Hi durrettd, Oginme, and KellerBrauer.
Thanks for your suggestions. It sounds like there are varied ways to ferment and lager; and achieve good lager beer.
The next time that I brew a lager, my inclination is to try to pitch the yeast starter at my initial lager temperature. Following immersion chilling (down to around 60F) I would bring the wort down to 50F either via an ice bath or the fermentation chamber. The yeast starter would be chilled in the same manner as the wort.
For the lager that I brewed on 5/6/17, I checked the gravity the last two days and found that it is within several points of the FG. Tonight I moved it to a 68-70 degree area for a 2-3 day dicetyl rest. Then, I plan to transfer to a secondary to get it off the trub. (For now, I am still old school regarding getting my ales and lagers off the trub and dead yeast even though it may not matter...and I risk additional exposure to oxygen.)
From there, I plan to continue to ferment at 50 degrees. I have not decided yet whether to lager at this same 50 degrees F or bring it down to the low 30's F. If I do the latter, I am inclined to add the suggested 1/2 pack of dry yeast to my 5 gallon batch in the bottling bucket prior to bottling. Then let it carbonate in the bottle for 2 (plus) weeks.
durrettd: You are correct. I misused the lager term in my initial post...should have stated fermenting. And thanks for the yeast prior to bottling information...including reminding me that the priming sugar and not the yeast quantity will drive the carbonation levels.
Oginme: You have given hope that my Vienna lager that was bottled nearly 3 weeks ago may yet acheive the desired carbonation levels.
KellerBrauer: Question: You noted that you condition your lagers at about 68-70 degrees for about three weeks before lagering. Do you anticipate creating any unwanted esters in your lager via conditioning at this high of a temperature? Or is this not an issue because fermentation is basically done by then.
Cheers all!