Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Discuss making up beer kits - the simplest way to brew.
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bigcat

Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Post by bigcat » Sat Jan 23, 2010 6:16 pm

Hi,
As the title suggests i'm about to embark on home brewing, my dad for many years brewed beer (and is going to keep me right on this aspect) but as he never drank lager he didn't try brewing it. Thats why for the last few weeks i've been trawling through this great forum to get a basic understanding of the process.
I have a large selection of kit (handed down to me), along with the added bonus of having a home bar which has flash coolers, co2 regulators,beer engines, lager pumps, cleaning barrels etc (and a couple of 10 gallon kegs,my inlaws have been in the pub trade for 40 years), i have also just had a kitchen refit and have a decent size fridge-freezer (i can fit a 10 gallon ss keg in the fridge) and a small chest freezer wich will also take a 10 gallon keg.
Due to the kit i have at my disposal i am wanting/hoping to jump straight in with a 10 gallon brew of a european lager kit (my favourite tipple is Stella) and i have read that a lot of people on this site recommend the Coopers European Lager Kit. What i can't seem to find the answers for on this forum is:-
1. If i use two kits do i just double everything else up
2. i have a homemade 10 gallon boiler - will this do for two kits
3. I am going to build a fermentation cupboard in the garage (where i will be carrying out all of my home brewing), what will the temperature of the cupboard have to be, will 15 -17 degrees be ok, i will insulate the cupboard and use a tube heater and a digital room stat to control the temp within + or - 1 degree.
4. Once the 10 gallon of lager has Fermented and i transfer it to my 10 gallon ss keg, do i add priming sugar (if so how much) or do i use the co2 procedure i have read about on this forum.
5. Once its in the keg, will the fridge do' to condition it or will the chest freezer do a better job. I was thinking i could wire in a room stat with a remote sensor tube to switch the freezer on and off keeping it at a set temp (and not freezing)
6. How long should it stop in the fridge or freezer, before it sits in the garage until i connect it to my flash cooler.

I'm hoping to get the lager brew started in the next couple of weeks (so hopefully it will be done for mid-april) and then to set away a wheat beer, with a couple of alterations i have picked up off this forum to give me a Hoegarrden taste (my second drink after Stella, if it wasn't for Interbrew i would probably be rich and have a better memory of what i have got up to for the last 780 weekends!!!)

I'm sorry about all the questions, but i can't wait to get started. I'm really looking forward in future to joining in the dissucions and progressing from kits into full mash lagers and beers.

thedeckking

Re: Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Post by thedeckking » Sat Jan 23, 2010 10:47 pm

Welcome to the funhouse :!: :D
Here's my attempt at answers:
1)Yes, just double up on everything.
2)For kit brewing you don't need a boiler, just get the wort upto the temperature set out in the kit instructions. Basically you will need a 10g food grade bucket with a lid.
3)The temperature will depend on which kit you do. Alot of lager kits use ale yeast so need to be 20-25oC. The ones that use lager yeast will need to be cooler. Have a look at the instructions in the kit. An easier method than building a cupboard is just to pop a fish tank heater in the brew (loads of posts on here about that to read first!!)
4)If you've got a pub-style set up to dispense the brew then you won't need to 2nd ferment with priming sugars. You'll need to force carbonate with Co2.
5+6) For conditioning it needs to be kept cool (I aim for around 5-10 degrees). As well as improving the taste this helps the beer absorb Co2 too. I've got a flash cooler myself and it's important to keep the barrel cool to keep it fizzy. If the barrel is warm, the flash cooler my give you cold beer, but there'll be no fizz.

I'd also say before you start messing with kit recipes, give them a go following the instructions first. Because; a) You may prefer the kit to the beer you're trying to clone and b) it gives you a better understanding of what you're making.

Hope this all helps.
Good luck

adm

Re: Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Post by adm » Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:21 am

To be honest, as you seem to have almost all the kit to hand already , why not just make a mashtun from a coolbox (£50 or less, all in) and go all-grain?

You'll get better, cheaper beer - certainly better than Stella.

Although - lagers are harder to do properly and take more time, so I'd recommend a hoppy, pale ale to kick off with, served slightly chilled (despite what most people say, my Stella drinking friends unanimously love these). Most people can't tell the difference between this and lager anyway.

bigcat

Re: Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Post by bigcat » Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:44 pm

Cheers to both of you (thedeckking and the adm).

thedeckking - would the cupboard do a better job in the long run than the fish tank heater, as i have all the materials and plenty of space in my garage (so all it will cost me is a couple of hours on Saturday or Sunday morning whilst the dragon is still sleeping). The garage is on the northside of my house, and is normally pretty cool, i have my flash cooler etc set-up in there and my bar is inside the house on the otherside of the exterior wall (so the pipes just go through the 9inch wall)

theadm - I have a cooler box already and i'm a plumber (some say otherwise) so have the copper fittings and pipe, i just don't have the b*lls needed for the first time. Unless its easier than i think. What recipe would you recommended for me to try an all-grain brew?

Thanks again for the help, one day i will be also be a master!!!

adm

Re: Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Post by adm » Sun Jan 24, 2010 9:59 pm

It's much easier than you think! (or at least, much easier than I thought it was)

5kg lager malt
0.5kg caramalt (not required, but not a bad idea either)

Plus some Saaz or Hallertauer or other typical lager hops.

Basically (if you want to go for it, we can get into specifics later):

Mash the grain into 72C water to achieve 66C mash temp. Hold for 60-90 mins (with a coolbox mashtun, this basically means "do nothing for a while")

Drain the liquid out into the boiler. Add more liquid to the mash tun, then stir that, leave it a while and then empty that out too.

Bring the wort in the boiler to the boil. Add hops.

Boil for 90 minutes. Add some more hops after about an hour and a quarter.

Turn off the heat. Cool.

Run it off into a fermenter, pitch some lager yeast (lots of yeast) at about 10-12C. Leave it to ferment for a couple of weeks at 10-12C.

Siphon it off into a keg once it's done fermenting, then cool it to close to 0C and leave it there for a month or two.

Carbonate it in the keg with bottled CO2.

Drink.

That's about it....theres some subtleties that make better beer, but as you have all the kit ready to go it's pretty easy. it just takes a bit of time - maybe 6-8 hours for your first brewday, then 6 weeks until you want to start drinking it.

All you'd need to do would be make up a mash manifold (and maybe a hop strainer) from 15mm copper pipe - a bit of cutting and drilling, but not even any soldering needed.

bigcat

Re: Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Post by bigcat » Wed Jan 27, 2010 10:04 pm

Adm cheers for the reply and you have sold me the idea. I'm going to get the everything ready for a week Saturday and put aside 8 hours.

Heres to the first of many!!

adm

Re: Hb virgin needing help on lager!!

Post by adm » Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:20 pm

Good luck! Post any questions you may have, but to be honest, if you search on this site, you'll probably already find then answer to any question you may have!

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