AG#10 - Benson's Semi-Mature Lager (Budvar Clone)

[Gricey]

My first go at a lager! Cracked out yesterday. It's sat in the FV at 11ºC. Higher gravity than I planned but I had 500g of Pilsner kicking about of the same type

Grist:

3500g Pilsener Malt (Weyermann Floor-malted)
3000g Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett)
500g Vienna Malt (Weyermann)

Hops & Extras:

75g Saaz (3.1% AA) - 60 mins
58.5g Saaz (3.1%AA) - 40 mins
58.5g Saaz (3.1% AA) - 20 mins
1 tsp rehydrated Protafloc - 15 mins
1 capsule Servomyces - 10 mins

41.8 IBU, 0.653 BU/GU Ratio

Yeast:

Wyeast 2000 Budvar, 2500mL starter, stir plate
Pitched @ 11.0ºC - I chilled the wort most of the way down then put in my brew fridge to get it the same temp as the yeast which was sat in an Erlenmeyer flask in the fridge...

Mash:

60 minutes @ 67ºC
30 minute recirc after first and second batch sparge
Lager water profile (Graham's calculator), added 68.11mg/L Calcium Chloride, 10.32mg/l Calcium Carbonate

Planned OG: 1.061
Actual OG: 1.063
Brewhouse Efficiency: 74%

Ferment Schedule:

Not sure. It has to be ready for 12 July, so I figure a nice long primary / secondary, and a month in bottles... need some advice here! Sat in the FV at 11ºC atm.

Pictures:


Obligatory Grain Shot by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Hops by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

You can't see but my digital thermometer and glass one disagreed on the temperature, so off to check which was right!


Disagreement by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Well thats right by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Digital wins!


Mash-in by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Ghetto mash recirc by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

1.074 first runnings by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

1.036 second runnings by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Runnings Comparison by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Clear down to the grain bed by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Skimming off the hot break by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Bittering Hops by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Flavour Hops by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Aroma Hops by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Before the cold break by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Cold break by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

OG 1.064 by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Transfer to FV by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Cold side wort by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Pass the anti-foam by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

Tip that boiler, get more beer! by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

[Gricey]

Hmm, maybe regretting pitching at 11, reading Yeast (White/Zainasheff) it claims you can pitch at 20 to bump start the ferment... not much activity right now but the water in the airlock has moved at least.

Good contrast of cold break as it happened, I made a side-by-side...

[WishboneBrewery]

A good brewday then
A note on thermometers, ours at work is calibrated and at around 67c we have to subtract 0.8c from its reading for a True measurement.
http://pdtnc.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/b ... r-testing/

[EoinMag]

I've just done something very similar, but with 100% Weyermanns pils malt. I fermented for two weeks at about 9c, I had a fermentation fridge failure after a week so had to transfer into my main kitchen fridge. The wife wasn't thrilled about having a 65l fermenter in the main fridge with all the shelves removed, but luckily she got over it.
I got it down to 1.011 from 1.050 and then transferred to lagering at 2c +/-1c and it's been there a few days now, I also transferred it to a secondary on Thursday night to get it off the yeast cake after a few days settling. Now it's going to get about 6-7 weeks lagering at 2c before being transferred to bottles and possibly a king keg, not sure about the keg though as it might not work with it.

I also did some water treatment to drop my alkalinity to 20Mg/l CaCO3 so it was nice and soft, and this is definitely noticeable when you taste the samples.

Oh, one other thing, what you have skimmed there is not the hot break, it is the scum that I also skim off the beer. The hot break is a small fleck in the beer that you will see when you get to about 50-55 minutes into a boil, I did this for 90 minutes as it was a pils and I wanted real clarity.


This is hot break.


This is the protein scum that you have also skimmed. I hate to see it boil back into the beer, and also I find it reduces the boil overs when you remove this stuff.




The wort is looking good by the way, it's exciting this lager stuff, more technical than the average ale, but the water treatment ended up not quite as scary as I'd first thought.

Good luck with it

[Gricey]

Cheers guys. I'm still not hearing bubbling, should I be worried?

[EoinMag]

Cheers guys. I'm still not hearing bubbling, should I be worried?

What? Is it under airlock or what? Is there a head of Krausen on it?

[Gricey]

Airlock yes, noticed the water level had moved but never seen a bubble. Will look for Krausen when I get home from work...

[EoinMag]

Airlock yes, noticed the water level had moved but never seen a bubble. Will look for Krausen when I get home from work...

I'd take a hydrometer reading, and not rely on bubbles in the airlock, that's about the least reliable way to tell that a fermentation is happening.

[Gricey]

Agreed. 1.0585. 5 points tops in 4 days or so, should I be buying a bunch more yeast to make another starter ASAFP?!

As for the hot break thing, I know what you mean with the swarming proteins, I just classed the scum at the top as hot break too... I may be wrong, but I generalised all that rubbish brought about by the boil as break material

[EoinMag]

Agreed. 1.0585. 5 points tops in 4 days or so, should I be buying a bunch more yeast to make another starter ASAFP?!

As for the hot break thing, I know what you mean with the swarming proteins, I just classed the scum at the top as hot break too... I may be wrong, but I generalised all that rubbish brought about by the boil as break material

How much yeast did you give it? Lager needs a large population of healthy yeast. I grew up a 20l starter from three vials of WLP802 and then cooled and decanted it and then poured the whole lot of the sludge into the 60l or so of wort. Mine fermented to end in ten days at 9c. 1.050 down to 1.011 and then shipped it into lagering where it's been for a week or so now.

If you think you've underpitched then get some more yeast and throw it at it. mrmalty will let you know the correct pitching rate.

[Gricey]

I used 150 billion cells straight into a 2l DME starter (I use mrmalty for every batch), left on a stir plate for 3 days at 10ºC. I'm wondering if that was too cold for building up the starter.

Amusingly I left my sample out to warm up overnight just to see if my temp correction was accurate. It now looks like a Mr. Whippy!! I don't think that's infection, it looks like kraüsen to me - so maybe I need to bring up the temp a little bit and drop it back down? I'm using Wyeast 2000 which I don't think has a WLP equivalent - I normally use WLP for all my brews. The sample is also clearly bubbling away CO2 as well.


Mr. Whippy by The Grice is Right, on Flickr

[EoinMag]

If you've used Mrmalty it should be fine, I made my yeast starter at room temps, didn't bother with lagering temps, but then I tipped all the liquid away as it had a distinctly clovey taste, pouring the wort away has not carried this taste over into the beer.

[Gricey]

I'm wondering if the fact that I did my starter at lager temps has slowed its growth and then led to accidental underpitching. Hmm, do I raise the temp a bit briefly then drop back down once fermentation has started?

[EoinMag]

I'm wondering if the fact that I did my starter at lager temps has slowed its growth and then led to accidental underpitching. Hmm, do I raise the temp a bit briefly then drop back down once fermentation has started?

If you raise the temp first then you will probably need to do a diacetyl rest at the end. That said I didn't get any diacetyl with mine and it would have started at 19c and dropped to 9c over the next two days.

Growing the yeast at lagering temps may indeed have slowed down the yeast growth. Thing is, I always grow my starters out completely and chill to drop the yeast once the krausen has dropped, but then your stirplate should have helped with oxygenation and growth too, so not sure really.

[EoinMag]

It certainly was different to an ale ferment though and it took about 2 days for a good krausen to build on it.
Do you still not have a good ferment going on?
What's the hydro saying today? Mine was a slow starter.