American Lager Crop Chopper Premium American Lager

MALTS

4 lb 2-row
4 lb 6-row
1 lb flaked corn/maize
1 lb flaked rice

HOPS

1 oz Hallertauer Mittlefrueh

YEAST

S-23

MASH

10 mins at 130 with 12.5 quarts
60 mins at 149 (add boiling water and stir like crazy until you reach 149-it helps to have two people for this mash)
Sparge

FERMENTATION

10 days at 51
5 day D-rest at room temp in primary
Rack to secondary and lager for 4+ weeks
Keg

This beer was brewed for my in-laws in expectation for the long, hot days of chopping corn that are coming later this year. It will be great to fill a couple of growlers and bring it to them for that time of year. This beer embodies everything that I would find refreshing after a hard day of work on the farm and that I know they will enjoy.

I got crazy attenuation with this beer too, it was 86+% attenuation.

When I chilled this beer with the wort chiller, I whirlpooled in the opposite direction and aerated this sucker as much as I could during whirlpool and then again with shaking the snot out of the carboy. I got the beer into the carboy then into the FC. I waited to pitch until the next day so that the wort would be nice and cool. There was not even a hint of diacetyl but I always do a D-rest with my lagers, half out of habit, half out of fear since it has never hurt my lagers. Fear not...no fruitiness with the S-23. Super clean. Its not as soft and supple as the other lager strain I've used (Munich Lager), but excellent for this application.

I hope this works for you too...

I just finished a brew day putting this recipe together. It was a beautiful brew, but wow the hot break was HUGE. Thanks for posting the recipe.

You're welcome! Its a great beer! I'm brewing it up again April 7th.

I made something similar, used Wyeast 2007 yeast, but the grain bill was close to yours. came out very nice, easy drinking beer that would be great for after working all day.

Bubbling along nicely.

Sweet! It's looking great!

I am now at the end of my 5 day D rest. I was wondering what temperature you start your lagering process at and where you rest. Did I mention this is my first Lager? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi there, I just racked it and dropped the temp to lagering temp. If you can drop it to 34 and keep it there for a month or more that would be my recommendation. Then rack it to a keg and carb it up for a couple of weeks and enjoy. If bottling, sprinkle just like 1/8 of a package of yeast (US-05 or S-23) to the bottling bucket with your priming sugar mixture. Have fun! Oh, and if you bottle it: 3 weeks room temp, 3 weeks serving temp. The longer and the colder (within reason), the better.

Well I never got to make it on April 7, so I'm brewing it today after I get out of work this morning. Sleep for an hour and then brew it up!

Chillers goin in in 10 mins!

Fermenting nicely at 48 cool degrees F.

Awesome! We'll both have this beer ready for summer! Great to hear that you got your brew day in.

1Mainebrew said:

Well I never got to make it on April 7, so I'm brewing it today after I get out of work this morning. Sleep for an hour and then brew it up!

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Please keep me posted. Pics would be great! I want to brew a pilsner for July 4th and this recipe looks like what I was planning

This is a picture of the beer and yeast bed after a 7 day D rest at 68-70 room temp.

Slick! That's exactly what my beer looked like. I just racked to a corny and started lagering mine this afternoon. I'm pretty pumped.

stmou984 said:

Please keep me posted. Pics would be great! I want to brew a pilsner for July 4th and this recipe looks like what I was planning

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Sorry, but no pics this time. This isn't really a pilsner, its a Premium American Lager. A pilsner will be more bitter, use pilsner malt, and (generally) use a liquid yeast from Germany. This will be more sweet, crisp, and grainy. Either way, you'll brew up something tasty! Have fun and let me know how it goes! My PAL won't be done lagering until the pale ale I just put on tap is gone in a few months. Patience is a very good thing in brewing.

LVGriff said:

Awesome! We'll both have this beer ready for summer!

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It will be great to have this beer ready for the hot weather! Hows your lagering going? When are you going to keg/bottle it?

I'm just into my 4th week of Lagering at @ 34F. Do you think there is a significant improvement if I manage to wait longer? It's already H-O-T here in Vegas, so I'm ready for a cold one (or two) of these. I'm kegging this one.

It's your beer, have at it! Let us know how it is. Generally, I find its best once lagered to clarity. Once it's crystal clear its done lagering for me. Keep us posted.

Good advice. I'm planning on transferring to keg, pressurizing and letting it sit at 34F until I have an open tap which should be soon. I'll post a few pictures of the final results.

I'm planning on really tapping my keg of this on the 9th. I've been drawing like 1 oz samples every so often since moving from the lager fridge to the kegerator and its almost where I want it to be for clarity. It should be done within the next 2 weeks. I'll post pictures too.

Its pretty... even with the condensation on the glass! And props to Boon Island Ales in Wells, Maine! Love the glass! Check them out if you're in the northeast... it very well done.

LVGriff said:

Good advice. I'm planning on transferring to keg, pressurizing and letting it sit at 34F until I have an open tap which should be soon. I'll post a few pictures of the final results.

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Have you pulled a pint yet? Any pics?

I'm bummed, the keg is getting close to being gone. I need to make this again soon. I have an Oktoberfest lagering now so it will have to wait for the temp controlled fermentation space to be free before I make it again.

I too am at the end of my Keg. What a great beer. I can't say enough good things about it. I'll be keeping this one on tap as much as possible in the future.

I'm glad to hear it! Great pic too!

Made this today, thanks for the recipe. Already have a nice krausen, looking forward to trying it.

Yeah I'm going to make this again probably next month. It's so awesome! Let me know how it turns out.

I brewed this one yesterday. I FWH this one, and this morning, it's bubbling away. I was surprised how light it was. This was the first beer I've brewed with corn and rice in it. I'll post how it turns out.

I tried my first sample yesterday and it was delicious! A touch too much corn flavor and bitterness, but that will subside in the cold conditioning. Wound up with an OG of 1.052. Gravity reading yesterday was 1.010, which is on par with the liquid white labs american lager yeast I used. Think I'll do a d-rest for a few more days then keg.

I hit all the number on the money, which was kinda funny because when I added in my starter, I ended up with right at 5 gallons. It's been cold here, so it has been sitting in the garage on the floor. The big warm up begins today, so I'll move it to the cooler this evening. The temp in the garage this morning was 36. It was still happily bubbling away.

libertybrewer said:

i hit all the number on the money, which was kinda funny because when i added in my starter, i ended up with right at 5 gallons. It's been cold here, so it has been sitting in the garage on the floor. The big warm up begins today, so i'll move it to the cooler this evening. The temp in the garage this morning was 36. It was still happily bubbling away.

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yay!

I transferred this batch to the secondary, after a couple of days doing the diacetyl rest. It tested out at 1.011, and the test jar taste test was quite favorable. If this batch is as good as I think it's going to be, I think there are plans in the works for a 10 gallon batch.

Ah yes the sweet taste of a successful brew!

Just wanted to say thanks again for this recipe. It may be the fastest keg kill I've had. Loved it so much that I entered it into a local comp and the NHC. Need to rebrew asap so I'll have it in the pipeline for the summer.

Great idea! It clears like crazy with a little gelatin in the keg, it's really pretty that way

I have the ingredients for this and am going to try to brew it this weekend. It will be my first lager.

Thanks man that's a nice compliment

I added another chest freezer to my collection of appliances in the basement, and got it set up as a fermentation chamber. I decided to use this recipe for my first lager attempt. By the way, what's with the lack of american lager recipes on HBT? I didn't really see many.

Anyways, this was my smoothest brew day ever. No 'oh crap' moments at all. I wound up getting better efficiency (76%) but expected that before I started. I wound up with 5.25 gallons @ 1.051 OG. I added Gypsum, Chalk, and Lactic Acid for the mash.

Overpitched the yeast a bit, at 65 degrees, and chilled it to 51. Still no activity after about 15 hours, but I will give it some more time before trying to warm it up to wake up the yeast. I've never used S-23, is it normally a very slow starter at 50 degrees?

I finally kegged mine. FG going into the keg was 1.010@31F., so I'm guessing it really is about 1.008. This stuff came out the clearest of all the beers I've done. No need for any finings, or clearing agents. I have it on the high pressure, so I'll be drinking it tomorrow.

Even my wife likes it. It's that good. I told her I'm brewing up a 10 gallon batch next weekend.

I'll post pics of my first glass.

Thanks, OP for a great recipe.