Lager taste questions

I just put my Lager into the secondary. I was a bit worried a few days into primary fermentation as I smelled an "eggy" odor coming from the bucket. I was VERY happy to pop the top today and smell BEER!

I transferred it to the secondary bucket today and it went great. I just have a few questions.

1. Its a lager and it was still the dark brown like the wort, looked kind of like bass ale. Is this normal at this stage?

2. I tasted a sample and it smelled like beer and alcohol (as it should?). The only odd thing I noticed was a drying sensation on my tongue. I think maybe it is the hops, but am pretty new to the taste test thing

3. The layer of trub on the bottom looked almost like scrambled eggs. I that a normal appearance for the bottom fermenting yeast?

Thanks for any help! Two weeks in the secondary then bottle. Cant WAIT!

Not sure but I'm sure it'll be fine.

What temp are you fermenting at. I'd say a lager needs more than 2 week in secondary.

It'll be beer no mater what you do and can only get better.

1. Lagers can be dark. I have a Schwarzbier in the tank. The color won't change at this point. If this was an extract batch, try a late add or use the lightest pilsner extract you can find.

2. Give it time.

3. Yeasts vary, type to type, batch to batch. "Scrambled eggs" is nominal. I've seen that with lager and ale years.

Beer can look much darker in a carboy than in a glass... that is probably part of what you are seeing - although there is nothing specific to lagers that require them to be "light"...

Pugilist said:

Thanks for any help! Two weeks in the secondary then bottle. Cant WAIT!

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A lager beer by definition has to be lager(ed). That means putting it in cold storage (~32ish degrees) for a month or two.

You said earlier in your post that it's now in a bucket? Not really a good idea if there's any head space, you'll run the risk of oxydation and infection.

Tell us more about how you made this beer, sounds like it might really be an ale in disguise.

Mikey, I brewed it up as normal. The guy at my HBS told me its really of a mix of a pilsner and a lager when complete. I used a 5 gallon recipe with pale malt, 1.5 oz of Hallertauer for the 60min boil, 1.5oz of tettnanger, and teaspoon of irish moss for the last 15. Chilled it, put it in the fermenter and pitched the yeast.

The yeast had me concerned, as it is S-23 Saflager and I did the primary in a range of 64-70F. It seemed fine when I popped the lid and transferred today. You think it being in a secondary plastic bucket with have too much headspace? There is an airlock on it, so I thought that prevented anything bad?

I used a fermenting bucket as a secondary for my porter because I don't want to deal with a glass carboy and the LHBS I patronize didn't have any better bottles. I also am working in a VERY limited space (a corner of our small kitchen) and not only do I have to worry about space to keep my fermenting brew, I have to store my equipment in a small space. Buckets nest nicely and in the space of one carboy, I can store several buckets.

There was a lot of head space in the secondary. However, I DID have a wee bit of fermentation happen; the airlock "burped" occasionally for several days after racking. Part of this no doubtedly was from CO2 being disturbed from the beer, but I figured there was enough to create a layer on top of the beer.

I just bottled a few days ago so we'll see how it goes, but at bottling the beer didn't have any off flavors that I could detect; just a bit sweet, a bit bitter and a bit chocolatey. Unless oxidation flavors take time to develop, I think I'm OK.

Next time I use a plastic bucket as a fermenter, I'm going to use a 5 gal. to reduce the headspace.

Pugilist said:

Mikey, I brewed it up as normal. The guy at my HBS told me its really of a mix of a pilsner and a lager when complete. I used a 5 gallon recipe with pale malt, 1.5 oz of Hallertauer for the 60min boil, 1.5oz of tettnanger, and teaspoon of irish moss for the last 15. Chilled it, put it in the fermenter and pitched the yeast.

The yeast had me concerned, as it is S-23 Saflager and I did the primary in a range of 64-70F. It seemed fine when I popped the lid and transferred today. You think it being in a secondary plastic bucket with have too much headspace? There is an airlock on it, so I thought that prevented anything bad?

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Sounds like a nice recipe for a decent lager, but the fermentation part has gone off the rails. Lager should be fermented at around 50 degrees, much higher and they start to aquire a fruity/sweet taste. After the fermentation phase, the beer needs to go in a carboy with very little headspace. The beer is kept at near freezing temps for a few months to lager it. The word Lager is German for 'storage'- that's where we get the word 'locker' in English.

At this point, if you have no way of lagering your beer, plan on bottling it in a few weeks. Rename it a 'cream ale', that's the closest style to what you actually made.

Thanks for the tips mikey. I like cream ale, so if thats what it tastes like I will be thrilled. I stopped into the LBS today and the brewmaster said he uses S-23 all the way up to 70F with very little impact on flavor. So I am hoping he is right.

Since it has been in the secondary I have been doing my best to cold lager it. A wet towel and ice packs around it have kept it closer to 62-64 range, so hopefully it will settle it out nicely.

Most of your flavors are determined by your fermenting tempertures especially at the begining of fermentation. Brewing a lager using a lager yeast and brewing higher than that recommended by the yeast manufacturer will give fruity flavors not wanted in a lager.