Some more questions

[Western Brewer]

After todays disasterous brew I have a few questions.
Because there wasn't a hop bed to act as a filter lots of hot break matter and other crud as gone over into the fermenter. Is this going to cause off flavours and will it settle out ok with finings?
I made the lager yeast up into a starter and it is bubbling merrily. Do I pitch at normal temperature or does it need to be cooler?
Should I ferment it straight away in a fridge that I have or will my cool garage 10-12C be ok for primary?
Or should I just throw it away and try again?
Answers to these questions and any other info you may feel is necessary will be welcomed.
If it could go wrong today it did.

[Jim]

Don't throw it away! The crud that went through from the boiler should just sink, and unless the beer sits on it for ages, it won't come to any harm.

For lager yeast in the primary, you'll still need maybe 16C - 18C to get it going, I would have thought - it'll be very sluggish at 12C - you can move it to a cooler place later in the process.


EDIT: Just in case anyone takes any notice of the above, see my retraction below!

Ignore what I said about fermentation temperature - I was talking from the wrong orifice!

[shiny beast]

Have had a few sessions myself when it's gone a tad tits up, but don't worry i'm sure it will turn out fine.

Hot break material: I use hop pellets instead of whole cones. When there are large quantities in the kettle, quite a bit of hot/cold break ends up in the fermenter. I've never noticed any difference in the quality of the end product.

Yeast starter: There seem to be two schools of thought on this one. I usualy pitch at room temp and then bung it in the fridge once i can see signs of fermentation. Other way is to cool to lager fermentation temp and then pitch. You could even ferment at room temp for 24 hours, and then transfer to the fridge. From what i've read there are no esters formed in the first day or two.

Fermentation temp: If you've got access to abig enough fridge, then i would deffo use it. My experince is that a 5 gallon batch will ferment around 5 degrees above ambient temp. Try putting a thermometer in the beer, and adjust your stat to maintain desired temp.

[Western Brewer]

Try putting a thermometer in the beer, and adjust your stat to maintain desired temp.

Just to say how bad today went, one thermometer seems to of packed up and a dropped my small one in the cooled wort so had to fish about to find it. It's not very happy a being got wet at the moment.

[shiny beast]

Another good one is when the batteries pack up and you have to go through all the kids toys looking for spares.

[maxashton]

I've got my Saflager S-23 in the kitchen with the radiators turned off. It's about 10-15c in there, and it's going absolutely mental!

[shiny beast]

That yeast(s23) produces lots of hydrogen sulphide and diacytel. Try to leave it in the primary for a few weeks. This will help to clear it up.

[maxashton]

I was going to leave it in primary for 10 days as per DaaB's rule, and then transfer to keg as secondary for like six weeks or so.

Is that reasonable?

[Western Brewer]

Within 1/4 hour of re-hydrating the Saflager 23 it was climbing out of the pyrex jug Just pitched and will transfer it to the fridge tomorrow afternoon when I get home from work.

[shiny beast]

My experience is very little yeast stays in suspension at low temperature. There is a risk when racking to a secondary/keg that you may not carry over enough yeast to complete the cleanup. I would recommend trying the Brupaks(Brewferm) lager yeast next time. It produces very little of the sulpher and diacytel that you can get with some strains of lager yeast.

[Jim]

Ignore what I said about fermentation temperature - I was talking from the wrong orifice!

[PieOPah]

My last brew was pretty disasterour and I ended up with loads of crud in my fermenter. I intially thought the brew was ruined but I racked off into a different fermenter after about 2 days and quickly realized just how wrong I was.

Okay, I lost quite a lot of the beer due to the amount of stuff floating around, but once I had taken all the clean stuff, the rest just fell tot he bottom and I ended up with a great beer. I may only have gotten 30 pints, but 30 pints of great beer is better than binning it which is what I was tempted to do.

I think it is fairly difficult to screw up a brew. Hell if I can make a good beer then anybody can!!!

[maxashton]

I'm going to bottle a few pints and keg the rest.

This is mainly a convenience thing. I know botting works best for Lagers, but i really can't be doing with the space they'll take up, and the hassle of sanitizing them all.

Incidentally... 80g to carbonate the keg?

[Western Brewer]

Ok Taken Shiny Beasts advice. Came home today nice yeast head on the brew so have transferred it to my spare fridge set on the warmest setting. How long should I leave it there?

[tubby_shaw]

Ok Taken Shiny Beasts advice. Came home today nice yeast head on the brew so have transferred it to my spare fridge set on the warmest setting. How long should I leave it there?

Until primary fermentation has finished. i.e. a stable sg reading over 2 days
Then it's time to turn the temperature down on the fridge for lagering