German Brewing

There are loads of cogs turning in this machinery. It's good to have a mind map of possible influencing factors and find the levers that work for your capabilities.

Yeast nutrients are definitively a good idea. In this respect I would say that it's a useful compromise for the home brewer.

For the romantics, there are still Servomyces

http://www.whitelabs.com/other-products/servomyces

But it's a markup I would not be prepared to pay.

There is a bit of an adjustment everybody needs to make to their process. Perseverance will eventually yield good results, professional or amateur alike.

Such is the art and science of brewing.

Just took a hydrometer reading of my current batch (now holding at 4.5C until attenuation - if it ever gets there). It's dropped maybe half a point since transferring (6.5 days ago), and is now 1.0135 or so. Not terribly encouraging. How fast do other peoples secondary ferments reach final gravity ?
Brewing again tomorrow, but this time with some darned wyeast yeast nutrient. Pitching collected yeast slurry combined with an aerated starter I added yeast nutrient to.