Bohemian Lager

So I made some Bohemian lager, all grain, using a smack pack pilsner lager yeast.

So far no sign what so ever of an active fermentation (Krausen, air bubels ETC) temperature is a bit over optimum ~60F

any thoughts

1 Word, STARTER

yeah - lagers really demand starters. I am always amazed at how long it even takes my lager starters to get going. It is nothing for it to take 2-3 days of worrying before my starters get going, and I always leave about 5 days before brew day to do them. Even with the starter, seems like ferment can take a little while to get going.

It will get there, but may take some time.

I would be careful with the 60 degree temp… Not sure that you want to blast into a couple days of 60 degree fermentation to kick things off.

Don’t really have a way of cooling it except putting it outside any Idea about photo get to temperature down if necessary

You could try water bath with frozen milk jugs or 2 liter bottles.

Probably should have considered this when deciding to brew a lager. Just keep it as cool as you are able to and it should still be ok.

Going forward, if you really want to brew lagers - probably need to invest in temp. control freezer or fridge. If that is not possible, you can make some decent “faux lagers” using Kolsch ale yeast, german ale yeast, san francisco lager yeast and ferment in high 50’s low 60’s.

Up until this year (when I finally bought a freezer) I brewed my lagers in the winter and dedicated an empty basement room in my house as my “lagering room.” Cracked the window open, put towels under the door, shut the heat vent and I could maintain upper 40’s/low 50’s in that room. I would just dedicate some time in the late fall and late winter to crank out about 4 lagers going into winter and coming out - and that was my only lager brewing for the year other than using kolsch yeast to make a “mocktoberfest” or something like that. That would be a possibility too.

See my signature line for keeping the fermentation temp down.

I successfully made a lager using a picnic cooler, tipped on end with the carboy inside and 2l soda bottles sitting on the shoulders of the carboy to keep the temps in the 50’s.

Similar to the 2nd photo.