Hoppy Amber Lager. Recommendations?

Hi all,

I'm planning on brewing a hoppy amber lager as one of my summer beers as I now have a reliable fermentation chamber with temperature control. :rockin:

This'll be the first lager I ever brew, so I'm not really sure about the good/bad yeasts. Any recommendations for this? At the moment I'm probably going to go with Wyeast munich lager, but I'd be interested to hear some opinions/feedback. Is it any good?

Any good dry yeasts for lagers as well?

Cheers!

If you want a hoppy lager, you may want a more attenuative yeast. 940 is super clean and very tolerant of mistakes, its a great first lager yeast. 34/70 is probably the easiest of the dry strains, its also available in liquid from everyone(2124/830) It can be slow to fall clear. 802 is also pretty fool proof, and pretty clean for a czech yeast.

If you want a munich style strain, 833, the ayinger yeast is also an easy yeast to use, and tolerant of mistakes. the 308 (2308/838) and the 206 strains (2206/820) can be slow fermenters and slow to clean up, and throw diacetyl/acetyladehyde if not treated right. When they work, they are great yeasts, but id have your process down before using them.

Thanks for the advice!

Unfortunately, it's pretty tough to find 940 in Germany unless I wanna settle for higher shipping costs.

How're 2001 and 2278? They're available as well from my site as well. Otherwise I think I might just go with Saflager 34/70.

dttk0009 said:

Thanks for the advice!

Unfortunately, it's pretty tough to find 940 in Germany unless I wanna settle for higher shipping costs.

How're 2001 and 2278? They're available as well from my site as well. Otherwise I think I might just go with Saflager 34/70.

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You could ask a local brewery (one that makes beer you like) and ask them for some lager yeast slurry. Some will, some won't give you some. I've had some success with WLP 833 in a Pils, Helles, Viennas and Dunkel lagers.

Drinking a Pils now made with Saflager 34/70.



It's readily available everywhere I would guess. It's one of the most widely used yeast strains for lagers.

If your new to lager making, experiment with various yeasts to see what you like and have fun.

If it's your first lager, keep it nice and simple and use a couple packs of 34/70. I made my first two successful lagers back in December and January, and I got great results.

Thanks guys, I'll go with the Safale.

That lager looks great, by the way!

Quick follow-up question:

After a bit of reading I found that lagers need a bit more yeast than ale (as also recommended in this thread). With this in mind I'm also a bit worried about overpitching. Would two rehydrated packets of Safale 34/70 do the trick or would that be overkill for a 20L batch (roughly 5 gallons).

Definitely use two packs, rehydrated.

Cheers!

Just wanted to follow-up to say that this beer turned out pretty damn great. Didn't hit the OG that I aimed for and it's not as clear as I hoped, but it tastes and looks great.



Thanks again for the advice.

Would you mind sharing your recipe? Looks great.

Sure thing! It's not really all that hoppy to be honest, but here's what I went with:

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Floor-Malted Bohemian (Weyermann) (3.5 EBC) Grain 1 44.4 %
Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (8.0 EBC) Grain 2 33.3 %
Caramunich I (Weyermann) (100.5 EBC) Grain 3 11.1 %
Melanoidin (Weyermann) (59.1 EBC) Grain 4 11.1 %
Zeus [16.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 14.7 IBUs
SuperMoss HB (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 6 -
Saaz [3.75 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 1.8 IBUs
Saaz [3.75 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 2.0 IBUs
2.0 pkg Saflager Lager (DCL/Fermentis #W-34/70) [50.28 ml] Yeast 9 -

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I used brulosophys lager fermentation schedule and it worked really nicely:
http://brulosophy.com/methods/lager-method/