Please critique this newbie's lager recipe

Made two batches of homebrew; looking to make a couple of 1-gallon batches in the next couple of days. I tend to prefer lagers - how does this recipe sound?

pilsner malt (crushed) steeping grain
Munton's light DME
Saflager S-23 yeast
Northern Brewer bittering hops
Halletau leaf hops for aroma (maybe try some dry hopping?)


Since I'm making two 1-gallon batches, my plan was:

Start with 2.5 gallons of water or so. Steep 500 grams of the crushed pilsner malt in the water for 30mn @ 170 degrees. Remove grain and bring wort to boil. Add 20 grams of the Northern Brewer hops. At 30 minutes, add 1kg (two 500-gram packets) of the light DME and 10 grams of Northern Brewer. At 45 minutes at 10 more grams of NB. At 55 minutes add 10 grams of the Halletau for the last five minutes.

Cool, then one gallon (or so, depending on how much water gets boiled off...) each into two one-gallon glass carboys; half a packet of the S-23 yeast into one carboy, half a packet of Munton's premium gold yeast into the other.

That sound right? Not sure how much grain I should be steeping; 500 grams too much? Not enough?


Txs!

S

since your across the pond can you get white labs yeasts? or wyeast? the recipes looks fine but fermenting a lager with anything but a lager yeast kinda defeats the purpose.

you could try doing this with nottingham yeast from danstar and ferment it down around 55-60F. just dont expect it to be like a pilsener even then.

Skip the pilsner malt. It needs to be properly mashed.

Yup, don't bother using base malts for steeping. You'll need to mash for them to really do anything.

That said, for a 1 gallon batch, mashing ought to be pretty simple. You could even use something as small as a thermos bottle to do a partial mash, then strain out the grain after conversion is done, not bothering with lautering or sparging.

Also, I've never used S-23, but the reports I've read of it sound far from stellar. A lot of people say it often produces hugely (sometimes undrinkably) fruity lagers.
I HAVE, however used Saflager W34/70 dry lager yeast. It worked wonderfully for me, producing a couple of beautiful clean lagers, and most people seem pretty happy with it. Maybe consider changing yeasts as well?

Txs for the yeast suggestions; I'll pick up some W34/70. I used the S-23 in a lager a few months ago; it came out OK; wasn't fruity at all. However, the beer didn't quite have much 'robustness' in terms of taste - no bottom, as it were - which is why I was thinking maybe adding some steeping grains to start with would help round out the flavor profile. Should I bother with steeping grains? If no need - well, less work on brew day. If steeping grains help, what should I be looking for to use?

I don't think anyone is speaking against the idea of steeping grains but the fact that pilsner malt is a base grain which needs to be mashed vs a flavoring/coloring grain which can be steeped. I think you can get plisner in an extract form probably LME. From what I can tell, still pretty new myself, various shades and aspects of crystal malt can be used as steeping grains. One thing you might want to try is looking at other recipes on here and other sites that would be similar to your intended goal and see what they have in common with each other. Another place to check would be some of the major web supply companies and look at their extract kits and see what they are using as steeping grains in their recipes that are close to the style you're looking for. This is just my views and opinions on the topic, use as you will.

If you want to do a lager I would sub the Muntons DME for Pilsner LME. Also wouldn't be afraid to mash some Munich malt. Basicall just steep 1/2 kilo of malt with a liter of water at 150-155 degrees for 30-60 minutes, rinse with 2 liters of 170 degree water.

Obviously pretty new to this - had no idea that there was a difference between base malts and flavoring/coloring grains..hmm. So now I have the crushed pilsner malt on hand - how would I go about using it? I assume this would be a type of partial mash - anyone has some noob-esque step-by-step instructions if I was going to do a one-gallon batch?

Have you read DeathBrewer's Easy Partial Mash Thread?

Sweet - reading now!