I have tried Mangrove Jack's M76 Bavarian Lager and M84 Bohemian Lager for bock beer, and I was satisfied with them. However, I only brew 8 litre, so I have enough with 1 sachet. Even then, I hydrate it and then put it in the room where the fermentation will occur, place my cooled wort there too, and then add the yeast the following morning so that I am sure they have the same temperature.
Do you find it worth using lager yeast
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MyQul
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You can actually make a starter with dry yeast. Some people say your not supposed to, but I dont understand why. As a starter is just an extract mini beer. So if you use a calc like mr malty you can put a couple of g in a couple of L of starter and grow enough yeast for a lager. I've done this a few times (mainly because I'm cheap as I can get like 10 batches out of 1 pack of yeast if I want)
jceg316
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The commercial maibocks I've had weren't really crisp like a pale lager, but were still malty and had a bit of a fruity flavour.
I tried to make a Czech pils with WY2124 and whilst nice, felt it lacked body and dimension compared to the same beer made with W-34/70 (I read somewhere this is the dried version of 2124). I made a vienna lager with 2124, fermented at 18C and it was great! I think I made another steam style beer and it came out well with this yeast.
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It's not that "you're not supposed to", you can but it just negates one of the big advantages of dry yeast, that you can use them without much aeration.
The main reason yeast need oxygen is to make sterols, which they need to reproduce. The way dry yeast are grown, they are stuffed full of enough sterols for 2-3 cell divisions, so they don't need oxygen in the same way as liquid yeast. Putting dry yeast in a starter means they use up their sterols so are in a similar starting position as liquid yeast - which is fine if you can aerate the wort sufficiently.
As an aside - there's a German on the HBT warm-fermented yeast thread who swears by Californian lager yeast such as Mangrove Jack M54, which is like a slightly better floccing version of 34/70.
MyQul
Chairman of the Bored
Ah, I see. It never did make much sense to me when I read that, 'your supposed to make a starter with dry yeast' Just one of those internet brewing myths then.
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