Brewing my first lager...

[z_brewer]

Hello all,

I am thinking about brewing my first lager this weekend and am looking for any advice you might have. This will be my fifth batch and second AG. My plan is to let the lager sit in the garage through the winter and bottle in late February. Any advice will be helpful, especially regarding lager yeast. Thanks.

 

[Yooper]

Hello all,

I am thinking about brewing my first lager this weekend and am looking for any advice you might have. This will be my fifth batch and second AG. My plan is to let the lager sit in the garage through the winter and bottle in late February. Any advice will be helpful, especially regarding lager yeast. Thanks.

Hmmm. The two best pieces of advice I could offer are to make a HUGE starter, and then put it in the fridge for a few days and decant the spent wort. You need about twice as much yeast for a healthy lager fermentation than an ale fermentation, so if you're going to brew this weekend it might be too late to get a good starter made and decanted by then. Or you could buy 4-5 packages of yeast, and call it good.

The other thing that may help is that the best lager comes from chilling the wort to just under fermentation temperatures, and adding yeast just out of the fridge to that. Then allow that to rise to fermentation temperature (50 degrees). I like to chill my wort to 47-48 degrees, and add 45 degree yeast to it- then allow that to warm up to 50 degrees. It really makes the yeast work well, as yeast seem to love being warmed but hate being chilled.

Steady temperatures are crucial. A fermentation temperature of 48-50 degrees is the usual temperature for most lager strains.

 

[TopherM]

Do you have means of temp control? You definitely want to be able to control the temp during the initial fermentation around 48-50, like Yooper said.

As far as lagering in the garage, if the temp stays relatively consistent, like within 3-5 degrees or so, that works. If it is going to fluccuate any more than that, or if it is going to get below 30ish, it isn't going to work. A nice crisp lagering is dependent on cold, but above freezing, consistent temps.

Don't let me discourage you, you can still make a decent lager, but if you want a great lager, I think you are going to need to control the temp a little more than the garage may provide.

 

[SpeedYellow]

^^--- What Yooper said. Follow those tips, aerate well, don't use too many non-base malts (keep base malts 95%+ of the grist) and you're golden!

Oh, and remember this will ferment out in 7-10 days. So find a way to control the temps then. 48F-53F is where you want. Outside that range you can expect issues. The temps after the 7-10 days isn't as important.

Also, you probably don't want it sitting in primary for 3 months. So bottle it early or rack to a clearing vessel.

 

[z_brewer]

This is so great information, thank you. Based on the weather I may have to wait a few weeks. The weather is still fluctuating to much in south eastern Michigan to safely brew a lager. I don't have a good temp system yet so I was going to try and figure out an area in the garage that is just under fifty?

For base malts, any reason to use 6-row over 2-row?

 

[mlyday]

Putting the fermenter in a tub if water will help level out the temperature swings, but in the inital fementation you really want a better way to control temps.