What Hops For Vienna Lager?

[deebee]

With my new frig I am planning on making a Vienna lager and using Palmers recipe as a guide. He suggests Liberty hops. Any other suggestions for suitable hops? Any other good partial mash recipes?

I will be using WLP838 Southern German lager yeast.

 

[Snow]

I made that exact recipe early on in my brewing career, Deebee. It was a beautiful beer at the time and It was the one that convinced me to invest in the equipment and knowledge for partial and full mashing. I used the Wyeast Bohemian Lager yeast. Having said that, I I were to make it again, I would use all German noble hops for bittering and flavour. Probably Hallertau and hersbrucker.

Cheers - Snow

 

[user 384]

For hops I would use German noble, and my preference is for Tettnanger. Vienna is a lightly bittered beer so you will not have the problem of having to use large amounts of low alpha nobles. I would also suggest that you just use a single addition at 60mins for bittering and no flavour or aroma additions. Just let the vienna malt shine through.

With my new frig I am planning on making a Vienna lager and using Palmers recipe as a guide.

I reckon you can do better than Palmer's recipe for a Vienna. There was a Grumpy's discussion on his recipes a while ago and Palmer actually responded. In relation to criticisms of his Vienna recipe not being to style he replied:

"I would like to explain why my Vienna recipe does not meet the BJCP guideline for Vienna Lager. It is a Graf-style Vienna, as explained in George and Laurie Fix's Classic Beer Styles book: Vienna, Marzen, Oktoberfest. this variation of the style was created to counter the higher alkalinity water of Texas and Northern Mexico. Thus the addition of dark malt."

and

"Maybe I should clarify in the next edition that my recipes don't necessarily meet the current style guidelines. (but as folks noted, they do make good beer)."

Cheers
MAH

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Liberty hops can be substituted with Mt Hood, Crystal or Hallertau.

Fix mentions Saaz or Styrian Goldings for aroma, or the Tettnang/Hallertau already suggested

Jovial Monk

 

[deebee]

Thanks for the responses. I will probably go for Tettnanger or Hallertau.

I am guessing at this stage I will use 2kg of JW Trad, about 250-500g of crystal/cararoma, possibly some roast barley and 1.5kg of DME.

MAH, yes I read that post again while doing a search on this beer yesterday. The other questions I have about Palmer's recipe are that he suggests a multi-rest infusion and I am only doing a single temperature, probably aimed high. That should be fine huh?

Also can I use roast barley as a substitute for black patent malt. It will probably be about 50-100g just for colour and would save me a trip to the HBS. I have never seen black patent malt at my shop. Any substitutes?

...and can anyone point to other good vienna lager recipes?

 

[bradmcm]

Single infusion is fine.

You can substitute roast for black if it is just for colour additions. I am surprised your HBS does not stock black malt.
Cara-aroma is a dark crystal & I would not recommend it in that quantity
for a Vienna. In fact going by the proportions you've give (6-10% Caraaroma) plus a few % roast, you are going to end up with a
very dark brown very caramelly sweet lager. Not a Vienna at all.

If you _have_ to use Cara-aroma use only 100g and not add any roast barley.

I'd prefer a light crystal - like CaraRed, or CaraMunich I.
If you can replace the JW ale malt with Weyermann Munich II
you would get a much much closer profile.

 

[deebee]

Thanks for the tips brad. The JW is in the recipe because it's in the cupboard as with the cararoma and roast barley. I have some lighter crystal and will go half-half and perhaps drop the roast barley

 

[Barry]

Good Day
If you can add 100 - 200 gms of melanoidan it will help to give a malty "decoction"
flavour.

 

[deebee]

Thanks Barry.