I'm getting fairly confident in my brewing with ales and somewhat confident with lagers. I wanted to start experimenting with various aspects of the process to see what I can tweak and improve on. Fermentation temperature is fairly easy for me to control so I decided to try a black lager, but with a fermentation temp twist. I started with an all grain mash and my wort ended up at SG 1.056. I pitched SafLager W-34/70 German Lager Dry Yeast from a 1L starter at 60 degrees F then once activity was evident, I dropped the temp down to 40 over the course of 36 hrs. Activity slowed, but the airlock was active throughout the drop down and remained active once at 40. I plan on raising temps back up to 60ish as SG gets lower for a diacetyl rest and to chew up any remaining sugar.
It's been chugging for a week now, but I don't live at the place I brew, so I haven't been able to check SG. I'll get that tonight and give a progress update.
I know this isn't the normal lager method, but was curious what I might expect for a finished product. Anybody do something similar? Keeping steps as simple as possible, would anyone do anything different? Before everyone chimes in and tells me I waisted a perfectly good batch, even bad beer makes for great brat boils.
Thanks for the feedback
It's been chugging for a week now, but I don't live at the place I brew, so I haven't been able to check SG. I'll get that tonight and give a progress update.
I know this isn't the normal lager method, but was curious what I might expect for a finished product. Anybody do something similar? Keeping steps as simple as possible, would anyone do anything different? Before everyone chimes in and tells me I waisted a perfectly good batch, even bad beer makes for great brat boils.
Thanks for the feedback