Dry Lager Yeast

I’m going to pitch 34/70 to a Vienna Lager today. Never used dry yeast in a lager before but I want to brew today and didn’t get a starter going.

How much should I pitch to 5.5 gallons of 1.050ish lager? Brewer’s Friend says 4 packs! I feel like I’ve heard you guys that use dry yeast say two packs per 5 gallons…

I’m brewing 11 gallons to fill 2 carboys so 8 packs of yeast seems like a lot!

http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/upl ... W34pdf.pdf

Look at the dosing, pitch rate is temperature dependent.

Danny 34/70 is a great yeast. You will be fine pitching 2 packets of yeast per 5 gallons. Rehydrate and try to get your wort to 45 or so before pitching. Oxygenate and let rise to 48 or so. It’s going to be a little sluggish with the first pitch, but after that when reusing, it will take off.

Agree with everything here. 34/70 is awesome yeast.

Thanks guys! 8 packets might’ve been hard to find on short notice around here… I found 4 though!

Yea Rabeb25 I saw that but just wanted to get some feedback on best practices from guys like Beersk that I know brews tons of lagers. Very nice electric brewery, BTW. Going to be stalking your FB for a while and may ping you with some questions. I have a 2 vessel rig I’m thinking of converting to electric and moving indoors.

For sure!

I only have ~400 lager batches under my belt :mrgreen:

[quote=“rabeb25”]For sure!

I only have ~400 lager batches under my belt :mrgreen: [/quote]
Didn’t mean to sound like I was questioning your credibility…that’s a lotta lager!

What’s hl ? As in g/hl. I assume that’s grams of yeast per ??

No worries I was just razzin you. Just because I have made that many doesn’t make it right!

There is 25 and change gallons to a HL, for all intents and purposes you can just divide that by 5 to get your rates.

Yes that is grams per hectoliter. So just take the amount and divide by 5 to get your pitch rate.

Interesting, so if I’m pitching above 50 degrees my 2 packs 23g appears sufficient but the under 53 degrees rate is more in keeping with what brewers friend says. More like 4 packs minimum.

I generally try to get my wort to 48-50 degrees before I pitch. I’ve been using brewers friend to calculate all my starters so I know they’ve been more than adequately sized.

Pitching 2 packs per 5.5 gallons like Beersk is what I’ll probably go with since I can only get 4 packs today… but the fermentis site has made me a bit anxious about doing it.

[quote=“dannyboy58”]Interesting, so if I’m pitching above 50 degrees my 2 packs 23g appears sufficient but the under 53 degrees rate is more in keeping with what brewers friend says. More like 4 packs minimum.

I generally try to get my wort to 48-50 degrees before I pitch. I’ve been using brewers friend to calculate all my starters so I know they’ve been more than adequately sized.

Pitching 2 packs per 5.5 gallons like Beersk is what I’ll probably go with since I can only get 4 packs today… but the fermentis site has made me a bit anxious about doing it.[/quote]

Pitch your first generation warmer, if you have good temperature control you can go as high at 56.

I’ve pitched 2 packs into 5gals of German Pils and it took almost 72 hours before I saw any activity. This was at 50 degrees. Not sure if that helps or hurts but just my experience. The only other time I used 34/70 was in a repitch.

Two packs would be pretty good, although three packs would be better. Four packs is way way too much.

[quote=“rabeb25”]For sure!

I only have ~400 lager batches under my belt :mrgreen: [/quote]
That’s WAY more lagers than I’ve done, that’s for sure.

Of course, for lagers, the more yeast you can pitch the better. So 3 packs per 5.5 gallons would obviously be better than 2, as Dave suggested. But I think 2 is sufficient as long as you aerate really well and, not sure if it really does make a difference, but rehydrate the yeast. Something I usually do, which I plan to change, is pitch the warm yeast into the cold wort. Bad. I plan to get the yeast cool before pitching it here on out. That’s just for the first generation. Otherwise, all the repitches are right out of the refrigerator(ator).

Easy way to circumvent a low pitch count…

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Drauflassen

Another great tip is to rehydrate your yeast with the manufacturer specific temperature range and then slowly acclimate it to your chilled wort temperature, so as to. It shock the yeast. Use a turkey Bastet and pull off a few ounces to add to the rehydrated yeast.

Hope you can make sense of the above advice. Autocorrect is killing me tonight!

This is what I need to start doing instead of pitching the warm, rehydrated yeast into the cold wort. That shocks the yeast and the last batch I did with fresh rehydrated yeast took almost 3 days to take off and I had to raise the temp to about 60F. Bad news bears.

[quote=“rabeb25”]Easy way to circumvent a low pitch count…

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Drauflassen[/quote]

Interesting idea. I haven’t pitched yet because I had trouble chilling yesterday. 90 degrees out and even the well water was warmer than usual. Got it to mid 60s through the plate chiller, the 2 carboys are in swamp coolers now trying to chill the rest of the way so…I could still do this…or I could go find a couple more packets of yeast at the other LHBS.

fermented my second-of-the-year Vienna Lager (50 OG) and just now kegged it to lager. Only used two packs of non-hydrated yeast (just sprinkled it on top of wort) both times. No off flavors detected on either.

Have good attenuation?