The original Lager thread.. Everything you ever wanted to know or ask

guldalian said:

Will adding ale yeast to a lager for carbing purposes introduce any ale flavors?

Click to expand...

No, that's why it works so well.

StoneHands said:

I'm jumping in the lager thread late, but I enjoy the heck out of lagers.


Bulls Beers, for a helles, definitely follow Kai's advice and look into the water primer too. I make a fantastic helles thanks to these two resources. I use mostly distilled water, a little calcium chloride, and acid malt (I think the acid malt adds some flavor in addition to adjusting the pH, so I think it's necessary). I swear when I take a sip of my helles, if I close my eyes, I'm sitting in Marienplatz outside of Augustiner. Two batches in a row have been identical to my palate.

Good stuff in this thread.

Click to expand...

Btw, did you do a decoction or a single infusion when doing this recipe?

Double infusion. Protein rest at 130 for about 10-15 minutes. And then another infusion to bring the mash up to 149 for 60 minutes. You want a helles to attenuate. I'm not sure how much the protein rest helps, weyermann malts that I use seem to have a huge amount of protein judging by the cold break material. This rest definitely does not hurt head retention, I get awesome foam in the finished beer. 6 weeks lagering seems to clear up the haze pretty well. 4 weeks its still hazy.

A lagering question I have wondered about from time to time.

I've done 3 lagers now, so far all have been transferred into keg after the diacetyl rest and lagered in the keg. However, I have a limited number of kegs. so I was thinking about transferring from primary to secondary carboy after d-rest and do the first 3-4 weeks in a carboy. Then I could transfer to keg and connect CO2 for the last 3-4 weeks of lagering.

Other than potential problems with the extra handling, is there a problem with this?

TIA

02fx4dude said:

A lagering question I have wondered about from time to time.

I've done 3 lagers now, so far all have been transferred into keg after the diacetyl rest and lagered in the keg. However, I have a limited number of kegs. so I was thinking about transferring from primary to secondary carboy after d-rest and do the first 3-4 weeks in a carboy. Then I could transfer to keg and connect CO2 for the last 3-4 weeks of lagering.

Other than potential problems with the extra handling, is there a problem with this?

TIA

Click to expand...

No, that sound be fine.

Yooper said:

No, that sound be fine.

Click to expand...

Couple too many beers, huh? Haha!

I did a D-rest on my ocktoberfest that is in bottles now..

I swear it had a slight band-aid flavor while in secondary.. But afterwards and once I put it bottles it seemed it was gone, and the Ockoberfest had a dry almost perfect finish.

Fast forward a bit over a week..

The first bottle opened for a test, was flat (Flatter than when I bottled I dare say). Also, instead of that nice dry slightly sweet finish I had they dreaded Band-aid taste but worse.

Could it just be one bottle..? I did see 2-3 of my bottles had trash in them somehow, so its possible just a few bottles are contaminated. This one did not have trash though, and also I noticed I had virtually zero sediment in the bottle.

Should I simply wait..? Or is there a possibility the lager yeast couldn't handle the higher ABV (I added 2lbs of honey to the wort to increase the ABV to the 6.5% range) and I killed them.

I am currently thinking I should RDWAHAHB, but the test bottle was damn near undrinkable. That said, I didn't bottle it all.. I did put 2 into 1L growlers, and filled a 5L mini-keg. Should I pop open one of the growlers and test from there.. and the growlers and keg lack calibration add some champagne yeast?

Any thoughts..?

Band-aid flavors tend to come from two places- chlorophenols, from chlorine in the brewing water, or from infection.

I got an infected beer a while ago (ale) from a contaminated yeast starter and it was band-aid beer. It was undrinkably bad.

But if yours is only in a couple of bottles, maybe it was just those bottles. If it all had a slight band-aid taste, though, I think it might be the whole batch.

I'm pretty sure its chlorine in the water that was causing the slight bandaid back flavor when it was in the secondary at one time. ( BTW Lesson learned, I will quit using tap water.. or at least condition it )

But as I mentioned when I bottled, the samples I took there lacked any band-aid flavor. It was replaced with a more dry fruity back flavor from the honey (what I was going for) .

Then the test bottle showed up with a stronger and virtually undrinkable band-aid flavor.. but that bottle also showed ZERO carbonation. If anything the little carbonation it had going into the bottle was gone as well. Which makes me think the new bottles I used weren't cleaned enough.. and I may have a few infected bottles. As those are the ones I see crap in, and this bottle was from that group of 6 bottles.

So I am crossing my fingers on that..

I think I will pull a sample from the 1L Growler and see if it has off flavors and any carbonation.

This is my first lager, and not sure if it takes them longer to carb and age than the ales..? Because my ales were carbed shortly by the 2 week mark.. and as mentioned the test at a week and a half was dead flat.

Outside the band-aid flavor could the lack of carbonation be the lager yeast couldn't handle the higher ABV..?

Yooper said:

I agree.

But, it won't hurt to add some yeast either. You can add 1/3 of a package of a dry yeast (like nottingham) to the cooled priming solution in the bottling bucket, stir it well, and then rack the beer into it. It guarantees an even and fast (relatively) carbing.

Click to expand...

What about liquid yeast? I made a Pilsener with liquid lager yeast, collected the yeast cake, and stored it in my fridge last month. I used two of the jars in a starter to pitch to my honey lager yesterday so I still have 3 half-pint jars left, plus the yeast cake from the lager that I can collect later.

Yooper said:

No, that sound be fine.

Click to expand...

Haha, I'll take that as a thumbs up. Thanks Yooper.

Where's the best place to buy a reasonably priced Lager recipe kit ?

Could you make any ale into a lager by just changing the yeast

Thegreatestgray said:

Could you make any ale into a lager by just changing the yeast

Click to expand...

Yes. And of course fermenting at the correct temperature, and then lagering.

But not all ales will be really great as a lager.

One thing that may work is an IPL instead of an IPA- I had one tonight by Sam Adams and it wasn't bad.

Yooper said:

Yes, but I think that's a very vocal minority. I don't think you'll hear that from most of the more experienced brewers, and I hear it on this forum repeated incessently but only by a minority.

The "clean up" phase of the yeast's life cycle is about 24 hours or so, at the tail end of primary fermentation. That's when the preferred fermentable sugars are gone, and then the yeast will go after the less preferential sugars (like maltiose) and then finally start to digest their own waste products when fermentables are gone. This certainly doesn't take all that long- maybe a day or two after FG is reached is a safe bet to ensure it's finished and clearing starts.

Interestingly, Basic Brewing Radio did an experiment a couple of years ago with the same recipe and doing a traditional "primary/secondary", primary only short term, and primary only long term.

All people noted differences in the final beer. The interesting part of that was some preferred the shorter time in the fermenter, while nearly as many preferred the longer time in the fermenter. So it really is personal preference, as some definitely do find the long primary preferable!

Click to expand...

Yooper,
I really appreciate this post along with your other post stating that you only primary for about 10 days.

I also like clean flavor with no yeast impacts in my beers.

If I understand your process it something like this -
Ferment on the low end of the yeast range
Do a D rest at about 75% of FG
Check for Diacetyl and ensure beer is at FG
If no Diacetyl rack to keg

Follow up questions -
Do you cold crash before racking to keg?
How can I get better at tasting/identifying diacetyl?
I just made my first lager and it had a slight diacetyl flavor that I did not notice until it was carbed... not near as bad as my butter bomb Kolsch I made when I tried to rush things. Maybe I am one who can not pick it out?

Appreciate your help
Kevin

I'm thinking about adding some yeast to a german pils when I bottle. I have some dry wine yeast, (Cote des Blancs, I think) that I probably won't use, would that be ok for bottle conditioning?

tennesseean_87 said:

I'm thinking about adding some yeast to a german pils when I bottle. I have some dry wine yeast, (Cote des Blancs, I think) that I probably won't use, would that be ok for bottle conditioning?

Click to expand...

How long has it been lagering? I personally think if it's less than 2 months, I wouldn't bother.

i'm planning on doing my first lager soon. well that is if i can.. i have a mini fridge and i have read post on how ppl use mini fridges and it works. my question is i found this about my mini fridge ..
Frigidaire Representative
The temperature range for the refrigeration section of the LFWC18T6LB model is 46 to 64 degrees.
Posted by
FrigidaireAnswers
now by that i dont see myself doing a lager.. am i right ?

Are you sure you trust that post? If true, that fridge is not even food-safe.

you have a great point.. couple months back i turned the temp down way down and next day i opened the fridge beers soda (pop) exploded .. that post has to be way off maybe they meant 36 degress

I just looked up your model number and saw that it's a wine mini-fridge. That's quite different, as it'd be rare to need temperatures below 40°F for wine storage. That post may be correct. If you search Frigidaire's website for that model number, it's discontinued, but a more recent model shows up. In the manual, the stated temperature range is 41-64°F (or something, I forgot the high limit). However, if you read the reviews, someone complains that it runs colder than it claims, down into the low 30s.

So I bet it does run colder than advertised. I'd recommend getting a digital thermometer with a remote probe (on a wire). Use it to measure the temperature in there accurately. It's the only way to be sure (other than nuking from orbit). It doesn't have to be expensive, but I have found mine to be invaluable.

thanks for doing some research.. i didnt even think about going to frididaire's website. i will have to get a digital thermometer. and hope everything works out.

ok so i stuck a digital meat thermometer in the fridge for 30min and the temp was at 40 degrees. and thats only on the middle selection for temp range. i would move the temp down but i have some beer and soda in the fridge so i dont want any bombs again

sounds good. That's probably low enough to do a decent lagering, though it'd be nice to get a bit lower. Drink your beer and soda and see how low it can go. If it's about 30°F or above you should be able to lager at its lowest setting. That's nice, even if you decide to nudge it up, since you know you don't have to worry about bumping the setting too low.

StoneHands said:

How long has it been lagering? I personally think if it's less than 2 months, I wouldn't bother.

Click to expand...

5 weeks at 40Fish, but I used cold-fermented notty, not a lager yeast. Will that make a difference (as in will it completely floc out at cooler temps where lager yeast wouldn't)?

tennesseean_87 said:

5 weeks at 40Fish, but I used cold-fermented notty, not a lager yeast. Will that make a difference (as in will it completely floc out at cooler temps where lager yeast wouldn't)?

Click to expand...

No experience with that, but when in doubt I'd cast a vote for adding a small amount of fresh yeast as insurance. I think you'd be ok either way, but it'd be a much bigger PITA to have a batch of uncarbed beer than to have a tiny extra bit of yeast in each bottle.

Adding honey to secondary after 7 days fermenting @ 50F, 1 day D-Rest @ 65F

It's kind of a follow up to when I added 2 lbs of honey to the boil of my last ocktoberfest.. I loved the final product, but it was a bit dry. Want it a bit more sweet a little less dry. So read it maybe better to put into the secondary.

But that would kick start the fermentation again wouldn't it..?

Would another D-rest be in order..?

Should I just go into Lagering and what comes out comes out..? How long..?

CDGoin said:

Adding honey to secondary after 7 days fermenting @ 50F, 1 day D-Rest @ 65F [...]

Click to expand...

Speaking theoretically and assuming you're naturally bottle conditioning, I think you're asking for trouble trying to obtain residual sweetness by adding fermentables late in the fermentation. You run a pretty serious risk of overcarbonating.

It might work if the "sweetness" you mean is the flavor or aroma of the honey rather than its actual residual sugar contribution. The theory (which is at least vaguely plausible, not sure if it's been rigorously tested) is that aromatics are blown off during vigorous primary fermentation. You may have more apparent honey flavor or aroma from a secondary addition, even if you ferment fully dry.

If you're force-carbing you may have more options, though I've mostly seen these discussed for mead or cider. I'm not sure how many of those methods are effective for beers.

tommyguner03 said:

ok so i stuck a digital meat thermometer in the fridge for 30min and the temp was at 40 degrees. and thats only on the middle selection for temp range. i would move the temp down but i have some beer and soda in the fridge so i dont want any bombs again

Click to expand...

The first, and only, lager I've brewed was fermented and then lagered in a small mini fridge first in a bucket, then racked to secondary carboy, etc.
One suggestion I would make, and why I haven't made another lager (yet), is that I could not easily rack off all the crud because by the time I removed the carboy and lifted it to countertop level, I stirred up all the crud/trub. Some folks sounds like they let it sit and settle again.

However, it is possible to use one of the plastic/rubbery carboy caps with two holes to perform a floor-level transfer without disturbing the trub using low pressure CO2 and a racking cane. The alternative is to set your mini fridge on the countertop, or simply wait for the trub to settle again. I suspect it would take quite some time to settle again. I used a fining agent in the lagering carboy before racking to keg, and a second fining in the keg as I recall. My first lager I was quite concerned about a clear finished beer.

Now I have a conical, so I can dump the junk. Gonna take a stab at Kai's helles recipe soon. How friendly is the 830 yeast? Are there other friendlier yeasts to work with?

TD

TrickyDick said:

The first, and only, lager I've brewed was fermented and then lagered in a small mini fridge first in a bucket, then racked to secondary carboy, etc.
One suggestion I would make, and why I haven't made another lager (yet), is that I could not easily rack off all the crud because by the time I removed the carboy and lifted it to countertop level, I stirred up all the crud/trub. Some folks sounds like they let it sit and settle again.

However, it is possible to use one of the plastic/rubbery carboy caps with two holes to perform a floor-level transfer without disturbing the trub using low pressure CO2 and a racking cane. The alternative is to set your mini fridge on the countertop, or simply wait for the trub to settle again. I suspect it would take quite some time to settle again. I used a fining agent in the lagering carboy before racking to keg, and a second fining in the keg as I recall. My first lager I was quite concerned about a clear finished beer.

Now I have a conical, so I can dump the junk. Gonna take a stab at Kai's helles recipe soon. How friendly is the 830 yeast? Are there other friendlier yeasts to work with?

TD

Click to expand...

I always move my better bottles from the lagering chamber and carry it over to the counter. As long as I'm not bouncing it around too much, it usually settles in a minute or two. I'll take it from primary and rack right to a keg. Maybe the first glass or so might have a little floating around, but not much.

I'm lagering Kai's Helles recipe right now. It's been in the keg for a few weeks now. I have a keg in front of it, so It should be lagering for 6-8 weeks. I tried it when I racked to the keg and it tasted really good..If it comes out the way I think it will, I'll start making it in 10 gallon batches. Cheers!!

Cool! Let us know. Did you use the 830 yeast? I'm tempted to use dry lager yeast.


TD

TrickyDick said:

Cool! Let us know. Did you use the 830 yeast? I'm tempted to use dry lager yeast.


TD

Click to expand...

Yes. I use 830 a lot. Ferments out well...

Kai's recipe calls out a different way to measure hops than what I am used to, in g/l I think.
I was going to use magnum .5 oz x60min, then .5oz of hallertau for next two additions i think 45 and 15 min - for 11 gal. This sound good to you?
In beersmith, the range appropriate for style bars show ibus toward the lower end of the range.

Brew day is either 4/21 or 4/28. Gonna brew with a friend and split the cost, under $50. Trying to get more friends into hobby.

TD

TrickyDick said:

Kai's recipe calls out a different way to measure hops than what I am used to, in g/l I think.
I was going to use magnum .5 oz x60min, then .5oz of hallertau for next two additions i think 45 and 15 min - for 11 gal. This sound good to you?
In beersmith, the range appropriate for style bars show ibus toward the lower end of the range.

Brew day is either 4/21 or 4/28. Gonna brew with a friend and split the cost, under $50. Trying to get more friends into hobby.

TD

Click to expand...

My Hop schedule is close to yours. Mine is
Magnum- .45oz/boil for 50min
Hallertauer Middelfrueh- .55oz/boil for 40min
Hallertauer Middelfrueh- .55oz/boil for 15min

IBU's 19.5

Thanks! My IBUs at 18.5. Might tweak to a little more, since no IBUs given in original recipe. Will obviously be tweaking anyway once I get the hops to brew this with since just guessing on AA%.
I'll let y'all know how my first stab at this goes.

TD

OK.. just had a debate with a friend (who was a home brewer "back in the day" and "may" know more than me on teh subject).

I say Pilsner is a distinct style of Lager and different from Budwieser/Miller/Coors as those are an american style pale lagers.. I know the Pilsners I have had from Germany are different.

There is no "beechwood aging" or Rice or corn German/Czech Pilsners and thats only some of the differences.

CDGoin said:

OK.. just had a debate with a friend (who was a home brewer "back in the day" and "may" know more than me on teh subject).

I say Pilsner is a distinct style of Lager and different from Budwieser/Miller/Coors as those are an american style pale lagers.. I know the Pilsners I have had from Germany are different.

There is no "beechwood aging" or Rice or corn German/Czech Pilsners and thats only some of the differences.

Click to expand...

I not a lager expert so I am not sure I can answer the exact question. However, it is my understanding that the beechwood is used to accelerate the maturation process, so that they can get their beers to market faster. I am not sure if it offers any beneficial effect on flavor/taste. I know they steam the beechwood staves and that they are reused.

TD

What's the thought on sampling your beer from the keg while lagering?

For me, I'll wait. I just racked a Dunkel from primary to keg. When I checked my finally gravity, I'll taste it then. Once it's in the keg, I leave it until I tap it. Which is usually 6 weeks or so.

This is great information as I just finished my first lager. I have a dedicated fermentation/lagering chamber and have just completed a Czech Budvar clone. It's an extract version, but I think it should turn out fine. My chamber is set-up currently for 51*F fermentation temperature. I plan a diacetyl rest after 10 days or so at 65*F, then to lager at 40*F for four weeks. Then I will switch over to a 48 hour cold crash at 34*f, then bottle and condition for 3 - 6 weeks. The chamber I have built is designed with Wi-Fi capabilities where I can check the current temperatures via smart phone or computer as well as make adjustments.
The information given by Yooper about bottling with Nottingham is good information, as I was concerned about the conditioning phase.
Again, this is a great thread and I hope my first lager turns out as good as I expect.