Found a few recipes, not sure what to make of them

9.5 pounds 2-row pale ale malt (Maris Otter is fine)
1.5 pounds Crystal malt 60L
1.25 pounds Munich malt
White Labs WLP830 German lager yeast
1 ounce Nugget hops (boil 60 minutes)
0.75 ounce Crystal hops (boil 45 minutes)
1.5 teaspoons Irish moss
1.25 ounces Crystal hops (steep 10 minutes)

This is for 6 gallons. Mash at 130 for half an hour, with about 4.5 gallons of water. Then crank it to 150 and hold it for an hour. Mash out at 168. I don't remember where those first two steps came from. I think I stole them from another recipe.

You're going to boil it for a total of 60 minutes. Start with 1 ounce of Nugget hops. Half an hour later, add a half ounce of the Crystal hops. Ten minutes before the end of the boil, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of Irish moss. After the boil, steep 1.25 ounces of Crystal.

Ferment for one month at 50°F, and secondary for one week at 50°F. Now, that's if you want to be safe. In truth, this stuff may finish primary fermentation in a week.

You may want to do a diacetyl rest between the primary and secondary. That means you raise the temperature of the primary to 56°F for a day or two, so the yeast will eat whatever buttery-tasting diacetyl they've produced. But it's my understanding that the yeast I used isn't likely to produce a diacetyl flavor at 50°F. I had no problems with it. You may want to play it safe.

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• I'm not familiar with lagers, but will this work?
• What might this wind up tasting like?

I'll give you another recipe. You'll love me for this one, because you can brew it in your living room, at 75°F. Supposedly there is a chance you'll get heavier alcohols at that temperature, and they cause hangovers. I haven't had a problem with that, but then I don't drink ten beers at a sitting, either. You can always drop down to 68°F. The great thing about brewing at room temperature is that it's easy for guys whose wives refuse to let them buy fermenting fridges.

As before, I'll give you the amounts for 6 gallons; that gives you some extra beer you can afford to lose if you screw something up.


9.0 pounds Maris Otter or other 2-row ale malt
1.0 pounds 10L Crystal malt
1.25 ounces Columbus hops, first-wort or at beginning of 60-minute boil
1.0 ounce Crystal hops, 15 minutes before end of boil
1.0 ounce Crystal hops, after boil (steep 10 minutes)
0.25 pounds cane sugar
White Labs WLP500 Trappist ale yeast
Irish moss


This beer is ridiculous. I wanted to make something sort of like Flying Dog Snake Dog Ale, but I ended up with something I like a lot better. It's a little heavier (shoot for 1.056-1.060 original gravity), and it's complex as hell. Slightly sweet from the Crystal, but loaded with hop bitterness and aroma. Try it. Just try it. I suggest you use oxygen and a big yeast starter and mash at 152, because this beer likes to get stuck at 1.020. Be careful, though, because the oxygen may make it ferment so fast it blows out on the floor.
The sugar is there purely to increase the alcohol content. Remove it if you want.
If you think it's too sweet, cut the Crystal malt in half next time.
I adore this beer. The Crystal malt makes the high bitterness (-60 IBU) completely painless.

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KingBrianI said:

crystal hops, not crystal malt.

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Mutilated1 said:

Crystal 60 doesn't go in a lager. And with 1oz of Nugget thats going to be way bitter.

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hexmonkey said:

Found this in a book, reproducing it here verbatim. I'm kinda curious what everyone thinks of the recipes, and the techniques this guy is suggesting:

This first one is a lager:

• I'm not familiar with lagers, but will this work?
• What might this wind up tasting like?

He says he was shooting for an amber lager and mentions something called Altenmunster.

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BigEd said:

It's a mediocre recipe at best.
...
It's obvious that this guy thinks highly of his beer but my suggestions would be to either morph this into a quality Steam beer or a real lager using the right malts and hops.

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hexmonkey said:

I wonder if maybe he's got some other variable there, like a water profile that makes it come out tasting different for him...

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