First lager made a few mistakes

[Trobocco]

Mainly I did not make a starter. Used all grain method, chilled to 63. Dumped salfager yeast in and it's sitting in my garage 50-55 degrees. Am I going to have any trouble with fermentation starting?

 

[Gentlemans_Ale]

How much yeast did you pitch?

 

[sfgoat]

It is going to be slow and if you only pitched one pack of yeast you are likely to have stressed yeast that may produce off flavors.

 

[Trobocco]

I used one package of salfager 23 at 63 degrees. From there the temp slowly dropped to 50-55. I just left it in my garage which is that temp. Will move to my fridge controlled at 50 soon.

 

[soccerdad]

I think you'll be fine. Fermentis makes good yeast and many folks pitch it dry.

 

[solbes]

Probably more esters than you will like, but it should make good drinkable beer.

Next time try rehydrating two packets. Chill to 47-48 and pitch your yeast. Letting the wort temperature come UP to say 50 or 51 will get the yeast up and running faster than the other way around. Plus you want them cold when they are building up their numbers in the first 24 hours.

 

[Trobocco]

Bubbling started today, so all appears fine. I guess I'll see if there are any strange flavors. You live you learn I guess.

 

[Trobocco]

I have it in the fridge but the bubbling stopped. It's at 45 degrees. Is there a problem?

 

[theonetrueruss]

45 degrees is a bit low.. I'd raise the temp up.

 

[shtoive87]

Make sure to do a diacetyl rest for a couple days near the end. This will clean up some off flavors produced by pitching warm.

 

[Trobocco]

Ok so it's been about a week and I have no activity in the airlock. I moved the fermenter into my fridge at 45 degrees for about 5 days. I than moved it to my garage where there is still no activity in the airlock at 52 degrees. What should I do?

 

[shtoive87]

You might try rousing the yeast a bit. Don't let too much air in, but I'll bet your yeast fell asleep

 

[Trobocco]

What do you mean rousing? If you mean shake I tried that.

 

[shtoive87]

Hmm... You can try raising the temperature a bit more (like 60 degrees). You may need to pitch more yeast. If you do that, make a 2 liter starter and pitch when it's at high krausen.

 

[Hemidoc]

Ok so it's been about a week and I have no activity in the airlock. I moved the fermenter into my fridge at 45 degrees for about 5 days. I than moved it to my garage where there is still no activity in the airlock at 52 degrees. What should I do?

You could bump it up to the mid 60s to finish it off.
Did you take a gravity reading? Bubbles don't mean much. I had one I had done with WL830 and had made a starter. It never really bubbled much but it did finish to target.

 

[Trobocco]

Thx. Another issue my hydrometer broke.