Dumping another lager 😅

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Bad_JuJu_Bad

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I hope you all enjoy the emphatic thump of the keg smacking the ground as much as I do.

Second attempt at a lager- here’s what went wrong for me so you all don’t have to make the same mistake:

I took wayyyyy too long to chill the beer below 160F so isomerization of the alpha acids in the hops went on for way longer than my recipe had accounted for. This made the beer unpalatabley bitter. If that wasn’t bad enough, I also fermented in a corny keg with a full length dip tube and so when I transferred to another keg I picked up a lot of yeast and trub and transferred that as well.

Beer looked like someone threw up into it and tasted nearly as bitter as if someone actually had.

Cheers 🍻 (or not in this case)
 
I don't see the total loss... Some extra patience is virtue, time cures many beers, while bitterness can be an acquired taste, or diluted.

Cold storage ("Lagering!") for a few weeks will precipitate all trub and most yeast. Lager yeasts are powdery, and are notoriously low flocculators, so adding a little gelatin helps on their long way to the bottom.
Then carefully, and dexterously, transfer the now (mostly) clear beer to a new serving keg.

If it's deemed being still too bitter, mix with another Lager with low bitterness.

Since this is your 2nd attempt/dumper, can you post your recipe? Maybe we can spot the problem(s), reduce the bitterness and give some other pointers.

How long did it take to actually chill, and why? What chiller system/method do you use?
 
Oh....!!! (I didn't see your video until after I posted the above).
You're giving a whole new meaning to "Kicking a keg."
 
I agree it's possible more time would clear the beer and mellow the bitter flavor. Next time, just let it condition in the keg a month and see. Though the video is funny.
 
That beer had been in the keg since the 11th of October guys and it was fined with gelatin haha
 
If you're doing no-chill (which it sounds like you do), add 20 minutes to the boil time for all your hops. So if you added the hops at 30 minutes, calculate it for 50 minutes. That's what I do, and it works fine. The added IBUs work themselves out that way.
 
If you're doing no-chill (which it sounds like you do), add 20 minutes to the boil time for all your hops. So if you added the hops at 30 minutes, calculate it for 50 minutes. That's what I do, and it works fine. The added IBUs work themselves out that way.
Thanks for the tip!

I don’t typically do no-chill, but I did for this particular brew. At the time I had no idea that no-chill was an established brew method.
 
I also fermented in a corny keg with a full length dip tube and so when I transferred to another keg I picked up a lot of yeast and trub and transferred that as well.
So after you transferred to the second keg, and realized the error of not cutting off the dip tube, you could have let it settle and pull off 2-3 pints which may have cleared it? Another option would be to transfer it to another keg that had the shortened dip tube installed. I let my lagers sit for 3-4 months and by that time some of the bitterness would have faded.
 
Sorry about that, man.... that's tough. I've got one that needs to be dumped as well. It was the first brew I did on my new HERMS system and I ended up chasing temps thru-out the mash. Ended up tasting weird and is not drinkable. I may have to do a video like yours just for laughs!
 
Thanks for the tip!

I don’t typically do no-chill, but I did for this particular brew. At the time I had no idea that no-chill was an established brew method.
No-chill is awesome. It cuts my brew day in two, resulting in less time spent in front of the kettle. What I do now is simply after the boil switch off the element, place the lid on the kettle and seal the lid with painter's tape around the edge. It remains like that until tomorrow morning, when it's cooled down, and then only cooled wort (which is also cleared greatly) goes into the fermenter. It results in clearer wort in the fermenter, a way smaller yeast cake and a way cleaner yeast cake (less grain and hop debris in the yeast cake, so more viable yeast to harvest).

Try it, it's awesome :p
 
I made a lager with quite a bit of rice a while back and it came out too sweet and had quite a bit of sulfur. I almost dumped it but got lazy and left the keg in the fridge for two more months. Tasted it the other day and it is really improving. You might try that if you have another issue. Time fixes a lot of things.
 
Slight side step, apologies to OP; If one does a lager no chill, how does one deal w the DMS?

I usually take the step of dropping temp from boiling to 160F w immersion chiller before hop step. Cooling from boiling to 160, which is past the temp DMS is formed in cooling, and also hop oil isomerization. It takes a very short amount of time, maybe 5 minutes, and less than 5 gallons cooling water, at less than a gallon a minute, at least w my rig & a 10 gallon batch.

After cooling to 160F, no chill should be fine, both DMS and hop oil wise.
 
First of, I use a proper malt, and use only 2-row, not 6-row. I do a proper boil, although it's shortened to 30 minutes these days, and after the boil I just seal the kettle until tomorrow morning. I've not picked up DMS, although I'll be honest I haven't really looked for it in detail either.
 
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