American Lager Crop Chopper Premium American Lager

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Here are the pics of the beer. As you can see this is really clear. The second photo, I used the flash. It looks different, but the first pic shows the true color.
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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?

Just keep it cool don't warm it up, it'll be fine. Don't worry about the minimal krausen in a lager. It's cool. Sorry for the pun.
 
Just keep it cool don't warm it up, it'll be fine. Don't worry about the minimal krausen in a lager. It's cool. Sorry for the pun.

Yeah I think my buckets are getting old. I don't even get the slightest change in pressure on the airlock. I popped the cover and there is krausen. I'm hoping the s-23 does better than all the negative feedback on other threads. People were commenting that it does better in mid 50s and creates off flavors at lower temps.
 
Yeah I think my buckets are getting old. I don't even get the slightest change in pressure on the airlock. I popped the cover and there is krausen. I'm hoping the s-23 does better than all the negative feedback on other threads. People were commenting that it does better in mid 50s and creates off flavors at lower temps.

I ferment this at 51 and have never had any of the funny off flavors described by others. Make sure that you pitch enough yeast though! Properly rehydrated is at least 2 packs, not rehydrated is a minimum of 4, or pitch onto part of a yeast cake.
 
Boiled this recipe up on Friday evening. Put it into the fermentation chamber at 51° and pitched 2 packs of rehydrated S-23 on Saturday morning. Looked at it this morning and it has a nice layer of krausen on it.

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boiled this recipe up on friday evening. Put it into the fermentation chamber at 51° and pitched 2 packs of rehydrated s-23 on saturday morning. Looked at it this morning and it has a nice layer of krausen on it.

sweet!
 
Just curious: how much of a corn flavor should the flaked corn give? Should it be a noticeable flavor? I did a d rest and tasted and can make out a corn flavor but want to make sure that isn't dms
 
Does it taste like cooked corn, or just like a corn sweetness? Cooked corn= DMS, corn sweetness= delish PAL.
 
Does it taste like cooked corn, or just like a corn sweetness? Cooked corn= DMS, corn sweetness= delish PAL.

Haha I honestly wouldn't know the difference between cooked corn and corn sweetness! Anyways it was time for me to transfer to secondary for lagering. During this, I filled a 1L bottle and force carbed it and threw it in the freezer. The wife and I had a glass each and both thought it was good. Tasted like a BMC but with less skunkiness, a bit more mouthfeel, and a mild fruitiness from the cascade. This would be a good one to make for a last minute party because you could go grain to glass in 10 days. Thanks for the recipe!
 
Haha I honestly wouldn't know the difference between cooked corn and corn sweetness! Anyways it was time for me to transfer to secondary for lagering. During this, I filled a 1L bottle and force carbed it and threw it in the freezer. The wife and I had a glass each and both thought it was good. Tasted like a BMC but with less skunkiness, a bit more mouthfeel, and a mild fruitiness from the cascade. This would be a good one to make for a last minute party because you could go grain to glass in 10 days. Thanks for the recipe!

It tastes a whole lot better if you let it age. Trust me on this.
 
I went to check on and drop the lagering temp a bit more and interestingly enough the airlock is bubbling about every 2 seconds. I know it could be off gassing but I'm wondering if transferring to secondary restarted fermentation. I had gotten a stable 1.008 reading for 4 days. What FG have you all ended at?
 
Boiled this recipe up on Friday evening. Put it into the fermentation chamber at 51° and pitched 2 packs of rehydrated S-23 on Saturday morning. Looked at it this morning and it has a nice layer of krausen on it.

I put this in secondary on Sunday, 4/27. My OG was 1.054, FG was 1.012. The sample tasted fine, no cream corn, that I could detect. Put it back into the ferm chamber and set the STC-1000 at 0.8° C.

I going to let this sit until mid-June, about the time wheat should be harvested around here, then keg and carb so its ready for the 4th of July.
 
I doubled the recipe yesterday, and made up a 10gal batch. I missed most of my numbers on the mash, by a little bit, but the OG turned out right. So much for dumb luck and patience. I have 2 5 gallon fermenters sitting in the cooler at 55 right now. I'll see about 6 tonight how it's going. I used WLP840 on mine.
 
I made another 5 gallons on Monday and its fermenting beautifully now. I actually overshot my gravity and needed to water it down a little going into the fermenter!
 
I brewed this a second time today. The first batch I brewed was excellent. I brought a keg of this and a witbier to a get-together and people chose this one much more frequently.

This time, I tried altering the grain bill somewhat. I did:

7 lbs 2-row
1.5 lbs flaked corn
1 lb flaked rice
.5 lb vienna
.5 lb victory

I also mashed a bit lower, at 147 for 75 mins.

Will let you know in 6 weeks how it compares
 
I got the best compliment on this beer about a week ago. One of my friends was over and was drinking a glass of it, and told me, "I'd actually buy this."
 
I just got my next batch of Crop Chopper on tap yesterday...now just waiting for it to carb up! I used only 2 row, more corn and less rice this time, so we will see how it changes things. I'll keep you posted.
 
This is the next batch I've brewed of the CCPAL. I made it with a little more corn and less rice this time and its a little sweeter and not as dry tasting, though the SG was at 1.010. My OG was 1.057 this time, I still like it :)

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If you lager until clear, then bottle, must you pitch yeast again? Or will there be enough residual yeast left over to work with the priming sugar?
 
I got a new neighbor back in the spring of 2015 and of course he's a Miller Lite drinker. Didn't take long to "ruin" him (his words). However, for nostalgia sake, I made this recipe back in November for him. Just tapped this afternoon.....and I'm taken aback. This is a really good copy of Miller High Life. At least my version is. Damn good lager. Thanks to the OP!!! I have dubbed the beer "Rob" in my neighbor's name. I might even let him try some. Of course, if there's any left by the time I see him. :D
 
I think I'm going to make this as my first lager. I have a few questions.

Was the full oz of hops at 60 minutes?

How much boiling water do you have to add to get up to 149?

Did you notice any difference in using only 2row and no 6row?

Thanks a lot!
 
I'm curious about the hops too. The hops are all aroma and really low AAs. I know lagers are a low IBU beer but even at 60 minutes it's coming out crazy low.
 
I'm curious about the hops too. The hops are all aroma and really low AAs. I know lagers are a low IBU beer but even at 60 minutes it's coming out crazy low.

Take it from someone who had brewed this beer a number of times. One ounce of hops is enough. You can add it at the 60 minute mark, remember it's a 90 minute boil. Or, you can add 1/2 oz. as a first wort hop, and then add the balance of the hops at the 60 minute mark. If you go the FWH route, you get one more IBU. :ban:

The purpose of the 6 row is to increase the diastatic power of your mash, since you have both corn and rice to convert. I've never made this beer with just straight 2 row. As far as I can tell, the only thing that could happen is your efficiency would drop, which would cause your ABV to drop, and that's catastrophic.

As I said earlier, I've made this beer quite a few times. These days I make it as a 10 gallon batch. When word gets around I have some, I get quite popular.
 
Planned on doing this one as per the original recipie but it quickly fell apart. Wound up with a white labs American lager yeast that was old as hell, so I did a two step starter on it. HBS was out of flaked corn so I doubled the flaked rice. Didn't have the correct hops so I went with liberty. OG came in at 1.056, so we will see how it turns out. I also did the step mash a little different. I first heated water and dumped it into my cooler mash ton in order to heat it up. Then heated up the strike water so that when I dumped and stirred the grains I would hit my 130 deg rest. Instead of doing an infusion, I just heated up the mash slowly to 149, dumped the hot water out of my cooler and dumped the mash in. Hit 149 mash temp right on the money.
 
I dont know if anyone else has had this but when i used S-23 in lower 50's have had bad peachy notes.
Read that its more of a Steam beer yeast and should be fermenter in upper 50's -60s.
 
I didn't read through all the pages. Is it possible to do this with a single infusion rather than stepping the temperatures? If so, what temp should be used?
 
Make sure you lager sufficiently. It will continue to improve with age.

I've noticed. Just in the week or so it's been in there it's gotten noticeably better. I bottled a few for this weekend and they were a hit. Probably gonna bottle about a case worth for the weekend of the 4th. I think this will be the motivation I need to upgrade to 10 gallon batches.
 
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