Lager Attenuation Question

I just made a Baltic Porter exactly 2 weeks ago with an OG of 1.089. I made a gigantic one gallon starter with 3 vials of White Labs German lager yeast. The Mash was a little high at 157-158 which I was able to bring down to 154 within 15 minuets. This is my first lager and currently the gravity reading is at 1.034. My question is does this seem like pretty average attenuation for a lager of this size?

That’s only about 60% attenuation so not great after 2 weeks. Does it appear flat like fermentation is done? What’s the fermenter temp?

Did you use a yeast calculator to determine if that was a proper sized starter? Doesn’t sound that big for a 1.089 beer. Did you just do one step? Shaken or stirplate?

According to Brewer’s Friend that’s a pretty undersized starter for that beer. You’d need a second step 1 gallon starter for enough yeast. So you underpitched by more than half the yeast cell count you needed.

Add to that, you probably got a lot of conversion in the first 15 minutes of your mash, at that high temp you created a lot of sugars that are not as easily converted by the yeast.

You might try pitching 34/70 or some work horse dry yeast to see if you can get it lower.

What I’d probably do is make a 2 gallon starter and pitch it at high krausen.

I did use a calculator and it said with shaking that should have been enough. So pitch more lager yeast or just pitch some good dry ale yeast? Overall the beer tastes really good so far but it is a bit too viscous. It did move a couple points from 1.037 a week ago though so it doesn’t seem like it has stopped completely.

The gravity is a little high but you could try a diacetyl rest. AKA as warm it up for a couple of days to the mid 60s. It is usually done when you are 2 to 5 points within your expected terminal gravity so you are not even close. That is a big beer especially for a lager.

Sorry. I missed the small fact that you used 3 vials in the starter. Yea brewer’s friend likes that much better.

Must be the high mash temp that’s making your wort less fermentable.

I still stand by my krausening idea! With it sitting at 1.034 you could rack off a half gallon to a sanitized gallon jug and pitch rehydrated us05 to it. Once it gets to high krausen pitch it back to your fermenter.

Thanks, I am going to try that! I would be happy if it went down another 10 points. I like my dark beers thick, but 1.034 is a bit too much even for me.