Next Step For AG Pilsner ?

[Greg2013]

Ok so one of my recent AG pilsners has been 3.5 weeks in primary fermentation @12C what do i do now re diacetyl rest etc ? 

[Greg2013]

I used 34/70  yeast on this one but i thought i would have to do diacetyl rest before lagering/secondary ? 

[nigel_c]

Taste it and see. Any butterscotch taste, let the temp rise to room temp over the next 2 days, let it clean itself up for a day then drop it back down to lagering temp for as long as you can.
I find cold crashing for a day or 2 and then transferring to keg drops lagers nice and clear after D rest.

[Simon_]

I'm doing my first Pilsner now so read up a fair bit about it. I'm not sure I'd be able to detect Diacetyl so I just went ahead and did one anyhow to be safe.

It's supposed to be done when you're about 75% towards final gravity so there's still some life in the yeast to convert the Diacetyl i.e. you're planning on finishing up at 1.012 do the D Rest at 1.018
If you're 3.5 weeks into it then you might have missed the window to do it anyhow.

You must be running out of grain soon from all this brewing. Bet the bags in my shed would come in handy

[Greg2013]

I'm doing my first Pilsner now so read up a fair bit about it. I'm not sure I'd be able to detect Diacetyl so I just went ahead and did one anyhow to be safe.

It's supposed to be done when you're about 75% towards final gravity so there's still some life in the yeast to convert the Diacetyl i.e. you're planning on finishing up at 1.012 do the D Rest at 1.018
If you're 3.5 weeks into it then you might have missed the window to do it anyhow.

You must be running out of grain soon from all this brewing. Bet the bags in my shed would come in handy

Yep probably missed it but i am going to give it a few days anyway before transferring to another carboy and crash chilling.

I will get that grain off ya soon i reckon,with the competition on atm there was always going to be a delay in collecting and unfortunately i am off the road myself atm too.

[Simon_]

I will get that grain off ya soon i reckon,with the competition on atm there was always going to be a delay in collecting and unfortunately i am off the road myself atm too.

No bother and no rush.

[biertourist]

34/70 isn't known to be super diacetyl prone so as long as you had a reasonable quantity of yeast and pitched at a reasonably cold temperature after 3.5 weeks you should be fine.


3.5 weeks is a long time so you probably don't need to do a diacetyl rest; the purpose of a diacetyl rest is to SPEED UP the process of the yeast taking up any remaining diacetyl.


Just tasting the beer for diacetyl isn't enough because the diacetyl pre-cursor is tasteless and you may say "hey this doesn't taste like butterscotch candies, so I must be done fermenting" -then you transfer into the keg and introduce a bit of oxygen adn all of a sudden those diacetyl pre-cursors form actual diacetyl and now you don't have enough yeast left behind to convert it. 

-You want to perform a "Diacetyl force test" -take a sample of beer and warm it up in a water bath to say 25F and swish it around in the glass a bit to introduce some oxygen, then chill it back down in a cold water bath to get it to a reasonable tasting temperature (hot beer is gross).  -NOW test for diacetyl.  This procedure will rapidly force any of the diacetyl precursors to form actual diacetyl that you can taste.


But with 34/70 @ 3.5 weeks you're probably more than fine.



Adam

[mr hoppy]

-You want to perform a "Diacetyl force test" -take a sample of beer and warm it up in a water bath to say 25F and swish it around in the glass a bit to introduce some oxygen, then chill it back down in a cold water bath to get it to a reasonable tasting temperature (hot beer is gross).  -NOW test for diacetyl.  This procedure will rapidly force any of the diacetyl precursors to form actual diacetyl that you can taste.

How long would you warm it up for? I thought (but wouldn't say I know) those kind of tests took a reasonable amount of time (days at least) to work.