Thoughts on this Lager Recipe

I'm shooting for a lighter lager for the summer months. I'm using the honey to lighten it up while keeping the AC higher. Let me know your thoughts on anything. Particularly, take a look at the hops and yeast. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Also, too much honey? I'm not necessarily shooting for a honey taste, but wouldn't be upset if it had a little hint of honey flavor, either.

Honey Lager (will come up with a more catchy name when I brew it)

3 1/2 lbs Light DME
2 lbs Honey

3/4 oz Cascade (bittering hops)
1/4 oz Tettnanger (flavor)

Lager Yeast (was just going to use whatever lager yeast my LHBS suggested)

That's it. I want to get it brewing this week since the basement is still relatively cool in the spot I want to store it so I could keep it a lagering temps easier. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks

Too much honey. However, I love the simplicity and gravity. I would go with .5lbs honey, 5lbs extract, Tettnang for boil and .25-.5oz Tettnang for flavor. My reasoning is that even at .5lbs honey that is still 9% and should come through nicely in part due to the lower gravity. The change in boiling hops is a personal and traditional preference. Bumping up the flavor hops would be toss up for me but know for sure would not exceed .5oz. In past low gravity brews, .5oz flavor hops came through nicely without being overpowering but cutting back to .25oz will help the honey come through.

Light lager for summer? Hmmm...4 lbs LME and .5 lbs honey (as previously suggested) should make for a pretty light enough brew.

Sounds tempting for tomorrow (for myself), but I'd make it an ale.

Thanks for weighing in fellas. I was wondering about the honey and hops, obviously. Exactly the advice I was looking for. I plan on purchasing the ingredients on my way home tonight.

HB_99: I was thinking ale originally as well, but thought a lager sounded a little crisper.

PT Ray: I was contemplating going with the Tettnang throughout after I posted this. If nothing else, because then all I need is one bag of hops for the entire brew instead of opening up 2 different bags with leftovers.

Thanks again, guys.

The ale would be faster since you would need a fridge for the lagering.

Personally, I'd go for the ale. I'd make 1 batch, try it, tweak it if necessary, then follow up with another and another just to make sure you had enough to get you through the summer.

Plus you could pitch your wort on the yeast cake to speed things up a bit or wash some of the yeast every batch to save for later.

homebrewer_99 said:

Light lager for summer? Hmmm...4 lbs LME and .5 lbs honey (as previously suggested) should make for a pretty light enough brew

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4lbs extract and .5lb honey will only yield about a 1.033 gravity for 5 gallons. I have a concern this might be too low of a gravity for a recipe not using any malt for residual sweetness or body, resulting in beer flavored water. If this is still you poison I would opt for an ale yeast. Not for a faster turnover but inorder to provide some esters giving a little more flavor.

I see your point, but you could always add a pound of malt...I took it as we were discussing an approach not a conclusion... just something "light"...and maybe "beer flavored water" is what he's after. I, we, don't know.

As far as the 1.033 goes it's only relative to the FG (and to the software computations sometimes).

His original recipe called for 4.5 lbs of sugar as did mine.

Body can be raised for light beers by using Malto-Dextrine. I don't recommend using more than 2 oz at any time. When I was a noob I tried 4 oz of MD and the floating yeasties were like suspended in my beer. They wouldn't move. If I turned the glass they would just stay where they were. Very strange. Like a yoke in an egg, it doesn't move.

Residual sweetness is relative to your usage of bittering hops. If you over-bitter-hop it it'll never be a sweet brew (in the end).

homebrewer_99 said:

As far as the 1.033 goes it's only relative to the FG (and to the software computations sometimes).

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My point. If you start with a low gravity and finish with a low gravity, what are you left with? For this reason I use a darker kilned base malt verses dextrine or crystal malt to keep from finishing too dry. I guess you could say my objective is to make "beer flavored water".

Well, I went with the 4 lbs of LME and .5 lbs of honey and Tett hops and used a Ringwood ale yeast smack pack. I've had in the keg for a little under 2 weeks now and it's exactly what I was wanting. I carbonated it at 15 psi for 4 days so it's a higher carbed beer. I just completely resodded my yard this past weekend (25 hour process and not one bit fun) and it was the perfect beer to chug when I was laying on the couch at the end of the day. It's obvously a pretty light beer compared to everything else I've brewed. The best way I can describe it is a Leinie's Honeyweis with more flavor. It's not the beer I'd drink with a good burger or steak, or when I want some really good flavor, but when coming in from sweating my b@lls off, it's perfect. And it was a relatively fast brew from boil to pour. Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll try to take a picture and post it when I get a chance.

I had forgotten about this post but glad you updated it with your good results. I have been meaning to brew a traditional double bock but the effects of the hot weather have turned me off to brewing anything over a 1.050 gravity. Looks like everything for the next few months is going to fall between 1.036-1.044.