This week, we started to discuss performing a diacetyl rest on John’s most recent Pilsner. Instead, we sort of side track ourselves and really get into some good lager brewing tips as a process towards perfect pilsner brewing.

To open, John discusses how he relies on using the abundant higher house temps in summer to move his pilsner as it nears completion to achieve a diacetyl rest. Looking for a good 70-72F spot in the house, John will move his fermentor there and let it sit for a couple days. This effectively “livens’ up the yeast so they have a chance to reabsorb and metabolize any diacetyl made during ferment.

But diacetyl precursors can be minimized through a good vigorous boil and a big healthy pitch of yeast. Making his starter in advance, John then usually tempers his starter the night before to what he anticipates his pitching temp to be. Generally that’s in the mid- to upper 40s. Then by letting the temp naturally ramp up to the lower 50s the yeast tend to really keep ester and diacetyl formation to a minimum. Maybe to the extent where the diacetyl rest isn’t really needed. However, doing on isn’t a detriment, but helps drive the beer to final gravity.

John also discusses an additional step of let the wort sit in a sanitized fermentor overnight and pitching the yeast on the second day. This achieves two things. First, you don’t have to stress over trying to chill the wort on brew day to pitching temps, which can be hard to do for a lager and any chiller equipment relying on ground water temps. The overnight rest happens in the fermentation fridge set to pitching temp. So you can chill your wort to the mid 70s, call it a day and let the fridge do the rest of the work overnight. Second, during that long sit more break material and hop debris will settle out. You can go ahead and rack off that material and ferment a really clear wort. This helps keep the yeast on task and leads to clearer beer.

Several other nuggets of wisdom come out while getting towards perfect pilsner brewing.

Watch the video and let us know how you handle your lager brewing process.

BREW ON!