Feedback: Building/Planning First American Light Lager

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bonecitybrewco

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So, currently planning and building a recipe for my first american light lager recipe. I've built it using tons of research and trying to figure out how things should be done. Here is the recipe so far:

Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons
Boil Size: 7 Gallons
Efficiency: 83%
Target OG: 1.041
Target FG: 1.008
Target IBU: 8.5
Yeast: WLP840 American Lager Yeast
Color: ~2.2 SRM
ABV: ~4.3%
Boil Time: 90 minutes

Grain Bill
2 lbs 12 oz American Pale 6-Row malt
2 lbs 12 oz Flaked Rice
1 lb 12 oz American Pale 2-Row malt

Mash
Single Infusion mash for 90 minutes at 148 degrees.

Boil/Hops
2 AAU Cluster Hops FWH

Boil for 90 minutes


Looking for some feedback/thoughts/ideas from those that have brewed light american lagers or CAP's before and have some experience with where things can go wrong etc.
 
I like it. Rice is key imho. But they are quite watery and uninspired. I've made a few but there's just nothing there.

That's a lot of rice. Be careful of vorlauf problems. BIAB or ride hills are in order.

By all means do it to do it but if you're trying to appease BMC drinkers, try a blonde ale or cream ale. I get the BMC guests to drink dry, low gravity, slightly dark cream ales. They end up really liking them; smooth, flavorful, and not overbearing. Dry and modest hops is key to those people imho.

Cheers!
 
I like it. Rice is key imho. But they are quite watery and uninspired. I've made a few but there's just nothing there.

That's a lot of rice. Be careful of vorlauf problems. BIAB or ride hills are in order.

By all means do it to do it but if you're trying to appease BMC drinkers, try a blonde ale or cream ale. I get the BMC guests to drink dry, low gravity, slightly dark cream ales. They end up really liking them; smooth, flavorful, and not overbearing. Dry and modest hops is key to those people imho.

Cheers!

Thanks for the advice! Fortunately, I mash in a bag and no-sparge on a batch like this so run-off shouldn't be an issue. That's the hope anyways.

This is purely an experiment/challenge to see how well I can pull it off, and at the same time see if I can pinpoint any issues in my system as well as, to be honest, I really like one on a hot day after cutting the lawn. There are days when a cream ale works, but there are also days when there is nothing like a crisp, dry lager. If the base recipe works out, I may play with late hopping just for fun.
 
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