German Brewing

I currently have two brews at final gravity and carbonated sitting at 48f.

1) A 17 day old Helles (Weyerman Pils and Pale Ale blended to 4ebc + 8% Carahell. Single bittering charge of Hallertauer.

2) A 10 day old Pils-ish beer (Same 4ebc base malt, 10% Munich, 5% Carahell. Hopped at FWH/60/40/15/0 with Saaz & Herksbruker).

For fermentation I used 34/70 slurry obtained from a local brewery. ~200ml of thick slurry for the Helles which I ended up pitching a little warmer than I cared too (high 50s). After transferring to the spunding keg I harvested the yeast and pitched a lot more (~400ml thick slurry) into the hoppier beer in which I successfully fermented cold by pitching at 44f.

Despite being the younger the cold fermented/higher pitched beer tastes great and there is no diacytel. However the older Hell has a pronounced, Czech style diacytel note too it I would prefer to remove. I'm hesitant to raise the temperature so was debating about either krausening it or droping to lager temps as planned for a month.

My question is - do you think a month at 0c will reduce it or do I need to take action?

I don't think it will lager out. Kräusening might work, but honestly, the best cure for diacetyl I've found is pitching more yeast. You're probably safe to pitch any yeast strain — it won't have any maltose to ferment, so it won't impart any noticeable character. It will immediately get desperate and metabolize the diacetyl within a day or two. I've used US-05 to clean up diacetyl, even in lagers. I've never tried pitching more lager yeast, but that ought to work, too. Maybe more slowly.


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Everything happens pretty slow at 0C. Unless you did the slow temperature drop, then it likely won't do much in 30 days. I would take it back up to 4-6C and add some krausen, or some form of active yeast. If you are still in the spunding vessel, then there is still plenty of yeast there and you can simply just add 50-100ml of sterile sugar water (10P, inverted sucrose) and that will trigger what yeast is already in the keg to wake up a little when you raise the temperature from 0c to 4-6C.

Yeah, it's insurance. Confirmed activity is probably best, but there is plenty in the spunding vessel too.

This is what Kräusen is for.

You don't need much. Raise to 5C and add a bit. Does the job nicely as well as carbonate your beer. It will also scavenge any O2 from opening the vessel.

Pros do that all the time.

PS: store your beer at 1.5C. 0C and below is when you plan to filter. 3C is a good compromise.

It's crazy how fast and well that worked. I just opened up the keg, transferred a small amount of actively fermenting beer thru a picnic tap, sealed it back up, and a couple days later the beer tastes completely clean.

That's what the technique of Kräusening is for . Good to hear it worked for you.

Many do this routinely, although I find it unnecessary once you get your yeast nailed

Good to hear.