Vienna Lager #1

[TheLastSuppa]

My first go at a Vienna Lager. How does this sound?

Pale Malt 2700 grams
Vienna Malt 1500 grams
Munich Malt 500 grams
Carared 150 grams
Crystal Malt 150 grams
Amber Malt 100 grams
Torrefied Wheat 100 grams

Tettnanger 4.1%AA 90 mins 50 grams
Saaz 3.5%AA 20 mins 20 grams

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 5% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 26 EBU
Colour: 21 EBC

I've got an S23 yeast trub off my last lager and I'm gonna pitch this straight on top of it.

Plan to brew at 12C.

[mysterio]

Hi

Personal taste but I would drop the Amber and crystal malt. It should be quite dry and drinkable. Amber malt, depending on the maltster, can be quite coffeeish and a little out of place. That said I still think that recipe will work great.

I would also be tempted to take a measured amount of yeast slurry and pitch that instead of just dumping on top.

[bosium]

+1 to what Mysterio said about dropping the cara, crystal and amber. Also I'd swap out the pale malt for pilsner malt, or failing that, lager malt as it has a lighter, grainier flavour than pale malt which goes well in a lager.

You could actually go 100% vienna malt and make a fine beer, but any sort of mixture of pils, munich and vienna to come to the right sort of colour will do the job.

[mysterio]

I made a 100% Vienna ale once and it was bloody delicious

[raiderman]

I've brewed 100% vienna malt and it makes a great lager - beautiful golden colour. If you have enough replace all or some of the MO with it. If you haven't use more Munich instead of MO. If thats all you've got all using MO will do is over using ordinary lager malt is to give more flavour - the use of the Munich and Vienna will largely overcome the colour difference, so don't let that put you off. Flavour depends on what you are looking to replicate. From the searching about I did when I started playing with munich and vienna malts I think that the beers which made vienna famous were a red brown and had a slight sweetness - that is consistent with what your grain bill suggests. I like amber malt in a light mild, but I agree with mysterio, amber smells of coffee!I'm not sure I'd use it in a lager. If your going down that route one of the more esoteric german brown/dark malts might give a better flavour. But you will need to ensure some residual sweetness, both to be true to the style and to blend the flavour of the darker malts.
If you're looking for a more modern dryer style I'd loose the crystal and amber. I routinely add caramalt and if you are going for a dry lager its better than adding crystal.It adds a maltiness

[TheLastSuppa]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll drop the amber and crystal. I haven't got any lager or pilsner malt, but I have got 25Kg of MO.
I've got 2Kg of Vienna and 2Kg of Munich, but wanted to spread them over two brews - Brew 1: 1.5Kg Vienna / 0.5Kg Munich - Brew 2: 0.5Kg Vienna / 1.5Kg Munich, so that I could get a feel for the difference between the two. Will I be better off just making one brew with 2Kg Vienna, 2Kg Munich and say 0.7Kg Marris Otter?
I don't want to brew for a fortnight and then Lager for 6 weeks only to be disappointed. I'd rather do it right first time, but would this be more of a Marzen or Octoberfest than a Vienna Lager?

[Barley Water]

I vote for 100% Vienna malt with maybe just a tad of Carafa to color the stuff to your liking if you want a darker beer. You want the beer malty but not sweet so I'm not a real big fan of throwing a bunch of crystal in there. I have done a couple of other "experiments" with this style but my best beer was a straight 100% Vienna malt beer. Of course (and you know this was coming) I did a double decoction on the example I made just so I could develop the melonodins. I would keep the OG at no higher than 1.050 and the usual caveats apply to brewing German lagers. Enjoy, it's a great style.

[TheLastSuppa]

Thanks for the advice guys. I finally made this one today. I dropped the crystal and amber malt and bought more vienna and some pilsner malt

Vienna Lager #1

2.00 Kg Pilsner malt
2.00 Kg Vienna
1.00 Kg Munich
0.20 Kg Carared
0.20 Kg Torrefied Wheat

This came out darker than I expected. My saflager s23 yeast left over from my last brew looked dodgy so I ended up using safale us05 - I've pitched at 15C.

It's only been in the fv a couple of hours but it smells delicious!