Thanks for the response.
My lager brewing experience, unless my memory fails me, has all been dry yeast. I've done very little of it. Last night I hooked up my extra 15 cu-ft freezer to an inkbird to use for cold crashing ales that were sitting out. That might become my new lager fermenter. It's been sitting unplugged for 7 years... I bought it for a wedding I brewed for (18 cornies) many years ago. I also have a stand-up type that's much nicer and haven't needed any more capacity, till now.
Just looked now and Omega 107 is also not available on MB. Not even listed as out of stock. Bayern it says is 114, so not quite the same thing. 2124 looks interesting, but with a list as long as your arm for recommended styles, Marzen isn't one of em. I wonder if it's because of a lack of esters produced and they want those "off" flavors. I am not sure if I've ever had a commercially made Marzen. I'm totally flying blind here just spitballing new stuff to try that I don't think I'll screw up.
830 is available and appears recommended. I'll probably pick up that. Do guys do a starter on something like that? I'll have 2 6.5 Gal fermenters and one 12 Gal conical freed up by the weekend, and will fill them all with 'something'. Especially with folks telling me to not let the slurry sit around so long. Since that wedding, I've had unlimited kegs sitting empty, and I'm assuming these lagers can sit around forever in a cold box, so I figure I may as well learn something about lagers...
To my shock and horror, my Stout kicked last night after a 2oz pour... So it's 7% White-House Porter and a Less-than-stellar IPA is all I have left. And the porter is "float'n" pretty high. This is fast becoming a crisis!
WLP820 is a crappy yeast. Any other lager yeast will do a better job. If you have W-34/70 that you can re-pitch, by all means, just use that! Other favorites include S-189, Diamond, Wyeast 2206, and there are a dozen others.
Well, I have 2 BMB's full of 34-70 @ $0.00... I sorta like that price! I'm going to pick up something in liquid, just to give it a shot. On the site Bob linked, they weren't enthusiastic about 820. Mentioned it's finicky. Ok, I can do without extra hassles early in this process. Had it been available it would have already been on order. I'll pick up some diamond just because I already had that in the cart to use as my emergency dry hanging around in the fridge. They say keep 'something' around for emergencies. Well, I just used all mine.
Thanks!