Looking For Feedback On My Method

[Cynicide]

I'm planning on upping my brewing complexity by an order or magnitude this weekend when I attempt to a do a lager properly. So I've spent the last few days reading the boards and bothering John at Grain and Grape in order to get my method down pat. I thought that I'd post it here to get some feedback and also have a few questions answered that I have.

CZECH PILSNER

Shopping List

3000g Light Malt Extract (For Wort)
250g Light Malt Extract (For Starter)
Dextrose (Priming)
200g Munich Malt
200g Vienna Malt
120g Saaz Hops, 90g in Boil,30g Soak,
Saflager Yeast (Ferment at 10 Degrees)
Irish Moss
Finings
Sterilizer

Optional

Fridge Thermostat
Wort Chiller

Method

Create a yeast starter using some light malt, 2.5l of water at 25 degrees.

Boil the malts, 90g saaz and irish moss on the stove in 10l of water for 1 hour before turning it off and letting the 30g saaz soak for 5 minutes, at this stage put a lid on the pot to trap the hop oils.

Cool the liquid quickly, either via an immersion wort chiller or in a bathtub full of ice slurry.

Transfer to a fermenter and bring up to 20 litres. Adjust the temperature to 20 degrees and pitch the yeast. Set the thermostat to keep the fridge at 10 degrees. Planning on losing 1 litre to hydrometer testing over the period.

Wait until fermenter activity has slowed.

Bring temperature up to 20 degrees for two days for a diacetyl rest.

Transfer to a secondary fermenter for a further seven days back at lagering temperature, add finings.

Transfer to bottling vessel adding 115g of Dextrose to 19l of beer for priming (Medium carbonation).

Bottle.

Questions

What's a good ratio for a yeast starter when dealing with lagers?, I know you have to make a larger starter so I've settled on 2.5l I was thinking of 250g of LME, 2.5 l of water and two packets of yeast.

Do you usually do the diacetyl rest in the primary or secondary vessel?

I've read that it's good to bring the temperature down slowly, as much as 2 degrees per day. From a pitching temperature of 20 degrees this seems a bit excessive to me as it would take five days to reach fermentation temperature.

What kind of timeframes am I looking at for primary and secondary fermentations, I've read in Palmer that it's somewhat of a black art to learn. Should I just go by my hydrometer readings and rack to the secondary when fermentation slows or approaches 1010.

Should I age the bottles at lagering temperature as well?

 

[Ross]

Questions

What's a good ratio for a yeast starter when dealing with lagers?, I know you have to make a larger starter so I've settled on 2.5l I was thinking of 250g of LME, 2.5 l of water and two packets of yeast.

Do you usually do the diacetyl rest in the primary or secondary vessel?

I've read that it's good to bring the temperature down slowly, as much as 2 degrees per day. From a pitching temperature of 20 degrees this seems a bit excessive to me as it would take five days to reach fermentation temperature.

What kind of timeframes am I looking at for primary and secondary fermentations, I've read in Palmer that it's somewhat of a black art to learn. Should I just go by my hydrometer readings and rack to the secondary when fermentation slows or approaches 1010.

Should I age the bottles at lagering temperature as well?

[post="118316"][/post]​

1. ratio is fine, but 1 packet of yeast will suffice.
2. In primary
3. I drop mine at 5c a day - not essential, many drop straight away with little ill effect.
4. Primary can vary, but approx 14 days would be close - Carry out the rest once the final gravity drops below 1020. The rise in temp will complete main ferment very quickly. I then transfer to secondary & cool for lagering.

Hope all makes sense...

Cheers Ross

 

[Steve]

1. I dont bother with making a starter using dry yeast. Each to their own but the ratio is good.
2. Rest in primary when gravity is around 1020 for 48 hours at room temp and then rack to secondary.
3. I pitch my W34/70 for example at pitching temp and then leave for a day or two to make sure its firing and then chuck straight into the fridge at 10-12. No problems so far.
4. Depends on how long you want to leave it. Im impatient so ive had primary last 10-14 (ish) days. Do the rest, rack to secondary, back into fridge for two weeks at 2 degrees. Bring back to room temp for 48 hours, bulk prime and bottle.
5. I store my bottles at room temp.
Good luck Cynide - have fun.
Cheers :beer:
Steve

 

[user 384]

Hi Cynicide

Sounds fairly good, but I would make a couple of suggestions.

Yeast
If using Saflager, you don't really need to make a starter. Dried yeasts are designed for simply pitching straight into the wort after rehyrdrating in water. The trick with lagers about 1gm of yeast per litre of wort, so for a normal sized batch of lager you would use 2 packets. If youre concerned about the cost of buying 2 packets of yeast, then maybe consider buying a liquid yeast and splitting it for use at a later date (just search the site for tips on this). Or alternatively, make your Czech Pilsner, the once its done pitch another beer straight onto the yeast cake, maybe a Northern German Pilsner and then you can taste the two beers side by side.

If you choose to use a Saflager I would recommend 34/70, which will be closer to style than S-23.

Malt
If using Munich and Vienna malt you will need to mash this, it cant be steeped. I would suggest dropping these malts and just sticking to the malt extract. I think you will need to increase your quantity to about 3.5kg of malt extract to get your OG around 1.055, which is a nice OG for a Czech Pilsner.

Hops
Saaz = Thumbs Up, for a Czech Pils. However without knowing the alpha acid of the hops its hard to say if 90gms for 60 mins is too much or too little. You should be looking at between 35IBUs to 40IBUs for this beer, so you need to know the AA rating of the hops to hit this target.

Also I would add a 30hm addition at 15mins plus a 30gm addition at flameout.

Whatever you do, dont dry hop. Dry hopping has no place in a lager and ignore anyone who suggests this.

Irish Moss
Never use it myself, but my understanding is that its added with about 10mins left.

Fermentation
There have been a number of debates about whether or not to pitch a lager warm and then bring the temp down, or to pitch at fermentation temps. Personally I pitch at fermentation temps, because from experience I have found that if you pitch at 20c, most of the fermentation has occurred by the time you get the temp down to 10c-12c. This is particularly important if you are using dried yeast, because the viable cell count should be very high and will kick of quickly, even at lager temps. So I would suggest that its best to play it safe and get the temp down to 10c-12c before pitching.

Fermentation will take about 2 weeks.

I doubt it will get down to 1.010 if using malt extract, 34/70 and an OG of about 1.055. You would be looking at maybe 1.015.

Cheers
MAH

 

[Cynicide]

Thanks everyone, just the type of expert opinion I was looking for.

 

[Ross]

Yeast
If using Saflager, you don't really need to make a starter. Dried yeasts are designed for simply pitching straight into the wort after rehyrdrating in water. The trick with lagers about 1gm of yeast per litre of wort, so for a normal sized batch of lager you would use 2 packets. If youre concerned about the cost of buying 2 packets of yeast, then maybe consider buying a liquid yeast and splitting it for use at a later date (just search the site for tips on this). Or alternatively, make your Czech Pilsner, the once its done pitch another beer straight onto the yeast cake, maybe a Northern German Pilsner and then you can taste the two beers side by side.

If you choose to use a Saflager I would recommend 34/70, which will be closer to style than S-23.

[post="118363"][/post]​

Totally agree - Didn't notice you were using dry yeast...

 

[Cynicide]

Totally agree - Didn't notice you were using dry yeast...

[post="118370"][/post]​

I would give liquid yeast a go however I'm picking everything up on the day and I won't have time to let the smack pack swell.

 

[Steve]

MAH - now youve got me thinking! Im going to experiment with my next lager/pilsener and pitch the yeast at fermenting temp rather than pitching temp to see what difference there is. Cool.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Trough Lolly]

I was about to launch into one of my long-winded reply's but MAH's covered everything...!

Cheers,
TL

 

[Steve]

thank god for that!

 

[PistolPatch]

Cynicide! Only have 2 things. Firstly, your post was extremely well-written and once you have the numbers fine-tuned it would be a great guide for others I reckon. Cheers.

As for the dialectyl rest, I think you only have to go up to 16 degrees from what I read here in another thread a minute ago.

 

[Cynicide]

Cynicide! Only have 2 things. Firstly, your post was extremely well-written and once you have the numbers fine-tuned it would be a great guide for others I reckon. Cheers.

As for the dialectyl rest, I think you only have to go up to 16 degrees from what I read here in another thread a minute ago.

[post="118438"][/post]​

Heh thanks, I was thinking of taking some photos anyway, I might turn it into a "My First Lager" guide.

 

[Millet Man]

.......
Finings
.......
Fridge Thermostat
.......
Transfer to bottling vessel adding 115g of Dextrose to 19l of beer for priming (Medium carbonation).

Some extra comments to all the good advice.

I think you'll find the lagering will remove the need for the finings, I never use the stuff anymore. Even an ale will drop crystal clear with a week or two of cold conditioning and no finings. If you want to use it for insurance then fine (no pun intended).

The fridge thermostat is a good thing, I can get my fridge to sit at 0C with less than 1C fluctuation with the unit from G&G, pricey though. In combo with a light globe it's great for all fermentation temperature control.

You may want to hold back 10% (~ 1g) of the yeast for bottling, just fold over the packet and put a bulldog clip on it and put it in the fridge. I find that after lagering it will take too long to carbonate if you dont. At bottling, just rehydrate it and add to bottling vessel.

Have fun.

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[PistolPatch]

Heh thanks, I was thinking of taking some photos anyway, I might turn it into a "My First Lager" guide.

(I have one on-topic comment at the end of this post!)

That would be great. I, and a few others, (so I have recently found out!), really like the detailed instructions. At present many great, 'how to,' instructions get lost in the huge amount of info on AHB. This problem is being tackled in many ways at the moment but is still in its infancy, so, if you can, copy your original post into a word processor and modify it with any sensible suggestions you receive - most are.

If you need advice on how to post photos as I recently did, look at Post #9 of Outline To Using The Ahb Website

Easy to read, logical and detailed posts such as yours are always great. (Mine are usually just long - LOL!)

If you do follow through with the above and want to get some feedback as you progress, PM me your updates and I'll pass them onto a few others and let you know their suggestions.

Good on you Cynicide and by the way, Milletman is right. I rack my beer to a secondary vessel after a week (ales only) and then cold-condition for at least a few weeks. Then they go into a keg. We drank 2 of my kegs on Sunday night (long story) and even after driving for 20kms, the keg poured clear straight away. I think that is a pretty good test!

 

[Steve]

Cyanide - before playing with fridge thermostats/electrics. Grab yourself a digital thermometer with a probe. I got mine from Kmart in the car section (I think it was about $30). They are meant to sit on your car dashboard with the probe outside the car :blink: anyway.... The probe goes in the fridge and thermometer sits on top of fridge. I got lucky with my fridge because on the lowest (warmest) setting it sits at 10-12 degress and the the highest (coldest) setting it sits at 2-3 degrees. Perfect for fermenting and lagering without dicking around with thermostats/electrics. You may have similar luck with your fridge.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Cynicide]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I did the brew on Saturday, learnt a whole lot and made a bunch of very silly mistakes. if you'd like to know how it turned out i wrote it up on may webpage here.

http://www.cynicide.com/?p=22

 

[PistolPatch]

Finally had time to have a look at your link above. Well done Cynicide. Looks great!

 

[Sparky]

Bloody Hell Cynicide, reading these posts shows me that my understanding of the lagering process needs a little more work.. esp my understanding of pitching yeast & the rest period :beerbang:

 

[Cynicide]

Thanks for the replies guys. I think I'm on the right track. I'm sitting at eight days from primary fermentation and I think I'm ready to go for a diacetyl rest. I did a gravity test and it was at around 1018 but there was a LOT of hop matter from the pellets in the sample. Airlock activity has also ceased.

As documented on the site I tried to get rid of the matter from the hop pellets in the boil but that stuff turns anything it touches into sludge!

In fact it looks like there's a lot of hop matter in suspension in the brew, this is a cause of concern as I don't want to bring it over to the secondary. On the upside I strained my test sample through a paper towel to remove the hop matter and it tasted fine, perhaps a little strong on the alcohol side.

So my questions are:

Should I start the diacetyl rest?

Anyone know how I can prevent the hop matter from the primary being transferred to the secondary?

 

[Mr Bond]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I did the brew on Saturday, learnt a whole lot and made a bunch of very silly mistakes. if you'd like to know how it turned out i wrote it up on may webpage here.

http://www.cynicide.com/?p=22

[post="119350"][/post]​

That hoe garden clome looks more like an amber ale than a pale wit h34r: