp up a degree or so a day now to see if that kickstarts the ferment. Less thermal shock to the yeast supposedly. Once final gravity hits you can reverse that process until you hit lagering temps.



Screwtop said:


> Where did you get this from TJ?? Does this make sense to anyone else??
> 
> Screwy




Not really, no. The only thing I could think of was temp correction but not that drastic (1020 = 1003???)

Maybe a simple error in plugging in the numbers.


----------



## orwell_g (17/3/10)

Screwtop said:


> ok so to the hopped extract in the can (which can be low in fermentability) you added 250G of maltodextrin (unfermentable) and 750g of dextrose (highly fermentable) and made X litres of wort.



I also added an extra 300gm of dextrose on top of the "coopers brew enhancer 1". The 1kg brew enhancer 1 has a mix of 750gm dextrose, 250gm maltodextrin. So technically it would be 1050gm of dextrose and 250gm of maltodextrin. Not sure if that makes much difference? Also the wort was made up to 23 litres as per the can specs ...

Cheers guys! Pretty much confirmed my suspicions of my expected final gravity ... I've put it up 1 degree today, so I'll check again tomorrow and see what the reading says. If it's still at around the 1020 mark tomorrow, I'll be off to the LHBS to get more Saflager yeast and make up a starter to add.


----------



## orwell_g (19/3/10)

Alrighty, rehydrated another pack of saflager s-23, brought the keg up to 15 degrees, slowly added wort to the rehydrated yeast to aclimatise to the temperature of wort. Added the rehydrated yeast cream slurry to the wort and stirred it up to aerate.

I'll test again tonight to see if it's moved, and have left the temp at 14 degrees for the moment to encourage some activity ...


----------



## praxis178 (19/3/10)

Screwtop said:


> ok so to the hopped extract in the can (which can be low in fermentability) you added 250G of maltodextrin (unfermentable) and 750g of dextrose (highly fermentable) and made X litres of wort. Assuming this will give you a fermentable wort for your yeast to work on then pitching a suitable amount of yeast should achieve somewhere between 1.010 and 1.011 when it's done. Maybe a small active starter made from 100g of DME in 1L of cooled boiled water and pitched at high krausen might bring it down further.
> 
> 
> so 1.010
> ...



Straight out plugged his numbers into beersmith, and that's what it spat out at me, they looked way too good to be true hence the "if these numbers can be trusted" comment. I did need to convert one reading into Brix to get Beersmith to do anything, but that's a straight out maths thing, so shouldn't be a source of error.....

The maltodex will leave it tasting sweet, so that's to be expected, and will lead to a higher FG, so I'd discount the Beersmith output at this point and just go with multiple day readings and if stable bottle.... I'm starting to not like those BS specialty tools! h34r:


----------



## manticle (19/3/10)

orwell_g said:


> Alrighty, rehydrated another pack of saflager s-23, brought the keg up to 15 degrees, slowly added wort to the rehydrated yeast to aclimatise to the temperature of wort. Added the rehydrated yeast cream slurry to the wort and stirred it up to aerate.
> 
> I'll test again tonight to see if it's moved, and have left the temp at 14 degrees for the moment to encourage some activity ...



Did you aerate the starter wort or the whole fermenting beer?


----------



## orwell_g (20/3/10)

manticle said:


> Did you aerate the starter wort or the whole fermenting beer?



Sorry, wrong order on there, I aerated the wort then put the rehydrated yeast onto the top of that ...

I'll test early tomorrow to see what's happening.

Cheers all.


----------



## paulwolf350 (20/3/10)

orwell_g said:


> Sorry, wrong order on there, I aerated the wort then put the rehydrated yeast onto the top of that ...
> 
> I'll test early tomorrow to see what's happening.
> 
> Cheers all.



I would just leave it, I leave my lagers 3 weeks primary + 4 weeks CC, otherwise they tatse sweet and diacetyl. Just keep it at 15c and then CC at 1c

Paul


----------



## manticle (20/3/10)

orwell_g said:


> Sorry, wrong order on there, I aerated the wort then put the rehydrated yeast onto the top of that ...
> 
> I'll test early tomorrow to see what's happening.
> 
> Cheers all.



Still confused. Did you remove some of your beer and place it with the redydrated yeast, oxygenate it and allow it to foam, then place it back in or di you rehydrate then add that to the beer and then oxygenate?

The reason I'm asking is because you may have inadvertently oxygenated your beer, particularly if you did the latter. At theses later stages oxygen should be kept to a minimum. Fingers crossed it's all good but good to know where things have the potential to go wrong to work out the best way forward.


----------



## orwell_g (21/3/10)

manticle said:


> Still confused. Did you remove some of your beer and place it with the redydrated yeast, oxygenate it and allow it to foam, then place it back in or di you rehydrate then add that to the beer and then oxygenate?
> 
> The reason I'm asking is because you may have inadvertently oxygenated your beer, particularly if you did the latter. At theses later stages oxygen should be kept to a minimum. Fingers crossed it's all good but good to know where things have the potential to go wrong to work out the best way forward.



Apologies, aerated the wort inside the container with the rehydrated yeast. Then added the rehydrated yeast and aerated wort back onto the top of the fermenting wort. If this makes sense ...

Hopefully shouldn't have exposed it to too much oxygen as was just adding the rehydrated yeast and the bit of wort in the container to the top of the fermenting wort ...


----------



## manticle (21/3/10)

Well there is a chance of oxidating your starter too. I think bum had trouble with this a month or so ago. However that is better than aerating the whole brew and hopefully it turns out for the best.

Because you are adding already fermenting beer to the starter, that already fermenting beer is in its anaerobic phase.

It is usual to aerate a starter at the beginning but its usually made with unfermented wort or malt extract rather than fermenting beer.


----------



## orwell_g (21/3/10)

I see, the mix of the rehydrated yeast and the fermenting beer was more to not shock the yeast with temperature I guess ... Hopefully should turn out alright, there is definitely activity, and has dropped low enough to push the temp up to a diacetyl rest (17 degrees). Did that yesterday morning, and will test again tomorrow morning. Looking good so far, just hope it was worth the effort 

The ales will be my brew of choice after this, so I can get a stockpile going before attempting another lager ...


----------



## manticle (21/3/10)

Next time cool boiled water to desired temperature, add dme or unfermented wort and go from there.

Hope it all works for you.


----------

