Standard Lager 310809

[adm]

Well.....after yesterday's party, i have almost no "regular" beer left to drink. Lots of strong ones aging, and an FV of ale that I made last week that's still a good few weeks away. Lucky I've got some bottles left and will also be away with work for the next few weeks. It looks like I'll need to brew every opportunity for the next couple of months to build up stock again.

Anyway....today I made a lager. I wanted to see how the 34/70 yeast is and to see if I can turn a lager around in 6 weeks from brewday to drinking. We'll see.....

So, I give you the imaginatively titled "Standard Lager"....

Grain:
4.5Kg Warminster Lager Malt
0.5Kg Caramalt

Hops:
100g Saaz 2.8% AA First Wort
50g Saaz 2.8% AA 15 mins
50g Saaz 2.8% AA Flame Out

Protafloc at 15 mins
Water treatment - Camden Tab, plus CRS to 30mg/l CaC03

Yeast: 2 packs SafLager 34/70 rehydrated in wort.
The plan is to harvest the yeast from this batch and brew another bigger batch in two or three weeks time (depends how long this one takes to ferment out)

Here's the pics:


Grain Bill - simple lager malt & caramalt


pH around 5.1


Temperature smack on at 66C. This ended up being a 3 hour mash as we went out to a village fete this afternoon. Final temp was 64C.


After the mash - topped up and ready to batch sparge


200g of Saaz for this one


Recirculating the first runnings


And now onto the first wort hops


Here we are coming up to the boil


And boiling....


This is 2 packs of 34/70 rehydrating in 250ml of wort drawn off at at 30 mins and then cooled. It's going mental!


Running off via pump and plate chiller


Yeast pitched, wort aerated and ready to stick in the fridge, which is set at at 12C. I pitched the yeast at 25C as i couldn't be bothered to wait around until the wort had chilled...not sure if this will be a good or bad thing, but it should give the yeasties a little kick start while the wort chills in the fridge.


I ended up with 26L at 1044 as I messed around with my water volume calculations a bit and overshot - I wanted 23L, but no big deal to have extra beer. Should end up with a 4.5% ABV lager which will be just fine.

[196osh]

Looks good, I have a lager on the "to brew" schedule, and the recpie looks simliar to that one, but less hoppy at the end.

How do you think that amount of aroma hops will turn out in a lager?

[simple one]

Looks good as always. Cheers for advice on the cascades.

Well.....after yesterday's party, i have almost no "regular" beer left to drink.

That I don't believe!

[adm]

Looks good, I have a lager on the "to brew" schedule, and the recpie looks simliar to that one, but less hoppy at the end.

How do you think that amount of aroma hops will turn out in a lager?

Ummm.......not sure really - but I think lagers should have a good aroma to them and as this is destined for a corny it can't hurt to boost the aroma hops... Plus it finished up the bag of hops - I don't like leaving small amounts of them unused.

[adm]

Looks good as always. Cheers for advice on the cascades.

Well.....after yesterday's party, i have almost no "regular" beer left to drink.

That I don't believe!

Really, truly!

We've had lots of people round and to stay over the last few weeks - all of who drink a lot of beer. My brother in law and i downed about four cornies over a week a couple of weeks ago, and then a couple of BBQ parties took it's toll on the rest!

I'm down to a keg of lager, plus a few pints each in a keg of ale and a dark wheat beer. I also had a kind of enforced 4 week break from brewing due to work travel and holidays. I'm behind the curve and need to crank up the production line. I should really just move to doing 10G batches all the time....

[196osh]

Looks good, I have a lager on the "to brew" schedule, and the recpie looks simliar to that one, but less hoppy at the end.

How do you think that amount of aroma hops will turn out in a lager?

Ummm.......not sure really - but I think lagers should have a good aroma to them and as this is destined for a corny it can't hurt to boost the aroma hops... Plus it finished up the bag of hops - I don't like leaving small amounts of them unused.

Excellent. I will bump up my lager late hopping if you like how yours has turned out.

[delboy]

Looks good adm, i'll be following this to see how you think it turns out and what you think of the W34 yeast as i've planned a few lagers using this yeast as well.

One thing though, my understanding is that its better to rehydrate yeast in plain water, its easier on them apparently, then when rehydrated pop some wort in, just thought i'd mention it in passing.

[ChrisG]

That looks really good.

I have been experimenting with trying different grains for lagers, using a mixture of Pale malt and Pilsner. Not sure how it'll turn out but really keen on getting another going.

Good pic's as always.

[adm]

Looks good adm, i'll be following this to see how you think it turns out and what you think of the W34 yeast as i've planned a few lagers using this yeast as well.

One thing though, my understanding is that its better to rehydrate yeast in plain water, its easier on them apparently, then when rehydrated pop some wort in, just thought i'd mention it in passing.

Good tip Del - thanks!

I went and had a quick look this morning, and it's now down at 12C with a lovely yeasty head all over the top of it. The last lager I made, took about 4 days for the head to cover the FV, but I am sure it was drastically underpitched.

[Invalid Stout]

When did Tesco start selling hops? I must get down there

[Aleman]

Looks good, I have a lager on the "to brew" schedule, and the recpie looks simliar to that one, but less hoppy at the end.

How do you think that amount of aroma hops will turn out in a lager?

Looks fine to me I remember a cycling holiday back In 87 when She and I got married we had 5 weeks touring Europe, and the deal was that I would do the tourist thing in Austria/Hungary/Germany/ France/Switzerland . . . . but she would do the beer thing in Czechoslovakia (I got the best deal I also did the beer thing in Germany and Austria ), even to the point of assisting the brewers in one small town brewery in the back of beyond, and I remember the stern look on the Czech brewmeister when he told me to throw a 20L bucketful of the greenest, stickiest Saaz, you will never see, in at the end of the boil . . . . "It's very important . . . for the aroma!!" . . . the best we can, to get close to that, do in the UK is to very generous with the late hopping.

[196osh]

Thanks for the advice, I do love Hops.

Whenever I get round to making my lager (at this rate next year) It will be nice and Hoppy.

[mysterio]

Looks good ADM, 6 weeks to turn around a lager - plenty of time. My Oktoberfest I plan to tap at a party on the 3rd of October (just over 3 weeks). I've pitched into warm wort and brought the temperature down, I had no problems. But you will probably want to do a diacetyl rest.

I had a sneaky taste of the first lager I made with the W 34 yeast and i'm very pleased so far. No off flavours and it seems pretty clean, although there was a lot of yeast in suspension so it was hard to tell.

Once you've got your next pitch of yeast, don't be shy and take the temperature right down to 9 or 10 C. This yeast can handle it and you'll get a really clean lager.

[adm]

Looks good ADM, 6 weeks to turn around a lager - plenty of time. My Oktoberfest I plan to tap at a party on the 3rd of October (just over 3 weeks). I've pitched into warm wort and brought the temperature down, I had no problems. But you will probably want to do a diacetyl rest.

I had a sneaky taste of the first lager I made with the W 34 yeast and i'm very pleased so far. No off flavours and it seems pretty clean, although there was a lot of yeast in suspension so it was hard to tell.

Once you've got your next pitch of yeast, don't be shy and take the temperature right down to 9 or 10 C. This yeast can handle it and you'll get a really clean lager.

I think I'm going to do an Imperial Pilsner with the next pitch......

So I'll rack off the beer, maybe wash the yeast (maybe not) then drop the IP on top of it, take the fridge down to 9 ot 10C and ferment the IP with the Standard Lager in the same fridge. Then when the IP is fermented out, I'll bring the whole lot up for a diacetyl rest, then drop it all down to 3C or so for lagering...

Probably.

[Aleman]

Not a good idea to attempt a diacetyl rest in the way you suggest . . . it won't really work, you need to raise the temperature at the end of the primary fermentation while there is a lot of active yeast suspended and fermenting . . .. Having said that I don't think W34/70 throws a lot of Diacetyl anyway . . . but I do tend to pitch on the heavy handed side (110g in my last 80L pilsner) so that might explain the clean ferments I get