Brewing Lager Book

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Brewing Lager Beer by Greg Noonan looks good. I haven't read it, but Noonan is a heavy-weight and the publisher is also the publisher of the brewing elements series, the John Palmer book and the Ray Daniels book, so I would imagine that it is decent.
 
I've never brewed a proper lager as I dont have a brew fridge (so I do my best makiing pseudo lagers and lager style ales) but as far as I can tell lager brewing isnt particularly hard. Mostly all it takes is a brew fridge and lots of patience.

This online guide is as good as any I've seen for a 'traditional' method to lagering https://www.jaysbrewing.com/2012/04/10/easiest-guide-on-how-to-lager-homebrew/ and there's the brulosophy quick lagering method which some people argue isnt lagering at all (so you pays your money and makes your choice) http://brulosophy.com/methods/lager-method/


For recipes, You could do worse than Greg Hughes' Home Brew Beer which has at least one lager and ale recipe of most if not all of the major lager and ale styles.

As for history, I'm not sure which book you could go for but if you google a lager style and look for the BYO.Com hit, the link usually as a breif but good intro to the history of that particular style
 
On the subject of lager...it seems that lager is all about the lengthy process of lagering the brew to achieve the required flavour,crispness etc. Do the mass producers actually do this?
 
About Greg Noonan's book "New Brewing Lager": he describes the complete process from growing and malting barley, up to pouring the beer and drinking it. It is a nice technical book, with lots of details, readable for the casual (home) brewer, but it is not a hands on book.

For brewing lager, if you live in an appartment, you will need a fridge. However, if you live in a separate house, there will always be a place where it is colder, and maybe unheated. E.g. one of my toilets is located near the entry of my house, and is also located at the north side. In autumn and winter it is about 10° C, which is nice for brewing with lager yeast. Since it is a small room, which can be closed, no big temperature changes can occur.
 
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The book came today and it is just what I needed. I never knew about Hochkurz mash profile before, a very interesting book indeed.
 
On the subject of lager...it seems that lager is all about the lengthy process of lagering the brew to achieve the required flavour,crispness etc. Do the mass producers actually do this?

You could check out fermenting under pressure , where some folk have success brewing a lager quickly at a higher temperature by keeping the wort under pressure using the co2 produced by the yeast. Easy to set up by the home brewer, though some say that they have success brewing ales using the same method, ale yeast is an entirely different kettle of fish to lager yeast. Makes some interesting reading if nothing else.
 
On the subject of lager...it seems that lager is all about the lengthy process of lagering the brew to achieve the required flavour,crispness etc. Do the mass producers actually do this?

No of course not. They have technology to help them. Lagering does certain things like like dropping the yeast out, modern commercial breweries do this with filters. Basically what lagering does is remove a lot of of by products/unwanted flavours created by the yeast.

https://byo.com/stout/item/870-how-do-commercial-breweries-lager-so-quickly

"After lagering, most lager brewers want a reduction in diacetyl (butter flavor), acetaldehyde (apple flavor), and sulfur-based aromas (rotten egg); full carbonation; and an improvement in clarity. Most brewers consider diacetyl reduction to be the key goal of lagering. Once these objectives are met the beer is sent to filtration and is packaged."

http://beergraphs.com/bg/212-why-budweister-probably-doesnt-take-30-days-to-bre/

"Provided the brewer has delivered the desirable flavour and has encouraged the yeast in fermenter to eliminate the generally agreed no-no's (notably vicinal diketones, acetaldehyde and hydrogen sulphide) then there seems little point in leaving the beer hanging around. There is unarguable evidence now that this severely jeopardises foam. Having said which, there are those who maintain that prolonged storage is important not only for the slow purging of undesirable volatiles and adsorption on yeast of unwanted non-volatiles but also for the release of amino acids, peptides, nucleotides and organic and inorganic phosphates, accompanied by an increase in pH. They say it causes an increase in palate fullness and mouthfeel. The evidence is sparse. Why keep prolonged storage, then? For marketing purposes of course."

Also have a look at my post 19 here

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=74279&page=2

This all gives hope those who like me dont have a lager fridge as it means you can use work arounds to to make a half decent pseudo lager
 

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