First All-Grain Lager Recipe Idea...

[jakey.goodman]

Hi There!

I have been all grain brewing ale for a little while now, and my brother fancies giving all grain lager ago, so was wondering if anyone can give some suggestions to a recipe i came up with in brewmaster. It is going to use a mixture of Belgium pilsner malt and pale ale malt, simply because I only have a 3kg bag of pilsner malt and research is suggesting there's not going to be a huge amount of difference between the two (in hindsight, I would have just gone with pale malt completely!) and the lagering is key to a good lager (no problem as I have a temp controlled fermentation fridge...). I have alsoe gone with Saaz as the main hop, as this appears to be Czech Style, and have used Perle to up the IBU's a little.

This is what I've come up with so far, I'm going for a Czech style(ish) lager:

TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 29.94 l
Post Boil Volume: 26.87 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 21.49 l
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 7.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 35.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 84.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.00 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 63.8 %
1.70 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 2 36.2 %
80.00 g Saaz [3.10 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 3 25.8 IBUs
6.00 g Perle [8.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 5.5 IBUs
20.00 g Saaz [3.10 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 5 3.7 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 4.70 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperatur Step Time
Saccharification Add 12.26 l of water at 70.6 C 64.4 C 75 min
Mash Out Heat to 75.6 C over 10 min 75.6 C 10 min


Additionaly, is the 2 stage mash process necessary? And does it matter if I achieved this by bunging a load of boiling water in to the mash to raise the temperature (making a thinner mash...)?

Cheers in advance!

[Dave S]

Hi There!

I have been all grain brewing ale for a little while now, and my brother fancies giving all grain lager ago, so was wondering if anyone can give some suggestions to a recipe i came up with in brewmaster. It is going to use a mixture of Belgium pilsner malt and pale ale malt, simply because I only have a 3kg bag of pilsner malt and research is suggesting there's not going to be a huge amount of difference between the two (in hindsight, I would have just gone with pale malt completely!) and the lagering is key to a good lager (no problem as I have a temp controlled fermentation fridge...). I have alsoe gone with Saaz as the main hop, as this appears to be Czech Style, and have used Perle to up the IBU's a little.

This is what I've come up with so far, I'm going for a Czech style(ish) lager:

TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 29.94 l
Post Boil Volume: 26.87 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 21.49 l
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 7.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 35.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 84.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.00 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 63.8 %
1.70 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 2 36.2 %
80.00 g Saaz [3.10 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 3 25.8 IBUs
6.00 g Perle [8.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 5.5 IBUs
20.00 g Saaz [3.10 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 5 3.7 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 4.70 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperatur Step Time
Saccharification Add 12.26 l of water at 70.6 C 64.4 C 75 min
Mash Out Heat to 75.6 C over 10 min 75.6 C 10 min


Additionaly, is the 2 stage mash process necessary? And does it matter if I achieved this by bunging a load of boiling water in to the mash to raise the temperature (making a thinner mash...)?

Cheers in advance!

Hi

I don't brew lager, but your recipe looks OK except the IBU count seems a little high for a lager, but maybe someone will correct me. British bitters usually aren't any higher than that.

[jakey.goodman]

Hi Dave, many thanks for the response. Another post I followed suggested Czech lager be around 35 IBU and German lagers be around 26- so was basing the recipe on that. Perhaps I'll omit the Perle hops and allow the IBU to drop a little. It's experimental anyway!

Cheers for the suggestions

[scuppeteer]

If you're after a Czech style I would say your IBU's are spot on. I would alter your hop schedule on the last additions to 5 mins, and add twice as much if you have it. You'll be fine on a standard single stage mash, its the fermentation and conditioning where the magic really works. What yeast are you using?

[jaroporter]

if you want some interesting reading, kai's site is by far the best resource i have found on this. http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... ing_Lagers
understanding what's going on and being able to make your own decisions makes it all so much easier than collating loads of differing advice from forums. also a great page on step-mashing in there too.

i agree about the late addition. just made something similar (all lager malt) with ~28 IBUs perle to bitter (didn't have a spare 100 odd G of saaz!) then the saaz at flame-out. tastes great going into lagering stage so i reckon you'll do fine with that

[Rick_UK]

I made this Czech style pilsner and its really good:

80% Lager Malt
10% Munich
10% Vienna

Bittering hop to 30IBU (I used Norther Brewer)
20g Saaz @ t-10
20g Saaz post boil steep

Yeast - Brewferm lager yeast (cheap alt to Saflager)

Only issue I had was fermentation was very slow, even for a lager - it took 5 days to get going and 4 weeks to reach FG at 13'C. If I did it again I'd pitch a 2l starter rather than just rehydrated yeast. I only lagered for 2 weeks than bottled and its really good. It did take 3 weeks to carb up due to the low yeast count after lagering.

Next time I do a lager I will use a clean ale yeast like Notty and ferment at its lower end (14 -15'C) I 've heard it works well and is easier to handle!

Rick

[jakey.goodman]

Great advice guys Cheers! I think I'll just go for it and add some more late hops as suggested. Thanks!

[darkonnis]

I used saflager in one of my mini batches and it works just fine at 20°C. I'll try n find out which one it was but it worked real well, lagered for 4 weeks then into the bottle, and it gave a very clean very clear beer with only the smallest amount of trub in the bottom of the bottles. Truthfully I think that using the RIGHT type of yeast is the key rather than temperature alone. When I get some time and more lager yeast I will brew it again and ferment at a few different temperature with different demijohns n see what, if any difference is to be had.

[jakey.goodman]

If you're after a Czech style I would say your IBU's are spot on. I would alter your hop schedule on the last additions to 5 mins, and add twice as much if you have it. You'll be fine on a standard single stage mash, its the fermentation and conditioning where the magic really works. What yeast are you using?

Sorry, had meant to say- I will be using saflager S-23, but was planning on starting it off in a demijohn full of 2l 1.040 light malt extract first. I have amended the recipe again, allowing for a stronger saaz steep and the fact that stupidly the original recipe was based on using perle as the major bittering hop and I don't have any left! I have decided to use challanger, which seems to be a similar hop. So far as follows:

TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 29.94 l
Post Boil Volume: 26.87 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 21.49 l
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
Estimated Color: 7.4 EBC
Estimated IBU: 32.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 84.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.00 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 60.0 %
2.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 2 40.0 %
65.00 g Saaz [3.10 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 3 20.5 IBUs
12.00 g Challenger [8.88 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 11.9 IBUs
35.00 g Saaz [3.10 %] - Aroma Steep 20.0 min Hop 5 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafLager West European Lager (DCL/Fermen Yeast 6 -

Let me know what you think