Home Brewer for 4 years now and just brewed Czech pils lager. I have it in my temp controlled mini fridge at 58* and need advise on how to proceed with temps beyond the first week or so. Cheers
What yeast are you using? Depending on the yeast strain you may need a diacetyl rest when you are close to approaching terminal gravity. 58* seems a little on the high side for a lager. I’ve only done one lager (vienna) and i fermented at 50* for about 7 days then raised it to 62* for a D rest for a couple of days. I then racked it to secondary and dropped it to 35* for a month then bottled.
Wyeast 2278 Czech pils
What yeast are you using? Depending on the yeast strain you may need a diacetyl rest when you are close to approaching terminal gravity. 58* seems a little on the high side for a lager. I’ve only done one lager (vienna) and i fermented at 50* for about 7 days then raised it to 62* for a D rest for a couple of days. I then racked it to secondary and dropped it to 35* for a month then bottled.[/quote]
This^^^^^ I have a Bohemian pils lagering right now that I treated exactly as mattnaik describes, only I think I used a 52 degree fermentation and 65 degree diacetyl rest. I used the 2278 as well, and the sample I tasted when I racked to secondary was pretty darn good…
Getting ready to brew my first lager and the timing of the d-rest and racking to secondary is something I still don’t feel like I have a handle on.
I’m using Wy 2633.
How did you decide on 7 days? Did you take a gravity reading?
I just did 7 days because this seemed to be a common schedule for most people. I’ve also read some people take gravity readings and raise the temp when you are withing a couple points of FG but since it was my first lager I didn’t know what FG to expect.
58 is kinda high.
[quote=“dannyboy58”]Getting ready to brew my first lager and the timing of the d-rest and racking to secondary is something I still don’t feel like I have a handle on.
I’m using Wy 2633.
How did you decide on 7 days? Did you take a gravity reading?[/quote]
You may not even need a d rest. I do one for less than 1 out of every 10 lagers I make.
[quote=“Denny”][quote=“dannyboy58”]Getting ready to brew my first lager and the timing of the d-rest and racking to secondary is something I still don’t feel like I have a handle on.
I’m using Wy 2633.
How did you decide on 7 days? Did you take a gravity reading?[/quote]
You may not even need a d rest. I do one for less than 1 out of every 10 lagers I make.[/quote]
How do you decide? taste? ferm temps?
I plan to try and ferment in the low 50s.
[quote=“dannyboy58”][quote=“Denny”][quote=“dannyboy58”]Getting ready to brew my first lager and the timing of the d-rest and racking to secondary is something I still don’t feel like I have a handle on.
I’m using Wy 2633.
How did you decide on 7 days? Did you take a gravity reading?[/quote]
You may not even need a d rest. I do one for less than 1 out of every 10 lagers I make.[/quote]
How do you decide? taste? ferm temps?
I plan to try and ferment in the low 50s.[/quote]
Taste. When I take a reading to see if fermentation is finished, I taste it. If I don’t detect diacetyl, I don’t bother with a rest.
While I agree with Denny, I often raise the temp just to get the beer nice and dry. I’ve got a German pils on tap that finished at 1.008. I fermented mine at 48-50.
I do the same. Hold it around 50 until the activity starts to slow down, then slowly over a few days raise the temp into the high 50s and leave it there for a week or two. I’ve gotten reliably high attenuation relative to the expected fermentability of the wort doing that. Haven’t had a problem with diacetyl in years, even before I started this regiment, but YMMV.
I do the same. Hold it around 50 until the activity starts to slow down, then slowly over a few days raise the temp into the high 50s and leave it there for a week or two. I’ve gotten reliably high attenuation relative to the expected fermentability of the wort doing that. Haven’t had a problem with diacetyl in years, even before I started this regiment, but YMMV.[/quote]
Ya know, I usually do that, too. But I guess that I don’t think of it as a d rest, even though it’s pretty much the same thing.
