In the past, I only ever did top fermenting styles. I had to depressurise my bottles sometimes even more than once (using swing top bottles, luckily, this is not too awful). Now I made a Vienna Lager and even though I can‘t even really cold crash the bottles (I have them sit outside at maybe 10°C instead due to a lack in fridge space), my secondary fermentation is way slower than I’m used to. Is that to be expected?
With ales, I opened the bottles the day after starting secondary, and it sometimes was a deafening bang already. Now, I waited maybe even two days and haven‘t got more than a shy little pop.
I used powdered sugar (mixed with sterile water 1:1) to feed the yeast in secondary fermentation because I didn‘t have anything else in the house when I found the time to bottle. Is that maybe an issue?
This is what we’ve got. I have no experience regarding what the style is supposed to be like, but it’s a really great beer with a fine balance between sweet and bitter components, excellent full mouthfeel and a decent amount of carbonation. It’s somewhat close to a Märzen, with a little less body I’d say. All in all, not too shabby for my first lager ever and the less ideal temperatures. W34/70 lives up to its reputation.
The head collapses quite quickly, which makes the beer go stale rather quickly as well, but it mostly doesn’t live long enough once I have it in my glass anyway. 🤤