How to brew a Pilsner correctly

[SniffTheGlove]

Hello,

1st post and also a completely new to homebrewing.

I am currently only wanting to home brew Pilsner/Lagers at the moment.

I went with the Coopers Aussie Lager Starting Kit (All the gear plus bottles etc) to start with so I could get a basic brew setup. The brew has been in the fermenter now for 7 days and is currently at 1.018 (Started at 1.037) and will be bottled in the next few days when the gravity levels off.

Anyway, I have managed to procure an under the counter fridge and a under the counter freezer for free and would like to know how to use these to brew a decent Pilsner as I have read many posts about using a fridge to ferment in but I do not know what the correct procedure is when one uses a fridge to do a Pilsner brew. Can someone point to a decent online guide about how to use a fridge in the Pilsner brewing or explain in some detail at the beginners level on what to do and then also recommend a Pilsner Kit to use in the fridge method.

I shall be doing all my brewing in my garage which has just been built so this is where the fridge and freezer are now located under the worktop.

Thanks

Sean

[wbosher]

Hi Sean,
From complete noob to complete noob, I've only just done my 2nd kit.

If your buying the kit, chances are the yeast included is an Ale yeast, not a proper lager yeast. So no need to worry too much about keeping it really cold. If you want to go down that road, you'll need to change the yeast...someone here can explain that to you better than me.

If you've never done a brew before, probably best to stay with whats in the kit for now to keep it simple until you've got a couple of brews under you belt. Temperature control is one less thing to worry about. You still need to ensure it is in the 18c to mid 20c mark but that's relatively easy.

Good luck.

[Monkeybrew]

Hi

First the easy bit, the Coopers Pilsener is a very nice kit and also comes with a proper lager yeast.

To use a fridge or freezer for brewing, you have to modify it slightly.

Have a search in the brewing equipment section of the forum for 'Brewfridge' and there is plenty of good information.

My brewfridge is my best bit of equipment by far

MB

[fego]

...and don't be put off making one. I'm an absolute numpty with things like this but after buying a tube heater and a temperature control unit, I wired them together with no hassle whatsoever. The whole thing took about 30 minutes max, 20 of those probably doing the man thing of not bothering to read the instructions. NOTE: you definitely need to read and follow the instructions.

I think the biggest problem people have is knowing where to drill holes for the heater and probe cables, but mine was obvious and dead easy. And as someone else said, the best bit of kit you can have and makes a huge difference to the quality of your beers, or at least the predictability.

[cellone]

Welcome mate. As said above you need to brew between 10 and 16C so a fridge and temperature controller are a good way of achieving this. Most lager kits AREN'T, they come close but not quite close enough for me.

[Wolfy]

The way to brew a Pilsner correctly is outlined in this article here: http://brewingtechniques.com/library/ba ... quell.html
It's an interesting read even if its not really what you were asking.

If you are new to brewing, and want to make some decent beer, I'd suggest you try to keep the fermenting beer cool (15-20C) and then proceed with the directions provided in the kit, and disregard most of what I say below.
While I have done my best to answer the actual question you asked, I suspect that it's much more detail, work and effort than you actually want to know or do - however, good luck to you if you want to actually make your Pilsner as 'correctly' as possible (I have one in the fridge now that has just started the lagering process, and I followed the steps outlined below).

If you want to ferment your lager 'correctly', you'll need to be able to control the temperature inside your fermenting fridge, this can 'best' be done with an external controller such as an STC-1000 (search the forums for articles and guides on how to setup one - using it is very simple). Being able to control your fermentation temperatures is one of the major steps that help produce constant beer of good quality.

After that you'll need 'correct' yeast, most kits actually contain ale yeast or a combination of ale and lager yeast. Purchasing and using new fresh yeast that has been stored well, is also another major factor in producing quality beer. Visit a dedicated home-brew shop (or shop online) that has good turn-over and treats their yeast well (keeps it in the fridge), you can buy yeast in dry (sachet) form or as liquid yeast, dry yeast is much easier to use, but there are more strains of liquid yeast available. A good quality and popular dry lager yeast should work well.

To ferment a lager 'correctly' it needs to be done at cool temperatures (about 8-12degC), so after you have made the wort, put it in the temperature controlled fridge and chill it to that temperature. However, because you will be pitching at low-temperature, you'll need more yeast, likely 2 packets or more. If you are able to pitch a large amount of yeast, then it's not a bad idea to do so at a few degrees lower than what you will ferment at, and then let the fermenting beer gradually warm to the temperature you have set.

Hold the beer at that temperature while it ferments (by using the external fridge controller) - likely it will take about 2-3 weeks to ferment - again because it's fermenting at cool temperatures it's going to take longer. Once fermentation is almost complete (almost at your final gravity) you might like to consider a diacytl rest and warm the beer up to about 18degC for a few days.

Once the beer has reached it's final gravity you then need to lager (cold store) the beer for a period of time. Set the fridge to about 0 to 4degC and leave the beer lager for 2-4 weeks (or longer).

Finally, once the beer has finished lagering, bottle as normal, then leave a few more weeks to bottle condition/carbonate ... and enjoy!

[Mucknbullets]

Sniff, get yourself an STC1000 from Ebay (mine was £15ish), figure out where sensor drill hole needs to be, fit heater if you think it might be required (I have stuck an old brewmat on its side so even if garage gets too chilly in winter, which I doubt, then temps will be constant) connect up and go for it.
I had issues with the STC wiring because I thought it switched live to neutral but it doesn't so look at wiring diagram in this post for some top notch guidance. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52976

Also patience is a virtue in this game. I brewed some lagers back before Xmas and they are only just coming right (to me) about now. Ok these weren't brewed in fridge but that is a long time to wait for beer.

Wolfy, thanks for that great and short guide. I had always wondered how you went about doing the diacytl rest. Also didn't think to then crash cool it after wards.

[SniffTheGlove]

Great, thanks for the Welcome and the great advice.

There are loads of STC-100 on the bay so I'll not chance the Hong Kong variants but get a GB sourced one and a pay a few pounds more but should get it much quicker.

My initial brew is still in the FV but I did a check with the gravity and it is at 1.016 last night, I also tried a taste and was quite pleased with the difference from 2 days ago, then it was like the last half of a pint of Heineken (I do not like Heineken by the way. Feels weak and watery to me at least).

Read many things about the STC-100 and brewfridges and I have just measured up the fridge and it can not fit the Coopers FV in as the inbuilt top-freezer box gets in the way so I might need a different fermenter or I could use 5litre water bottle fermenters which will fit and can get 6 into the fridge. Would this be practical? (ie mix everything up in the big fermenter and then after pitching the yeast pour 4lites of the wort into the 5litre fermenters)

Worst case I could use the under counter freezer as this has removable shelves but I was going to use the freezer as an additional food freezer. Hmmmm! I just thought that I could use the Freezer to ferment with and then use the fridge to store the bottles in and only storing surplus food in the freezer when there is no fermenting happening. I just don't know how quick I'll be at drinking 23ltes of beer as alcohol does not mix well with the meds I have to keep taking, though my Son will most likely do his bit and drink alot more than me.

[Wolfy]

Wolfy, thanks for that great and short guide. I had always wondered how you went about doing the diacytl rest. Also didn't think to then crash cool it after wards.

In theory if you pitch a decent amount of healthy/active yeast at a low initial temperature a diacytl rest is not needed, it depends on how 'well' the ferment went.

I think many traditional lager breweries gradually lower the temperature (by about 1degC per day) so that much of the yeast continues to be active as the temperature drops. However, they often also add fresh wort late in the fermentation process (Kräusening) and then transfer to pressure-vessels to carbonate the beer (when the purity laws did not allow CO2/sugar to be added) and they don't often use a d-rest.
In addition, quickly dropping the temperature of the just-fermented-beer does stress the yeast and they can throw some off-flavours.

However, if the yeast has finished fermenting, been given some time to 'clean up' after it'self - especially via a d-rest - there is little need to need to keep the yeast active (and drop the temperature slowly) and if the temperature is dropped to 4degC or below the yeast will essentially be pushed into dormancy stress-related-off-flavours should be minimal (as per information in the 'Yeast' book). Besides dropping the temperature slowly adds another week-or so, to what is already a long and tedious brewing process.

Read many things about the STC-100 and brewfridges and I have just measured up the fridge and it can not fit the Coopers FV in as the inbuilt top-freezer box gets in the way so I might need a different fermenter or I could use 5litre water bottle fermenters which will fit and can get 6 into the fridge. Would this be practical? (ie mix everything up in the big fermenter and then after pitching the yeast pour 4lites of the wort into the 5litre fermenters)

I know you're only new to home brewing, but the best solution would be to use another fridge or another fermentor (I use rectangular plastic jerry-cans because I can fit them much more easily in m fridge).
In terms of yeast activity and related factors, it's generally 'better' to try to do things like fermenting and conditioning and lagering in the large volume that a fermentor allows.
You could split the wort into smaller containers, and it may or may not make a noticeable difference, it's just not the ideal solution.

[SniffTheGlove]

Oppps, Sorry. I posted that my freezer had removable shelves which though is correct however upon removing the shelves there is pipework that is exposed that the shelves sit on so I can not use the freezer.

So options is if I want to brew Pilsner with proper yeast I will either need to source another larger more open inside freezer or try using the 5litre plastic bottles as the FV. Not Ideal I know but this is what I have.

[Wolfy]

And we all make do with what we have.

[Rookie]

Hello,

1st post and also a completely new to homebrewing.

I am currently only wanting to home brew Pilsner/Lagers at the moment.

I went with the Coopers Aussie Lager Starting Kit (All the gear plus bottles etc) to start with so I could get a basic brew setup. The brew has been in the fermenter now for 7 days and is currently at 1.018 (Started at 1.037) and will be bottled in the next few days when the gravity levels off.

Anyway, I have managed to procure an under the counter fridge and a under the counter freezer for free and would like to know how to use these to brew a decent Pilsner as I have read many posts about using a fridge to ferment in but I do not know what the correct procedure is when one uses a fridge to do a Pilsner brew. Can someone point to a decent online guide about how to use a fridge in the Pilsner brewing or explain in some detail at the beginners level on what to do and then also recommend a Pilsner Kit to use in the fridge method.

I shall be doing all my brewing in my garage which has just been built so this is where the fridge and freezer are now located under the worktop.

Thanks

Sean

Set the fridge at it's warmest setting and check the temperature after a day or so. You may be in the range of some lager yeasts that work well down to 8 or 9 and can avoid the cost of an outside controller.

[SniffTheGlove]

A little update.

Having started the ferment on my Pilsner a week ago nothing has really happened with very slow ferment. The temp on the strip was 16Deg.

So I ordered an STC-1000 plus a 60w tube heater on Thursday and they arrived today. I stripped all the shelves out of the fridge, bent the freezer box into a flat sheet that now hangs vertically down the inside wall of the fridge. This now gives me an extra 9 inches of extra head space and the FV will now fit in height wise. The width was quite tight as the fridge controller and door light was now blocking so I repositioned the fridge thermostat and light in the bottom of the fridge next to the tube heater. Position both the STC-1000 Thermo sensor onto the FV and the fridges own temp sensor now also reposition.

Wired up the STC-1000 and turned it on and is now happily keep the temps at 18deg. Wohoo!!

Thanks for that advice. Will see how the FV is doing tomorrow.

[cellone]

Hi, good work with the fridge. I normally brew the pilsener at 12c with good results.