My schwarzbier has been fermenting happily at 52 for a week now and is showing signs of slowing a bit. The kruesen has dropped slightly and there seems to be a bit less bubbling. Is now the best time to raise it to 62 for a diacetyl rest? For how long do you think? I used Wyeast 2206 (bav. lager) with a 1L starter, stepped to an additional 1.5L starter, cold crashed and decanted resulting in high kruesen within 18 hours or so. Thoughts? What have you guys done? This is my first lager as I finally have a dedicated fermentation fridge…
I’ve never needed a d rest with that yeast. If you pitch enough healthy yeast, you might not either.
Oh cool thanks. Just keep truckin’ at 52 then huh? And with other yeasts that do require it would now be the correct time? I think I read 3/4 of the way to terminal gravity but I really don’t want to bother taking a sample. I think I pitched in the 3-4 hundred billion range, perhaps a bit low but in the wheel house…
I ignore the traditional wisdom about d rests. If I do one, I wait until fermentation is pretty much finished rather than trying to guess at where 3/4 fermentation is. Then I raise the temp for a week, then rack to a keg for lagering.
It’s good to know that you can deviate from the conventional wisdom; I do it in many ways in my brewing. Being new to Lagers, I was just curious what the conventional wisdom was. I will probably skip it as Denny advises, but am still curious about what the “standard” practice is regarding the rest. Anyone else care to chime in?
I rarely do a d-rest anymore for the reasons stated by Denny. Big pitches are the key. Maybe my palate is not sensitive to diacetyl, though? Frankly about the only time I do a d-rest is if my fermentation chamber is too full to handle the incoming batch - then its time to move something out. With 13 kegs in line at most times, it is all about timing for me.
:cheers:
[quote=“ynotbrusum”]I rarely do a d-rest anymore for the reasons stated by Denny. Big pitches are the key. Maybe my palate is not sensitive to diacetyl, though? Frankly about the only time I do a d-rest is if my fermentation chamber is too full to handle the incoming batch - then its time to move something out. With 13 kegs in line at most times, it is all about timing for me.
:cheers: [/quote]
13 kegs huh? You ROCK!!! Thanks for the info…
I always do them for my lagers, but mostly just out of habit. Like Denny, I don’t try to guess when the beer is 75% done or whatever the number is. How would one know anyway? Sure you can take a bunch of gravity readings, but then you have a better chance of introducing something bad into your beer. And even if you did take a bunch of gravity readings, how would you know when it’s 75% done? You’re only guessing at the final gravity, so really you’d only be guessing at the 75% mark.
My standard procedure is to let my lagers ferment for 10-14 days somewhere around 50F (maybe even a little cooler) and then slowly raise the temp a degree or two every day. Once it gets up to around 64F I let it sit for 24hrs. Then I drop it down to 35F to lager for 4-10 weeks. For a bigger beer, I won’t start raising the temp until at least day 14. For a smaller beer I’ll start a little earlier.
This is just what I’ve done in the past and stick to it. My lagers have been some of my better beers after 50+ batches. So somethings working right. To me it’s a no-fuss procedure. Raising the temp on my digital controller takes a whole 5 seconds. Is it necessary, probably not most of the time, but if it kills a diacetyl issue in just one of my beers than it’s worth it.
I’ve developed a procedure similar to Denny. Pitch enough yeast but if a d-rest is warranted I usually do it when I’m sure most of fermentation is done. The only time I’ll sample for diacetyl is when I’m using a new yeast. I’ve got a schwarzbier on the way with bav. lager yeast that I had planned to check at 3 weeks after pitching. I’ll probably save the few ounces and trust the Conn.
:cheers:
