German Brewing

Nothing different than what you'll see on YouTube. Get rid of what sinks first and settles last, keep the middle.

I don't think that you'll be surprised to know that they are the same person and if you are observant you'll see that he has returned to the AHA Forum albeit without the regularity that he once posted at.

It's interesting you reference S. Cerevisiae here because he is an example of someone who possessed a ton of empirical findings and experience with brewing yeast who proposed an idea that got him flamed (initially) by various communities. People eventually came around to his starter method.

I use a pressure cooker for all things yeast related. At 15 PSI for 15 min, glassware, water and wort for all yeast cultures is truly sterile. Yeast cakes are stored on beer, not water (even though RO has a pH of ~6). I start with a 1L bottle, and pour in the yeast cake. I wait 15-30 min, then transfer to another 1L bottle. I wait 8-12 hrs, then pour off most of the top liquid. At this point I transfer to a 500ml bottle so the airspace inside the bottle is minimal. If I'm going to use it quickly, then I don't bother. You can repeat this process before using the cake out using autoclaved water for a little extra rinsing.

Are you guys referencing Mark? Sacc?

Yeah.

What kind of malt bill do you guys like for a Marzen? I like the looks of Tech's baseline recipe but there's a big variety on base malt percentages. Usually I go with a near 50/50 Pima/muma split with a little cm thrown in there but I'm looking to change things up. I saw a Narzis Marzen recipe with 90 vima and 10 c25 that I thought may be interesting to try.

I haven't made a sub-10 plato beer, but the first thing I'd try is probably increasing the caramalt percentage to 10-15%. It won't be as much as it sounds like since your grist is significantly smaller compared to a 12-13p beer, and you'll need to make up for the reduced amount of unfermentable sugar coming from the smaller base malt charge.

70% pilsner + 15% vienna + 15% carahell might not be a bad start for a 9 or 10 plato beer.