Time for my First Lager?

An Ankoù said:

Morning Ssashton,
I don't think you've got the bittering hops right. Saaz hops are usually around 3% alpha acid and a Czech lager is quite bitter- say 40 IBUs in which case you'll need about 150g for a 23 litre batch.
Why are you boiling for 90 minutes if the hops only go in for 60 minutes? I'd do a FWH and boil for 60 minutes plus another 10 or 15 for the protofloc and final hop addition.
Pitch you yeast at ale temperature- 18-20 C and as soon as the surface is colonised or as soon as you got activity in the airlock, let the temperature fall to 10-12C, slowly, over 12 hours. When airlock activity has nearly ceased, then do your diacetyl rest.
Good luck. Seems a good recipe.


M84 can pong a bit, so don't worry too much if you start smelling rotten eggs. The yeast will clean itself up. It's one of my favourites in spite of that.

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Thanks for the details.

What is an FWH?

You are right I might as well hop at the start. I used to do 60min boils but then switched to 90mins as I heard it is sometimes necessary to reduce diacetyl.

I'll add more hops but they come in 100g packets so that is the max for this one (I already got the bits).

Your recipe only shows 45g of hops. Have you left a line out or did I miss it?
FWH is forst wort hopping. It just means you put them in the kettle as soon as the wort starts going in there, i.e don't wait for the wort to start boiling, just bung 'em in.
I always used to do 90 minutes because I thought it reduced dimethyl sulphide. I now do 60 minutes plus either 10 or 15 minutes for the late hope addition. After some 20 or 30 brews, I haven't noticed any difference so I won't be going back to 90. I think the real reason for 90 minutes was to get the very last drop of bitterness out of the hops and therefore save a gram or two.
Diacetyl is produced by the yeast and is cleaned up by the yeast during the diacetyl rest: When you beer is fermented out, raise the temperature by about 5 degrees C for 3 days before cold crashing and bottling or kegging. There won't be any further fermentation, but the yeast is still at work cleaning up its mess.

I only included 45g of hops because I had looked at some other larger recipes and most didn't use a lot. However I have 100g available.

ssashton said:

I only included 45g of hops because I had looked at some other larger recipes and most didn't use a lot. However I have 100g available.

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How many IBUs does your recipe call for (that's the bitterness)? What's the alpha acid % of your hops? This should be marked on the label. And finally, what volume are you making, in litres?

I'm just making it up. I'll use the 100g. I'm making 20L.

ssashton said:

Why raise temps so slowly by 1C each evening? What's the advantage compared to simply going 10-16C over 12 or 24 hours?

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The way I read it is that the large mass of beer will only change temperature slowly. If you suddenly turn on a heater with a target of +6C it might stay on and heat the inside of the fridge up quite a lot while the beer slowly catches up. During that time there's a risk of exposing the wort at the edges of the fermenter to higher temperatures than the yeast would be comfortable with. I don't know how much of that is true, but I can see it happening so I go slow as the method recommends.

If you want clear lager from the fermenter is it not helpful to cold crash?

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I've tried it once or twice and it didn't make any difference for me, perhaps because the finings in the keg are so effective, perhaps because I select flocculent yeast strains. So now I just transfer straight from the valve on the fermenter into the keg. Fine, purge with CO2 and leave for as long as it takes at 6 or 7C. I guess that's a cold crash right there at the end!

foxbat said:

The way I read it is that the large mass of beer will only change temperature slowly. If you suddenly turn on a heater with a target of +6C it might stay on and heat the inside of the fridge up quite a lot while the beer slowly catches up.

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I was just thinking of moving the fermenter from the cellar or outside to my living room. It only takes about 24hours for the batch to warm up naturally. I wondered if doing it super slow over the course of a whole week had some special effect on clarification?

ssashton said:

I'm just making it up. I'll use the 100g. I'm making 20L.

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I just put together a pilsner recipe the other night, 4.5 kg of malt aiming for 1.045 starting gravity, 45g of 4.7% saaz at 60 mins was my bittering addition. I then went for a "Foxbat special" and spread the remaining 55g over the last 15 mins. Came out to 32 IBU or so which should be good as it's a bit milder than a normal Czech pils.