Newbie: What Makes My Lager Dark & Bitter?

[entilza]

Hi gang, Newbie question here.

I used to brew (bottles, not keg) a long time ago, but gave up as all my lagers were terrible.

I recently started again and have been having great success with ginger beer, however my lager was just as bad as it always was!

I'm very careful with my cleaning and the fermenter smells fresh before I used it.

The ingredients:
Kit: Morgan's Blue Mountain Lager
Sugars: Various, from various quantities of dextrose, to various quantities of brewer's sugar, to various mixes of malt and dextrose.
Other: sometimes I would add hops, but it made no difference to how bad the outcome was.
Water: Brisbane tap water.
Method: Usual closed fermenter brew, bottle at an SG around 11, prime with carb drops.

The result:
3 weeks after bottling, the colour is a *dark* yellow, with a very bitter after taste. After it has matured to about 1.5 months in the bottle, it will be quite dark (tending towards brown/red) and is extremely bitter. The aftertaste is the real killer - the initial taste is "OK, tending to bitter", but the aftertaste kicks you with an almost chemical bitterness that lasts for a good 20 seconds or so.

The results have been reasonably consistant. Perhaps the problem is my expectations: I expect a larger to be a mid-to-pale yellow, with a slightly crisp taste, not bitter.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Cheers,
Entilza (Jason).

 

[Stuster]

A few things leap out to start with. First, what yeast are you using and what temperature are you fermenting at? Second, you say you are careful with cleaning, but what do you use for sanitising?

 

[reviled]

Were the cans you were using expired?

 

[raven19]

Welcome to the forum Entilza

+1 for needing to know temperature.

 

[Adamt]

Welcome to the forums.

Any beer you make with extract (the canned/powdered malt) will not be very light in colour. This is due to caramelisation/Maillard reactions that occur during the evaporation process and during shelf life.

The bitter/chemical bitterness character could either be from the extract being old (stale), excessive adjuncts or from poor fermentation conditions. It's best to get the freshest kits you can, grab the ones with the latest use-by dates. It's also ideal not to use 1kg of dextrose/sugar, this can lead to cidery flavours (tangy green apple) which may be what you are tasting. Temperature control during fermentation is second only to sanitation when brewing with kits. Try to keep your fermentation temperature around 18-20C if your kit contains an ale yeast (if you're not sure, assume this is the case), or around 10C if your kit contains a true lager yeast.

If you are after a lighter coloured kit brew try the Coopers Mexican Cerveza, I believe this is the lightest colour kit around at the moment. Try it with say... 500g malt extract and 500g dextrose and ferment a bit below 20C.

There are ideas in the "Articles" section of the site on how to maintain temperature control easily at home.

Cheers
Adam

 

[entilza]

Hi team,

Thanks for the fast replies!

Yeast is the under-the-tin Morgans supplied Yeast.

Sanitisers - I can never remember the names of these things (they're back at home, and I am not!). There's one I use only when I do a big clean as I have heard its a yeast killer (It smells of cholrine when exposed to water). The other one is made by the local homebrew show - EGA - and I use it mostly to clean between brews.

Tin freshness - I have no idea! The shop has a good turnover, so I will check this next time! Ta.

Brewing Temp - this could be it. The instructions say "22 to 30" but I'm reading here lots of people don't go over 20. Typically, my fermenter reads 27 at this time of year in Brisbane and fermentation is quite rapid. Low temp fermentation is a problem for me - I don't have the space for a spare fridge so I don't really have an option other than leaving the a/c on 24/7!!

Comments?

Cheers,
Jason

 

[Adamt]

I'll bet it's your fermentation temperature. As mentioned, peruse the Articles section (and some stickied posts in the kits and extracts section) for methods of temperature control. I'm sure you'll be much, much happier with the results once you can accomplish this.

 

[entilza]

Sanitisers - I can never remember the names of these things (they're back at home, and I am not!). There's one I use only when I do a big clean as I have heard its a yeast killer (It smells of cholrine when exposed to water). The other one is made by the local homebrew show - EGA - and I use it mostly to clean between brews.

I should add, the cholorine-smelling one is a steriliser, and EGA is a sanitiser.

 

[entilza]

Thanks Adamt - I reckon you'll be right. I've seen a lot of people banging on about <20 temps here, and I'm well above that.

 

[Stuster]

The high temperatures will mean lots of flavours from the yeast that you don't want in your beer. Fermentation taking a bit more time is a good thing. The kit yeast won't be the best. I'd suggest using a different yeast, US-05 is a very good one to try to get close to a lager. Try to keep it cool by putting it in a large bucket or some such with water around the fermenter and swapping out frozen coke bottles of water. That should get you under 20C and make a much better beer.

 

[Bribie G]

1. Temperature. I have fermented the last few batches with three frozen PET bottles around them, wrapped in a big beach towel, and managed to keep them at around 20. Change the bottles morning and evening. I've acquired a dead fridge; several forum members use them and they do a good job with the use of frozen PETs

2. Kit and yeast. Some Morgans kits are very bitter to my taste, e.g. Royal Oak Amber. Haven't tried the Blue Mountain but I'll bet it's a fairly highly hopped brew knowing Morgans. I always chuck the kit yeast and find that especially in QLD a good yeast to use is Nottingham ale yeast. I know it's an ale yeast but so are most of the yeasts that come with so-called 'lager' kits.

I would go back to real basics, have a bash at just a plain Coopers Lager, a pack of Brew Enhancer 2 and a Nottingham yeast and see how you go.

Cheers

 

[bradsbrew]

Try making an ale instead of the lager in summer. You will still need to keep it cool (less than 20). As Stu suggested try freezing some coke bottles 2 or 3 at a time and rotate these morning and afternoon. before I had my brew box I would have three x 2L bottles ocky strapped to the fermenter in a styrofoam box. IMO you wont get that true lager taste without keeping temps down to 10- 14.
Good Luck with it any way.
What part of brissy you from?
Cheers Brad

Oh yeah spend the bit extra and buy a better yeast well worth it. :chug:

Bribie you beat me to it.

 

[entilza]

Hi all,

Thanks again for the sage advice.

I'll pop down and get some better yeast, and try a Coopers, and try to keep her cool! Point taken too re: Lagers needing to be even cooler still.

It begs the question (probably answered in depth elsewhere) - why the hell do the companies say "25 to 29" or "22 to 29" if things are much better <20?? What WERE they thinking?!

Brad, I'm from the north side - inner north in a unit. Hence the challenge of brewing and keeping it cool when you have NO space!

Cheers,
Jason

 

[Adamt]

They give broad temperature ranges to make home-brewing seem easy to get into.

Some say they do it on purpose so the product isn't good enough to take too much business away from the commercial brewers.

 

[Swinging Beef]

I dont have temperatur control either, so...
Brew lagers in winter,
English ales in autumn and spring and,
Belgians during december.
Just like in the olden days