Another Brew day, my first lager and decoction....

Well, I wanted something lighter than what I have on tap currently and though this will take a while, that is ok. This was also my first decoction and man did it add some time to the brew day. I don't think I will be doing that very often, but I can say that I did it I guess.

Anyways, here are some pics.


Here is the 7.75 Lbs of grain, 7.5 of Pale Malt and .25 of Crystal 60


Getting ready to crush, Baily wanted to help too.


I couldn't find the regular lid to my HLT, so I just used the big one for the day. The SWMBO found it later that day, I suck at finding things


Really about to crush

Finely crushed grain


Protein rest mash in


Time for some Rogue Amber Ale. Sadly I forgot to try and harvest the Pacman from this growler


End of the Mash and that extra layer of stuff that I never got with a single infusion mash


More to come later.

10 minute hop addition, I changed it up on the fly from .25 of tettnag at 15 to .25 of tettnag and .25 of EKG at 10 since I overshoot the gravity a little, I figure I could add a tiny bit more hops to balance it out.


Straining on the way into the fermentor


Even the dog was tired after this brew


More straining, sit and wait

Mmm.....


Fermenting away. I am trying to keep it at 50 as much as I can, we will see.

Looks good!

I just did my first decotion too- and agree that it added So much time! I did a two step decoction, and the first one took so long that I lost enough heat in the main mash- to where I missed my target of 160F, and hit 152F (close enough in my book- no worries). I can't wait to taste and see what the difference is. I did this now because the basement floor by the outside door is cold enough to keep it at 52F, and if I have success, I want to try another Oktoberfest next month with the intention of lagering all the way until October- but by then, I'll have to resort to your method....
Is it able to keep a constant temp? rise and fall by day and night to any significant degree?

I forgot to mention....- while culturing yeast is way more fun and rewarding than Buying it- Wyeast is totally selling Pacman yeast now- I ordered some and I'm trying Yooperbrews' Dead Guy clone AG version when it comes in.

oguss0311 said:

I just did my first decotion too- and agree that it added So much time! I did a two step decoction, and the first one took so long that I lost enough heat in the main mash- to where I missed my target of 160F, and hit 152F (close enough in my book- no worries). I can't wait to taste and see what the difference is. I did this now because the basement floor by the outside door is cold enough to keep it at 52F, and if I have success, I want to try another Oktoberfest next month with the intention of lagering all the way until October- but by then, I'll have to resort to your method....
Is it able to keep a constant temp? rise and fall by day and night to any significant degree?

Click to expand...

The same thing happened with the mash tun temp lowering, when I added the liquid back from boiling, I could only raise it to 142 instead of the targeted 151. So I basically did an extra rest there for a while. I tried boiling more water really quickly with the steam pot and adding it, but just couldn't do enough to bring the temp up. I finally got it so maybe I did a double decoction

I am having good luck with the water bath so far. I am opening the windows at night to the room and it is only getting down to about 50 outside and so does the room. It got up to 60 in the room after it may it up to 70 today but the water went from 49 to 52 and put more ice in and brought it back down again.

So this weekend, this 1.045 gravity will have lagered for 5 weeks. Do you think that is enough lagering time for a semi-light lager?

Just wondering when I can hook it up to some gas?

Looks awesome. I have been wanting to try a decotion mash, but damn that is so much extra time. Good Luck keeping that beer at 50, you might need more ice and more Rogue to get you through that one.

fixie said:

Looks awesome. I have been wanting to try a decotion mash, but damn that is so much extra time. Good Luck keeping that beer at 50, you might need more ice and more Rogue to get you through that one.

Click to expand...

Actually I brewed this back on 2/21 and was able to keep it at 50 the whole time, this weekend will be 5 weeks of lagering.

I was just wondering if that should be enough for this beer.