Any Lager Brewers on Here?

I don't see too many active brewing threads on here. I've been brewing for ~10yrs and have migrated towards mostly lagers. I still brew ale styles but use lager yeast as I always have harvested yeast around. Usually will start a culture and run it for a year or so.

Anyways, here's a little of my stuff.

India Pale Lager with 4oz of hops inside the keg.


Czech dark/light lager


American light lager


Munich Dunkel


Bottom of one of my 3 beer fridges


Top of that fridge with taps--I cut the freezer floor out

 

Not to many lager drinkers in this group, myself included. I've been brewing off and on for about 8 years now. While I'm not a big lager fan I can appreciate a great looking beer. Those look well done! Great color!!

 

I brew mostly ales, but I do try to brew 4-6 lagers a year. Currently have a few lagers on tap: Festbier, Rauchbier, and Cal Common.

Those lagers look great!

 

Thanks fellas. While I do brew mostly lagers, I still brew ale styles just using lager yeast just cuz I always have a harvest ready to use. The IPL on top was fermented at 66F with W34/70 lager yeast which is very temp tolerant and has 12oz of hops in it. So much for hop haze huh? I do whatever ale styles I want just using lager yeast.

 

I will occasionally brew an ale recipe and ferment as a lager. Last year I brewed a Scottish Lager and Cascadian Black Lager, both with Wyeast 2124 at traditional lager temps and they came out pretty good. I've discovered that pretty much any ale that is suited for a neutral yeast can be fermented as a lager with no issues. I've also fermented a couple ciders with lager strains. It will be a few months down the road, but my next scheduled lagers are a Doppelbock and a IPL. Once I make a lager starter, I usually brew 2-3 in succession using harvested yeast just to get a little more bang for the buck from that first big starter.

 

I developed a way to limit the cost and trouble of the amount of yeast needed to ferment lagers. There is a stickied post on my HB forum I'll list below if interested. Its a little out of date though and I can clarify it if you are interested.

https://brews-bros.com/topic/95456-...thod-to-build-yeast-populations/#entry1859366

 

12oz eh, that sounds good. Lol. I've never attempted a lager. Really no other reason than I don't have a way to run consistent temps that low.

 

Your process looks good. I don't know why more people don't reuse their yeast, given the relative ease of doing so, coupled with the cost of buying new.

I like to brew with a variety of yeasts, so I have 6-8 strains in my yeast bank that I will routinely pull from. Having 8 taps to keep stocked means I brew a wide variety of styles. I do try to maximize my yield, though, so I rarely only brew one batch from a starter. Usually I will brew at least two and often will do three (starter ---> repitch slurry ---> repitch slurry), and occasionally a fourth. I rarely buy yeast, though. Instead I will harvest 25-30B cells of clean yeast from a starter and use that to inoculate a future starter months later, saving off some more at that time to repeat the cycle. I'm pretty sure the WY2124 I have saved are descendants of a smack pack I purchased back in 2015, so I'm going on three years (give or take) with that strain from a single yeast purchase. I think my WLP028 is even older. I also pressure can starter wort to have it ready to go at a moments notice, so throwing a starter together takes maybe 5 minutes. Lately, I've been into harvesting yeast from commercial beers, as I just like the idea of getting the real thing directly from the source, instead of buying a commercial variant from a yeast lab. Next weekend I'm going to harvest some Conan yeast from cans of Heady Topper and will brew a NEIPA with it in February, followed by a nice hoppy American wheat or maybe a brown ale. Next weekend I'm brewing a dubbel and fermenting with Chimay slurry that I originally sourced from a bottle of Chimay Red.

 

I recently did a warm (*62) ferment lager with Wyeast 2112. Every week it seemed to change a little bit until it was all gone. I will definitely brew it again and I saved some of the yeast to make a starter with.