My opinion doesn’t matter it’s what your trying to brew. If you ferment a lager yeast at 60 degrees your making a steam beer like anchor. It’s a fine beer but to me it is closer to an ale. An ale to me has more going on flavor wise yeast esters hops etc. A lager is more subtle. Malty maybe in some. If I’m going to ferment at 60 I’ll use an ale yeast. But that’s just me. Brewing a lager is a little more work that’s why I only brew them in the winter because I live in a cold climate. I ferment in my garage and lager in a snow bank.
I hear what your saying. Larger is King in the Uk, although Ales are making a come back big style!
You can’t beat a crisp clean cold larger for refrement sometimes. So I think I’m going to just ferment at 46.F and see how it goes.
It’s like you suggested, a bit of trial and error for my own pallet is needed.
It’s an excuse to brew more !
Is it still a good idea after 2 weeks to turn the fridge off to make sure the brew is fully pitched?
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Refreshment *
I’m with @brewcat low to mid 50s for lager yeast. After 6-7 days when the krauesen starts to fall I let the temp free rise in the swamp cooler. May end up in the mid 50s. I’m ok with that until I’m ready to keg it. Then it goes into my lagering chest at 33F.
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Out with the old… Hint, hint you old rascals!! 
, in with the new… Sure seems there are more and more small, local, craft brewers turning out a lager in less than a month… And starting cool not real cold, and letting them come up as they ferment hasn’t turned out any ale tasting lagers that I’ve tried… BUT… the real side to this IS the lagering period after the fermentation is done… There, alot of cleaning up goes on… So, in with the new! 
Sneezles61
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Sure there are “new lager” yeasts that supposedly ferment warmer but I wouldn’t recommend doing it with traditional lager yeasts. That’s a whole different animal.
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I’d say the 34/70 exbeerment was an eye opener… Sneezles61
I mean, there wasn’t a strong pile of evidence to say cold was better than warm fermenting schedule…
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The point here is we have a new brewer who wants to make a lager and im just trying to guide him on how to make a traditional lager. Their are mock lagers and frankenlagers or whatever that can be expierimented with after he gets a baseline lager to compare to
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FYI the yeast in the kit is saflager s23
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I will concede Brew Cat… I know you and Danny Boy do old school lagers… You have way more lagers under your collar than I…
I was giving Ben a condensed version to get his “toes wet”… I plan to get my lager chamber up and running this W/E and start my journey again… Sneezles61
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The s23 is a fine yeast. Look into saving some yeast from the fermenter for your next lager. Lagers are often done in a series.
Is that like the instructions NB used to send out that said chill your wort below 100F before pitching…yea that worked really well for new brewers. I’d never recommend a new brewer ferement outside the range of their yeast. s23’s range is 50-57. Going a little cooler might be fine but warmer…not if you want a clean lager.
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Hi brewcat,
So I’ve been researching harvesting the yeast. Most of the videos say not to Harvest dry yeast.
Would you agree?
You can harvest dry yeast I’ve done it and still do. The theory is dry yeast is cheap so just buy it. Lager yeast you need to pitch more so the cost goes up. If you save your yeast you from your lager you can do a series of lagers and have plenty of yeast to pitch to a bock or a dopelbock which may need alot of yeast. Lager yeast is a great yeast to harvest because I believe it won’t mutate like an ale yeast since an ale yeast won’t like the colder fermentation temps. Another reason to ferment lagers cold. I think maybe yeast companies say don’t harvest and people repeat it. Their trying to sell yeast. Yeast is yeast IMO
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Nice one, I’ll give it a go!
I do a 3-step lager series each December. Start with a Vienna lager (it’s been in the fermenter at 50-53 for the past week). Similar to brewcat, I ferment in my basement, in my case in a swamp cooler filled with water plus a frozen water bottle if needed. I put an aquarium heater in there to warm it to 60-63 for a D-rest. I’ll do the D-rest the next couple days then rack her over to a carboy and move it out to my garage for lagering for a month or so. Save 2 qts of slurry from the Vienna to use in a Marzen that I’ll brew next weekend. Then save 2-3 qts slurry from the marzen to use in a bock that I’ll do as my last batch of the year on 12/31. I’m using WY2308, Munich lager yeast. Lagers can be made ‘ghetto style’ without a dedicated temp. controlled fridge. But you do have to monitor the temp of the water bath and adjust if necessary.
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You know i love you brother…just gotta yank yer chain when I think you’re talkin nonsense
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I feel the love! Brothers in brew! Sneezles61
Ok Guys, I had a good brew day on Saturday, everything went to plan. Quick question on O.G. I took a sample but it was towards the end of tranfering Into Primary fermentation. There was some sediment in the bottom of the sample tube. The reading was coming out at 1.1. Which I know seems high for a pilsner.
Trying to figure out if this was a true reading or if I’ve made an obvious mistake somewhere…
Wow! Really high. Assuming you adjusted for temp or cooled your test sample. If it was higher temp then your actual gravity would be even higher than what you measured. I would assume you either misread the hydrometer or something else was way off.
