Recipe for Sol clone? Stupid Newby Question.

[sternsheet]

She who must be placated with regard to kitchen use, brewery smelling house, and general misuse of kitchen, has dropped very heavy hints that Sol, or some kind of Mexican lager, would be most acceptable, because she loves it with little slices of lime in the bottle.

Now this presents a problem to a newby like me. I guess I can just about manage an English Ale, but where can I find a recipe for a Sol clone? And how do I go about brewing what is after all a lager, rather than a beer? Can anyone talk (write) me through the process, or point me to a recipe for a Mexican lager clone? Should I ask the guy who runs Barley Bottom for a set of ingredients and some instructions?

Oh, and what do I store it in (for conditioning etc) once I've made it? I;ve just been given three stainless steel kegs, but they look huge in relation to my Burco Boiler and Cool Box mash tun......

[mysterio]

I would pick up a Coopers Mexican Cerveza kit and make that up as per the instructions, bottle in clear bottles and leave out on the patio for a sunny day to get light-struck.

If you want to do it all-grain (i'm not sure why you would for Sol but hey), I would do something in the region of 75% lager malt, 20% flaked corn and 5% table sugar, hop with anything at 60 minutes to get about 12 IBUs. Sol has a fair bit of DMS aroma if I remember so 60 minute boil should be enough.

Ferment with any lager yeast & post fermentation.

Let me know if you want more detailed instructions for an all-grain Mexican lager - I would be tempted to go with the Coopers kit though, i've heard good reports on here.

[maxashton]

You're going to have a hard time replicating any of the cervesas really without a fridge to do the lagering and cold fermentation in.

[mysterio]

I highly doubt the likes of Corona & Sol are lagered... hell they're probably fermented under pressure and warmer than a German type lager.

[Whorst]

A Sol clone would be easy. Use 60/40 ratio of malt to rice. You'll need to use 6 row barley. Hop with about 10-15 IBU's. Ferment with Safale-05 at 60F.

[sternsheet]

A Sol clone would be easy. Use 60/40 ratio of malt to rice. You'll need to use 6 row barley. Hop with about 10-15 IBU's. Ferment with Safale-05 at 60F.

Please sir, what is a 6 row barley and where will I get some?

[steve_flack]

You don't see it over here - at least not in homebrew shops. All the stuff we get is 2-row barley. 6-row barley is higher protein and has more enzymes so is better at dealing with lots of adjuncts. It has a rougher flavour though.

[sternsheet]

How do I mash using rice? Do I just put the grains in with the mash? Shold I crush the rice, what kind of rice? Plenty of the stuff in Tesco!

[steve_flack]

You need to boil rice first until it's mushy (preferably do a separate cereal mash as this actually will make it easier to boil the rice without it scorching but you may need to crush the rice first?)...or use flaked rice straight in the normal mash.

You may find you're a bit short on enzymes to do a 60/40 mash but you can do 80/20 easy enough with British lager malt. Maybe someone else would like to chip in on the feasibility of doing a mash with 40% rice with 2-row?