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!
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