Lager Beer Recipe Request

[J_P]

How Do All

I was wondering if anyone had any lager beer recipes suitable for serving to "lager boys"?

I was figuring I'd do an all pale malt base perhaps with some torrified wheat and then hop it to about 20 IBUs and add loads of late hops. The trouble is I've never had a pint of real lager before so I'm not really too sure which hops taste best, does anyone have any suggestions?

Could I ferment at room temperature with a lager yeast? Or should I stick to a dry ale yeast?

I am planning on serving this brew at a late summer BBQ out of my yet to be purchased cornis - I've caught "Shinyitis"

[oblivious]

You might be better using Nottingham or US-05 yeast if you can’t lager the beer

[J_P]

You might be better using Nottingham or US-05 yeast if you can’t lager the beer

Funnily enough I have a bit of a trial going on at the moment between these two yeasts. I did my Jolly Roger ale with US-05 and subsequent brews with Nottingham / Gervin.

[Horden Hillbilly]

J_P, if you look Here you will find a recipe for a UK style lager if that is what you are looking for, it is well tried & tested by my better half.

It is Mrs H's favourite ag lager & she did comment that it reminded her of Carling black label. Her favourite yeast for this is Saflager, it is recommended to ferment with it between 9c-15c, ideally 12c. For this reason, I tend to brew these in the cooler months, ie between October & March, however good results can be achieved if it is fermented higher than this, it won't ruin it if you cannot ferment at this low a temp.

Here is a link to a Saflager information pdf file.

I note that you mention adding loads of late hops, iirc UK style lagers are not normally late hopped & I don't do it myself. I did try it once as Mrs H requested to see if she would like it, she said she preferred the brew which was not late hopped, therefore I have not done it since.

Regarding the type of hops, Mrs H prefers Saaz as shown in the recipe, she also commented that this lager made with Hallertauer hops was enjoyable as well.

[J_P]

Cheers for that HH

I have no means of keeping the FV cold so I'm going to have to use ale yeast on this one. Looks like I'll be hopping with Saaz though

[delboy]

J_P, if you look Here you will find a recipe for a UK style lager if that is what you are looking for, it is well tried & tested by my better half.

It is Mrs H's favourite ag lager & she did comment that it reminded her of Carling black label. Her favourite yeast for this is Saflager, it is recommended to ferment with it between 9c-15c, ideally 12c. For this reason, I tend to brew these in the cooler months, ie between October & March, however good results can be achieved if it is fermented higher than this, it won't ruin it if you cannot ferment at this low a temp.

Here is a link to a Saflager information pdf file.

I note that you mention adding loads of late hops, iirc UK style lagers are not normally late hopped & I don't do it myself. I did try it once as Mrs H requested to see if she would like it, she said she preferred the brew which was not late hopped, therefore I have not done it since.

Regarding the type of hops, Mrs H prefers Saaz as shown in the recipe, she also commented that this lager made with Hallertauer hops was enjoyable as well.

Hi HH
im going to be doing a few lagers in the near future, i noticed in your recipe that you used flaked maize, i have a kilo of this in my stocks for my up coming lagers, i presume this is in the recipe to give it more of a 'commercial' taste, can you actually taste any corn in the finished beer.

[Horden Hillbilly]

Hi HH
im going to be doing a few lagers in the near future, i noticed in your recipe that you used flaked maize, i have a kilo of this in my stocks for my up coming lagers, i presume this is in the recipe to give it more of a 'commercial' taste, can you actually taste any corn in the finished beer.

Yes, you can taste the corn in the finished brew delboy, but only very slightly as it is only 10% of the grist. Mrs H is the lager drinker in our household, when I first started ag lager brewing I used 5% flaked maize in one brew & 10% in another, she preferred the one with the 10% so I have continued with this amount since.

That is the main advantage of ag brewing imho, you can make exacly what you like for your own personal taste, or in this case what I was ordered to!

[Barley Water]

I am also just about to start my lager binge. I am going to make three in a row and if I do it correctly, I should only have to buy yeast one time. After a few years and many screw ups, I have finally figured out that if you want to get good lager beer, you must pitch massive amounts of fresh yeast (the dregs of a 1 gallon starter for a 5 gallon batch). Anyway, I will first do a German helles, then a Munich dunkel and finally a big time malty double bock (hopefully ready at Christmas to put me into the appropriate holiday spirit). My plan here is to step the yeast up in ever increasing gravity brews so that when I get the the double bock, it will perform the way I want. I am also seriously considering the purchase of a reverse osmosis water filter because my water is pretty hard here.

Delboy, if you have a bunch of flaked maize, I have a fun beer for you to make (which I think you will really like and be very unique). In the states, before prohibition, Germans migrated over here in mass. Because they of course wanted good beer, they started making it themselves in the time honored way with what they had on hand. Get some American 6 row barley (the stuff is not as good as European pils but it will convert anything it touches so you can use lots of maize, plus it's cheap). Use somewhere around 20% maize and maybe a little carapils for body. Start it about 1.055 and bitter it to about 40 IBU with noble hops. Also, go for pretty big hop flavor and also late or dry hop to get good aroma as well. I did a single decoction, I don't know if this is needed but it made me feel better. Ferment at about 50F and lager for a month as cold as you can get. I would also recommend pulling the wort off the trub before pitching the yeast to avoid off flavors and if you have soft water, so much the better. We call this style preprohibition pils and trust me, it is much more interesting than Budweiser.

[steve_flack]

I dunno about Belfast but it's practically impossible to get 6-row in homebrew shops here - I've never seen it. The big brewers probably use it but in the homebrew trade we get - British Maris Otter, Halcyon, Optic and GP pale malts and a full range of UK originated speciality grains. We also get UK lager malt, Belgian Pils and a range of the Wayermann malts (not that they're labelled as that). The UK market isn't as developed as the US market in that we get to pick and choose our preferred maltster.

BTW, I see your planning a Helles, Jamil Z's recipe is pretty good.

http://www.beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil ... elles.html

I've brewed this with the W34-70 dry yeast (which is supposedly similar to Wyeast 2124) and it came out very malty. I didn't get enough sulphur on the nose though (perhaps I should have used continental pils malt rather than UK lager). There was plenty of sulphur during fermentation - lots of farty smells.

Using a dry yeast means you get a very high cell count very easily.

[Barley Water]

I guess you could try using pils malt but my understanding is that it does not have the enzymes the 6 row does so you could not convert as much maize. I wonder if anybody out there knows how much adjunct continental malts can convert?

Steve, thanks for the information. I will do a double decoction mash for the helles, I wonder if using that much Munich malt will cause the beer to get too dark. My first impression when looking at the recipie was that the Munich and melodin was being used to avoid the work of decoction but who am I to question Jamil? I sure do love what Munich malt does for beer though, maybe if I used 1/2 what is called for and then do the decoctions, what do you think?

[steve_flack]

I think that was the idea - to fake the decoction. You could probably drop the melanoidin completely if you were to decoct, maybe the Munich too. The decoction would darken the beer on it's own. I used the recipe as described except my Lager malt was from the UK and the Munich from Belgium. It wasn't dark compared to say, Augustiner but was darker than your average German pilsner. To be honest I was happy with it apart from it lacked that nose that a good helles has.

Since I've only ever done one decoction mash in my entire life (and never again ) I can't really say what mixing this recipe and a decoction would do. Maybe you should listen to the relevant Brewing Network Jamil Show podcast? It's in iTunes or here

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/archiv ... -25-06.mp3

[Barley Water]

Oh yeah Steve, I went for several years swearing on everything that was holy that I would never, ever do decoction mashing again after my first attempt. I had a real hard time keeping the grain from burning onto the bottom of the pot and basicly it was just a big mess and hassle.

For some reason about a year ago, I decided to try it again, this time with a Munich dunkel. Well, I had a semi religous experience right there in my kitchen. There is something about the aroma that a big pot of boiling Munich malt puts out that almost defies description. I guess the effect is somewhere between a baker making pumpernickel and a chocolate cake, I am getting all teared up just thinking about it. The beer turned out great and I was forever a changed man.

There may be ways to duplicate the taste but in my humble opinion, decoction changes the body of the beer to be smoother and sort of creamy which you just can't get doing infusion mashing. I know the big boys are getting away from the practice but to me, that is one of the greatest advantages of being a homebrewer, we are not slaves to profit.

Ok, I am done ranting, excuse me for getting emotional.

[Aleman]

I guess you could try using pils malt but my understanding is that it does not have the enzymes the 6 row does so you could not convert as much maize. I wonder if anybody out there knows how much adjunct continental malts can convert?

I've used 30% Corn Meal in a CAP using Continental Pilsner Malt (Plus 20% Munich, so only 50% Pils Malt). Looking at the Hartong index (A Measure of enzyme activity) Continental Pilsner, British Lager, and US 6 Row, are all pretty much of a muchness in that the ranges overlap. It was very different in the Pre Prohibition times but now pretty much all malts are full modified . . . which also means that there is a high level of enzymes in the malt.

Tip to making the first thick decoction easier (Which I learned from the brewers at Plzen) Have an amount of boiling water in the decoction kettle. when you add the thick fraction, it takes it straight to the next rest temperature and automatically thins the decoction so that it doesn't char and burn) . . Of course you do need a lot of room in the mash tun as the mash becomes thinner, but then the brewers at Plzen often ended up with a liquor to grist ratio of 6L/Kg

[delboy]

Some cracking infor appearing on this thread since the last time i checked it, im still in my infancy with lagers so after the viennaesque lager im doing at the moment im planning on doing Horden Hillbillys lager recipe which i plan to pitch onto the yeast cake from the vienna brew.

Ater that i'll probably chuck the yeast but i have a few more sachets in the fridge to play around with and also some flaked maize so i might be tempted to do BWs recipe tweaked to my tastes

[Frothy]

Summer Ale is a good alternative to lager, which takes roughly 3 weeks to ferment and anything from 4 to 10 weeks to lager.
Take half pale malt and half lager malt for 3.5%alc and use light flavoursome lager or ale hops such as Hallertauer mittelfruh, Saaz, Goldings etc. This brew is fermented out at room temp with a regular ale yeast and including maturation et al is good to drink within a month. I have a good recipe if you like.

Frothy