Farming Lager Yeast Temps

[t_c]

Hi
it seems lager yeast like to be pitched at 20 then brought down
with farming this yeast would you leave it at 20 constant
or bring it down to say 12 then raise it back to 20 when making starters or splitting?

 

[sumo]

Hi
it seems lager yeast like to be pitched at 20 then brought down
with farming this yeast would you leave it at 20 constant
or bring it down to say 12 then raise it back to 20 when making starters or splitting?

Depending what school of thought you come from, lager yeast is either pitched as fermenting temperature (12C) with a larger starter or smaller starter at 20C and reduced to 12C.

I would only pitch and farm at the temperature I ferment.

 

[mika]

You can farm at higher temps (20), in fact I think Whitelabs are up around 30 when they build it up, but then they're being very careful about it. If you farm at the higher temps the yeast will develop funky flavours. When it comes time to build a starter for your beer, I'd pour off as much as the sample (that you're building from) without losing yeast as you can, then ferment the starter at your fermentation temp. If you're pitching warm then you can probably let the starter build up at 16C, you've just got to be concious that you may get some of those flavours coming thru.
Lagers are fine when pitched cold at 12C, there's what appears to be a bit more lag time, but the yeast is working. People get worried when they can't see something happening, have faith in your yeast, pitch cold and reap the rewards. Lagers generally don't have a lot to hide behind, so funky yeast flavours can't be hidden behind 100gms of Roast or 3kgs of Galaxy.