The first attempt at a lager did not go as planned. We were making a Czech-style pilsner for the national Pilsner Urquell homebrew challenge. We withdrew.
I specifically remember the yeast vial saying that one was enough. It didn't mention a starter either. These are huge rookie mistakes. After a few weeks of agitating the fermenter, we decided to up the temperature a few degrees instead of re-pitching the yeast. This was a huge mistake. Increasing the temperature causes the yeast to release all sorts of fun off-flavors. The biggest being diacetyl acid, which smells like butter. Gross.
So we bottled it and hoped for the best, but we got the worst. I tried to convince Dan to pour the whole thing out. Dan always wants to think the best about our products and insisted that we try it out. Dan was ready to pour it all out after two sips.
Not only was the final product entirely too dark for a pilsner, it had a terrible aftertaste. Oh yeah, and I stuck my entire arm in the fermentation vessel. Nothing went right with this beer. It's our first disaster in brewing; much worse than the hefeweisen that didn't carbonate properly. Butter beer = bad. Really bad. Now if we could only brew a salty beer, Casey would LOVE it.
We tried brewing another pilsner about three weeks ago. We used a starter this time around, but apparently didn't pitch enough yeast again. I re-pitched a week ago and should be done fermenting in the next couple of days. I'm still hopeful!
Showing posts with label lager. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lager. Show all posts
Monday, September 5, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Lager Brewing
Tuesday marked our first brew in quite some time. It felt like an eternity between sessions, but now we're doubling up and going again tomorrow. Tuesday was different for a couple of interesting reasons. First, we used my apartment since that's where the chest freezer is living. Second, we used leaf hops instead of pellet hops. Third, we actually used an online site to get the recipe correct.
A little about our creative process. I'm not ashamed to say that we use a Clone Recipe book as a basis for all our brews. We decide what type of beer to brew, look up some recipes and choose one. Then we decide how we want to tweak it to make it our own. This might include changing one type of hops, adding some sort of other ingredient (honey, brown sugar, etc.) Up to this point, we never paid attention to IBU's, temperatures or specific gravities. I mean, we measured the original gravity and final gravity to get an ABV reading, but never tried to hit a target. The thought process was that we would get the right amount of ingredients in at the right time and, voila, beer would emerge. And emerge it did. But it could be better.
This time we fed our recipe into a recipe calculator (at www.hopville.com) and made sure to match the temperatures to get specific IBU's and ABV. Amazingly, we hit all of our targets on the first try. That isn't to say we didn't have any trouble. About 40 minutes into the boil, I realized we put the wrong amount of water into the calculator. Suddenly, our IBU went from 39 to 25. Holy Crap! Luckily we had extra hops and the website. Dan and I (Casey was out grabbing our Ledo's Pizza) fed some quick numbers into the calculator and now our lager is quadruple-hopped and is 36 IBU's. Disaster averted.
The other odd change was the whole leaf hops. I'm used to the pellet hops just disintegrating as they are poured into the wort. I don't know why I was surprised, but the leaf hops don't do that. They steep like tea. Now, instead of a clear wort, we have a pound of hops boiling in water. That's fine, but straining that out took some creativity. We scooped the hops into a strainer, then Casey used the bottom of a pot to press out the extra wort. That was not in our original plans.
In the end, I'm really excited about this lager, named Tongue. It's sitting in my freezer and fermenting at about 50 degrees. The Irish Moss we used was already clarifying the beer, so hopefully it will be a nice, clear yellow color. The competition is weighed heavily on accuracy to style and cleanliness. That's 85% of the score. Fingers crossed, this will be our first excellent beer.
A little about our creative process. I'm not ashamed to say that we use a Clone Recipe book as a basis for all our brews. We decide what type of beer to brew, look up some recipes and choose one. Then we decide how we want to tweak it to make it our own. This might include changing one type of hops, adding some sort of other ingredient (honey, brown sugar, etc.) Up to this point, we never paid attention to IBU's, temperatures or specific gravities. I mean, we measured the original gravity and final gravity to get an ABV reading, but never tried to hit a target. The thought process was that we would get the right amount of ingredients in at the right time and, voila, beer would emerge. And emerge it did. But it could be better.
This time we fed our recipe into a recipe calculator (at www.hopville.com) and made sure to match the temperatures to get specific IBU's and ABV. Amazingly, we hit all of our targets on the first try. That isn't to say we didn't have any trouble. About 40 minutes into the boil, I realized we put the wrong amount of water into the calculator. Suddenly, our IBU went from 39 to 25. Holy Crap! Luckily we had extra hops and the website. Dan and I (Casey was out grabbing our Ledo's Pizza) fed some quick numbers into the calculator and now our lager is quadruple-hopped and is 36 IBU's. Disaster averted.
The other odd change was the whole leaf hops. I'm used to the pellet hops just disintegrating as they are poured into the wort. I don't know why I was surprised, but the leaf hops don't do that. They steep like tea. Now, instead of a clear wort, we have a pound of hops boiling in water. That's fine, but straining that out took some creativity. We scooped the hops into a strainer, then Casey used the bottom of a pot to press out the extra wort. That was not in our original plans.
In the end, I'm really excited about this lager, named Tongue. It's sitting in my freezer and fermenting at about 50 degrees. The Irish Moss we used was already clarifying the beer, so hopefully it will be a nice, clear yellow color. The competition is weighed heavily on accuracy to style and cleanliness. That's 85% of the score. Fingers crossed, this will be our first excellent beer.
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