German Pils

Brewed one up over the weekend.  Have it fermenting in my chest freezer at 50-52 degrees currently.  Any advice on a diacetyl rest?  I always seem to mess up that part of the process.  I always thought you waited until the beer was 5 points or so from the final gravity and just raise the temp to 68 or so for a few days.  Haven't had much success...
 
That sounds about right. When it gets to about 70-75% of your terminal gravity give it the rest
 
For me I haven't had a need to do a rest. I pitch cold and warm up fermentation by a degree each day.  I pitch at around 45 degrees and let it naturaly warm up to around 48, and then each day I ramp it up one degree, so by the end of fermentation I am around 58 degrees, and have had no detectable diacetyl.
 
Yes, I pitch cold with both the beer and the yeast at 45º and let it free rise to 57 then keep it there until it's done fermenting and no need for a d-rest.  The other things to keep in mind are to not boil with a lid and to do a 90 minute boil to drive off DMS.  Good luck with the brew.
 
Thanks guys.
 
I've never boiled anything with a lid on.  When I use pils malt, I'm almost always doing a 90 minute boil (berliner weisse being the exception...but then I'm doing a double decoction).
 
Just seems like the diacetyl rest doesn't work for me.  I wonder if I'm waiting too long to start or not leaving long enough at the higher temp.  I'll take a gravity reading today and maybe ramp up my chest freezer temp to 68.
 
Cheers.
 
When you say it doesn't work, you mean you are getting diacetyl in your finished beer?
 
Say you're shooting for a terminal gravity of 1.012, you will want to start taking gravity readings after about 5-7 of active fermentation, and if your reading is 1.020-1.024 that is the time you will want to give it the rest. Usually a 10 degree increase will do the trick.
 
Yup. The last couple of pils I've brewed have had diacetyl in the finished beer.
 
Looks like I might be a bit late on a diacetyl rest for this batch.  Took a gravity reading last night.  After 48 hours of fermentation, the gravity was at 1.010.  Still a lot of activity going on though.  I've let the temp go.  Was at 58 this morning.  I expect it to be closer to 68 when I go home for lunch in an hour.
 
HigherThisHeat said:
Ouch. Those temps are high. Ideally you would want to keep temps between like 45-55
 
For a diacetyl rest?  The beer fermented at 50-52 for the first 48 hours.  The gravity was down to 1.010 after the first 48 hours.  The projected FG is 1.008. 
 
Wyeast 2124 - This Carlsberg type yeast is the most widely used lager strain in the world. This strain produces a distinct malty profile with some ester character and a crisp finish. A versatile strain, that is great to use with lagers or Pilsners for fermentations in the 45-55°F (8-12°C) range. It may also be used for Common beer production with fermentations at 65-68°F (18-20°C). A thorough diacetyl rest is recommended after fermentation is complete. Raise temperature to 65-68 for a couple of days when 2 - 5 points away from FG.

Origin:
Flocculation: Medium-low
Attenuation: 73-77%
Temperature Range: 45-68F, 8-22C
Alcohol Tolerance: 9% ABV
 
Oh, sorry, I miss understood. I was thinking you fermented at 58... But for the d-rest, yeah 58 may not be quite high enough. As I said, 10 degrees higher than primary fermentation temp will usually suffice.
 
Ummmm I have some input
 
We ferment every single one of our lagers between 52 and 56 degrees dependant on yeast strain, and do a diacetyl rest at 62 degrees for 3 days, then crash it back down a couple of degrees each day until we hit 32, condition at 32. 

90 percent of our lagers take a maximum of 28-30 days, with only 2 taking longer than that because it wasnt a traditional fermentation to begin with. One was with a Zurich Lager yeast and then a Flor Sherry yeast that took 4 months to do and came out at 14%, the other one was a stupidly hopped India Pale Lager at 7.8% with 3 dry hop additions hence the additional time
 
I have never had residual diacetyl in any of them, even after 4-6 months ( i keep quality control bottles and kegs just for this purpose), but its super easy to do a VDK test on all of your lagers to determine if you are going to have any pre-cursors, and to alter them accordingly
 
If you have more questions, let me know and I can answer them 
 
Thanks everybody for the input.
 
Regarding the diacetyl, my understanding is that this is something that occurs during fermentation. Whether I have the beer for a month or a year, if there's diacetyl, it will always be there.  Faded a bit over time maybe, but always there because of it occurring during the fermentation process.  Is this correct?
 
I've been relying on what Wyeast says in the past regarding a diacetyl rest, but I have not been doing something correctly.  Maybe 68 degrees for a rest is too high?  It could be 62 degrees is the sweet spot...or maybe it depends on the yeast?  Maybe I'm not doing the rest for long enough?  In the past, I haven't sampled the beer during the rest and prior to lagering...I'm going to for this one.
 
My pils was at 62 last night and I just left it alone.
 
You could be confusing diacetyl with sulfur as well. I have known people to not be able to make the distinction. 
 
And yes, diacetyl is formed during fermentation, but once the yeast finish up their attenuative phase, they will reabsorb vicinal diketones which are the precursors to diacetyl.
 
Easy way to tell if your beer has reabsorbed VDK is to take like 200ml of your beer, heat it to 140, hold it for 90 minutes there, then let it cool to room temp and drink it
 
you are going to have a shitload of weird flavors, but you should be able to pick out diacetyl pretty quickly
Ohh and dont use wyeast
 
SIebel Institute just did a study on wyeast strains and determined that like 30 percent of their strains are not what they say they are
 
in fact, their Saison strain is actually a wine yeast, that required an 85-90 degree fermentation temperature after like 3 weeks to actually hit its terminal gravity
 
white labs all the way
 
I f**king hate The Wyeast Saison yeast!  The 3711 is my favorite for Saison and nowhere near as finicky as the 3724. In a pinch, the dry t-58 works fairly well.
 
wheebz said:
You could be confusing diacetyl with sulfur as well. I have known people to not be able to make the distinction. 
 
And yes, diacetyl is formed during fermentation, but once the yeast finish up their attenuative phase, they will reabsorb vicinal diketones which are the precursors to diacetyl.
 
Easy way to tell if your beer has reabsorbed VDK is to take like 200ml of your beer, heat it to 140, hold it for 90 minutes there, then let it cool to room temp and drink it
 
you are going to have a shitload of weird flavors, but you should be able to pick out diacetyl pretty quickly

Ohh and dont use wyeast
 
SIebel Institute just did a study on wyeast strains and determined that like 30 percent of their strains are not what they say they are
 
in fact, their Saison strain is actually a wine yeast, that required an 85-90 degree fermentation temperature after like 3 weeks to actually hit its terminal gravity
 
white labs all the way
To me, diacetyl (movie popcorn butter or butterscotch) vs sulfer (rotten eggs) are pretty different things.  And don't these have different causes?  Isn't diacetyl related to fermentation while sulfer tends to be an infection of some kind or autolysis maybe?  (Total disclosure - I'm skeptical of the whole autolysis thing when it comes to homebrewing.  But that's a conversation for some other time.  :) )  Do you happen to have a link to the Siebel study?  I've got a homebrew club meeting on Saturday and would love to share those results.  Never had a problem with the Wyeast Saison before.  (I was fermenting between 80-90 the entire time and I've only used it a couple of times.)  I've definitely heard a lot of complaints about it.
 
Siebel study is not public knowledge
 
I found out about it yesterday from my assistant brewer who is taking their online classes right now
 
and no, sulfur is a byproduct of yeast fermentation, and to be honest the fact that you have never smelled it with a lager yeast fermentation before kind of worries me
 
Sulfur smells can absolutely be a byproduct of fermentation.  100% correct.  Happens all the time with tens (more?) of various yeast strains.  Much to my wife's chagrin, I've stunk up our garage on a number of occasions.  None of those beers had sulfur in the end product.  The conversation is about a finished beer where I have diacetyl problems.  Sulfur in a finished beer is not the same thing as sulfur being emitted due to fermentation.
 
Per the BJCP web site:
 
"Sulfury Rotten eggs, burning matches Check for infection. Check water for excessive sulfates. Check yeast health. Check for yeast autolysis (beer left on yeast too long at warm temperatures). Try another yeast strain."
 
I'm no BJCP judge as I don't have the palate for it, but that being said, I can tell the difference between butter and rotten eggs in a finished beer.
 
I also don't believe whatever private Siebel study you're referring to.  Private or not, if there was something "like 30 percent of their strains are not what they say they are," I would most likely have heard about it.  Those are essentially charges of fraud. 
 
I'll follow up on this conversation after a chit chat with a local commercial brewer that I'm supposed to visit with on Saturday and can report back if you'd like.
 
mroakley said:
Sulfur smells can absolutely be a byproduct of fermentation.  100% correct.  Happens all the time with tens (more?) of various yeast strains.  Much to my wife's chagrin, I've stunk up our garage on a number of occasions.  None of those beers had sulfur in the end product.  The conversation is about a finished beer where I have diacetyl problems.  Sulfur in a finished beer is not the same thing as sulfur being emitted due to fermentation.
 
Per the BJCP web site:
 
"Sulfury Rotten eggs, burning matches Check for infection. Check water for excessive sulfates. Check yeast health. Check for yeast autolysis (beer left on yeast too long at warm temperatures). Try another yeast strain."
 
I'm no BJCP judge as I don't have the palate for it, but that being said, I can tell the difference between butter and rotten eggs in a finished beer.
 
I also don't believe whatever private Siebel study you're referring to.  Private or not, if there was something "like 30 percent of their strains are not what they say they are," I would most likely have heard about it.  Those are essentially charges of fraud. 
 
I'll follow up on this conversation after a chit chat with a local commercial brewer that I'm supposed to visit with on Saturday and can report back if you'd like.
 
When I was at Craft Brewers Conference earlier this year, White Labs was doing the same study on yeast genome sequencing, and they had the same results. That one is public knowledge, they just did not specify which labs were all being studied. 
 
And those are not charged of fraud, we just haven't had the technology to sequence every lab grown strain out there to determine if they are indeed what the current science has led us to believe they are.
 
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