TheUKCrazyhorse
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Hi all - hoping someone might be able to help/offer some advice here?
I've been brewing my own lager recipe for a while now, originally on a ~100L kit, but now using equipment that has a 300L capacity (although I've been brewing a fair bit below that), without any issues. The last two batches I've made (around 250L-270L) have gone a bit ...funny though. Not bad exactly - I mean they seem fairly drinkable - just not lager...
The recipe I'm using is as follows:
~50kg Crisp Pilsner Malt
~10kg Crisp Maris Otter
Then Saaz hop additions of 380g at 60, 30, 15 and 5 minutes.
My usual brew day consists of an hour mash at around 65C, recirculating the wort for the full 60 minutes. I'll then sparge and transfer my wort into the kettle and boil for an hour. I have a (bad?) habit of overshooting my SG by a fair whack these days, so I usually top up the kettle at the end of the boil to bring the gravity down towards my target and also to help cool the wort. I then pump the wort through a plate heat exchanger into a washed and sanitised FV. The plate exchanger isn't the greatest for cooling the wort, so I usually get it as close as I can and then leave the liquor overnight to come down to ambient temps (which over the last couple of weeks has been about 10c, ideal for lager... or so I thought...)
I usually syphon off around a gallon of wort into a glass demijohn and add my W34/70 to it and give it a good shake. This then goes into a warm (20c) cupboard overnight. I'll then pop in the next morning, when a good head of krausen has appeared in the demijohn and tip it into the main FV.
Up until the last couple of batches of lager, this method has worked great. What I've noticed on these last two times though, is that I've ended up with a really hazy, fruity beer at the end - almost looks like an NEIPA. As I said above, it isn't bad - its citrusy, fruity, juicy even - but it isn't lager. After this happened the first time, I siphoned two gallons of wort off and added those the day after brewing - same outcome.
The beer has been sitting in the FV for around 2 and a half weeks so far. After around a week, the gravity had dropped from 1.045 to around 1.030. I left it a few more days and it came down a little more (to about 1.028) - at this point I fired up some heaters and was able to bring the temp up to 20c. After another few days, the gravity dropped to 1.010, slightly above my expected FG 1.008. So far, there's no sign of the beer clearing up at all and I don't think lagering it will help either - to be honest, even if it did clear up, it doesn't taste at all like a lager so I don't see the flavour clearing anyway.
My question then is: has this happened to anyone else? Or does anyone have any idea what has caused this? My initial suspicion is underpitching of yeast, but I'm not sure. Just the fact that the beer seems to have changed so much during fermentation has thrown me a bit. I do a lot of brewing - mainly ales, which are a lot more forgiving than the lager - but I'm stumped here.
Thanks in advance and apologies for the reams of text above.
I've been brewing my own lager recipe for a while now, originally on a ~100L kit, but now using equipment that has a 300L capacity (although I've been brewing a fair bit below that), without any issues. The last two batches I've made (around 250L-270L) have gone a bit ...funny though. Not bad exactly - I mean they seem fairly drinkable - just not lager...
The recipe I'm using is as follows:
~50kg Crisp Pilsner Malt
~10kg Crisp Maris Otter
Then Saaz hop additions of 380g at 60, 30, 15 and 5 minutes.
My usual brew day consists of an hour mash at around 65C, recirculating the wort for the full 60 minutes. I'll then sparge and transfer my wort into the kettle and boil for an hour. I have a (bad?) habit of overshooting my SG by a fair whack these days, so I usually top up the kettle at the end of the boil to bring the gravity down towards my target and also to help cool the wort. I then pump the wort through a plate heat exchanger into a washed and sanitised FV. The plate exchanger isn't the greatest for cooling the wort, so I usually get it as close as I can and then leave the liquor overnight to come down to ambient temps (which over the last couple of weeks has been about 10c, ideal for lager... or so I thought...)
I usually syphon off around a gallon of wort into a glass demijohn and add my W34/70 to it and give it a good shake. This then goes into a warm (20c) cupboard overnight. I'll then pop in the next morning, when a good head of krausen has appeared in the demijohn and tip it into the main FV.
Up until the last couple of batches of lager, this method has worked great. What I've noticed on these last two times though, is that I've ended up with a really hazy, fruity beer at the end - almost looks like an NEIPA. As I said above, it isn't bad - its citrusy, fruity, juicy even - but it isn't lager. After this happened the first time, I siphoned two gallons of wort off and added those the day after brewing - same outcome.
The beer has been sitting in the FV for around 2 and a half weeks so far. After around a week, the gravity had dropped from 1.045 to around 1.030. I left it a few more days and it came down a little more (to about 1.028) - at this point I fired up some heaters and was able to bring the temp up to 20c. After another few days, the gravity dropped to 1.010, slightly above my expected FG 1.008. So far, there's no sign of the beer clearing up at all and I don't think lagering it will help either - to be honest, even if it did clear up, it doesn't taste at all like a lager so I don't see the flavour clearing anyway.
My question then is: has this happened to anyone else? Or does anyone have any idea what has caused this? My initial suspicion is underpitching of yeast, but I'm not sure. Just the fact that the beer seems to have changed so much during fermentation has thrown me a bit. I do a lot of brewing - mainly ales, which are a lot more forgiving than the lager - but I'm stumped here.
Thanks in advance and apologies for the reams of text above.