Lager experiment well under way

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Taximania

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Hi.

Got more brews on the go than Boddingtons at the moment and house smells like a veritable malt Paradise.

Wife loves red wine sooo ....
Jubilee Chianti merrily doing its disappearing act.
Cheeky little number,if you can make vimto you can make this.
Cracking all in one full bodied red that after 8 weeks is gliding down the tonsils at alarming magnitude :tongue:

I love the occasional ale
Wherry rocks my wherry so that will be the session ale of choice.
Simply put it does what it says on the tin.
Oh yeh and it make me smile a lot when I drink it so at only £14.00 a go for 40 pints whats there not to like eh !

And then there is the question of lager and this is where the mad experiments are taking place.
It may take me 6 months to get the answers but answers indeedy I will get.

Variety of Muntons Wilkos and Coopers on the go.
I need to know once and for all if using a lager yeast is worth the papping around over a lager/pale ale brewed with an ale yeast.

As far as I can take it is if it tastes like a lager fizzies like a lager and looks like a larger then it is for all intent and purposes a lager is it not

If it rocks your world then it rocks your world regardless of what you bunged into the FV mix.

The Wilkos are deffo suppable at the moment after 5 weeks in the bottle.
Average quality "lawnmower,esque" beers brewed with 500 light spray and 800 dextrose with additions of a teabag full of sazz hops @ 12g that quite frankly would not tickle a dead sausage back to life.
Probable needs the 33 g additions I have give to three brews of hallatau meizel-pop or something spelt like that.
Its alright for £7.50 a throw plus dextrose and dme costs though for 40 pints.

And now on to the experiments
Lager yeast or ale yeasts.

The European lager with lager yeast was brewed at an AMBIENT temperature of about 16.
This was not the actual lager temp which was probably about 17 or 18c.
These have been on the go now for about 7 weeks and in the bottle for 4 weeks.
Still a very very slight hint of sulpher but improving rapidly from 2 weeks ago when the taster dropped me to my kneecaps in desolate despair !
Another 4 weeks should see these extremely suppable.

I have learn't that ambient and actual wort temperatures are two different entities.

Sooo...
The pilsner coopers is brewing at week 2 at 13- 14c constant.
I have place the FV in a container and added ice packs 3 times daily.
This has kept the temperature of surrounding water at 13c and the actual wort 1 degree higher.
The temperature of wort and external water has never variated more than one degree.
I took a sample hydrometer check after 10 days and the wort is down to 1032
Starting hydrometer of 1044 ish
So its coming down slowly and I anticipate a ferment of about the 3 weeks mark.

Experiment will be to examine the two different lager yeasts from the European and the Pilsner behaving under different temperature conditions.
Does it indeed matter reducing the wort down to 13 or 14 or is 20c just fine and dandy.
I guess Coopers make this lager yeast extremely forgiving to appease us novice brewers .
They don't want us to make a hash of things and as a consequence not come rushing back for more eh ?

But the truth will be in the pudding so as to speak.

Is it best to use lager yeasts at low temps or the lager yeasts at room temps or just not even pap about and use the ale yeasts supplied with the majority of the kits and sleep well at night.

Got to go now as footies coming on.
God speed Holland !
 
Great post! Interesting to hear what you say about your Lager. I bottled a coopers Australian Lager 2 weeks ago and the taster I took was disgusting. Tasted chemically, possibly sulphurous. Was my first ever brew and I thought I'd ruined it. You've given me hope it might yet come good. Will try another this weekend to see if it has improved.

Looking forward to hear how it goes.
 
Ditto, great post. Thanks.

I've not yet made a lager, but it's on my 'to do' list. I'm torn between making a 'technically-a-beer-but-it-tastes-like-lager' or actually using a lager yeast to make a 'proper' lager. So I'll be keen to hear your thoughts...
 

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