Correctly balancing out a lager

[Taximania]

Hi

Question relating to lager kits.

A humble newbie so please do humour me.

Brewed a number of kits now and kept the mix pretty much the same for all the different makes of brew.

What I would be very interested to know is the correct balance of malts,dextrose and hops to use to get a nice pleasant tasting and consistent result.

The only mix I never did pap around with was my Milestones Lions pride.
That surpassed my expectations but was incidentally a double tin jobbie.

My mix for all has been 500g light spray malt with 800g of brewing sugar and 25g of aroma hops added after secondary rack.

What do the boards experts and long term brewers think of this.
I would presume most of you tend to mash your own with A.G's and not utilize the kits anymore but how would you all personally approach the right balance and taste with a single malt kit tin.

If i increase malt levels to 1k and add just 500g of dextrose would I then just end up a lager over malted with a taste along the lines of an Amstel.

My personal preference of lager tastes are similar to Heineken and Becks and if anyone is familiar Steinhausser from Aldis which is a Dortmunder brew.
All these carry a very nice crisp lager taste although with a somewhat skunky smell .

Does more malt mean better or does is mean more of a lean more towards the Amstel taste

Kits used were Wilkos golden lager and Cervasa and Coopers European.
On the go are Muntons gold Pilsner which is non relevant as its a double tinnie.
Also coops Aussie lager and the Coopers pilsner.

Hops used were Hallertau Hersbrucker [FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]and[/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif] Mittelfrüh[/FONT]

If anyone can help me out with some good kit additions to help my taste preferences it would be appreciated.
Sorry for any spelling mistakes or even poor grandma as I am in the middle of a right good t'internet session with a light to medium sprinkling of ethanol :clap:

Adios;

 

[Slid]

Hi

Does more malt mean better or does is mean more of a lean more towards the Amstel taste

ethanol :clap:

Adios;

A good question. If you prefer a light tasting type beer of a lager, brewed with an ale yeast, I recommend Coopers Aus lager plus 500g DME and 1kg sugar, brewd to 25L "lawnmower beer" . Never lets you down. No doubt the Muntons kits (they make essentially all the others available in the UK) would deliver the same, perhaps to 22L. More malt than this pushes you into a definitely beerier type taste.

Hope this helps

 

[Taximania]

Thanks for your help pal.
I was pretty much under the same impression.

Will be interesting to see how the Muntons gold pilsner which is a 2 tin jobbie turns out flavour wise.
I wonder if will carry the heavier Amstel type flavour with it being double malt or will Muntons have somehow designed this kit to replicate a more clean crisp pilsner like taste even though it utilizes the extra malt.
Anyone know if the Muntons pilsner gold is ale yeast or not ?

Regards Taxi;



taste

A good question. If you prefer a light tasting type beer of a lager, brewed with an ale yeast, I recommend Coopers Aus lager plus 500g DME and 1kg sugar, brewd to 25L "lawnmower beer" . Never lets you down. No doubt the Muntons kits (they make essentially all the others available in the UK) would deliver the same, perhaps to 22L. More malt than this pushes you into a definitely beerier type taste.

Hope this helps

 

[marksa222]

I'm sorry I don't know which yeast the Muntons one uses, but if you were looking for a clean, crisp, european style lager, I believe Coopers European lager comes with a proper lager yeast. If you are able to sit your fv in a water bath with a few alternating ice packs to keep it around 12c, I think you'd probably get a much "truer lager" taste as a result.

I'm not sure I would add hops to a lager. What you're doing is dry hopping, which affects aroma. I'm not sure I remember smelling a lager before drinking it. It's all about being clean and crisp for me, especially for German lagers and this is influenced most by a good fermentation, followed by a lengthy lagering process. If you were looking for a Czech pilsner type, there's a bit more spice to the hops and they're a little more fore front, but even then, I doubt dry hopping would be done.

You clearly are giving this a lot of thought, certainly more than I gave when doing kits. Have you considered going all grain, or even extract? What you're doing at the moment is putting salt and pepper on a microwave meal. Why not make something from scratch?

 

[Taximania]

Hi Mark and thanks for your help and suggestions.
Have the European at 3 week bottling stage
and sat in fridge at 2c.
Managed to ferment out at 15c taking two weeks
Not nibbling a bottle yet as im under no illusionn at this stage it will taste like souped up cat ****.

Intersting to move on to all grain Mark but at the moment feel I need to walk before I run.
Lot to learn so for now the salt n peppered ping meals will have to suffice ; )

Smell and taste of a lager is part of the enjoyement for me.
Try cracking open say a Steihausser dortmunder from Aldi, now that does appeal to my palate.
I swill and taste n smell just like appreciating a fine wine..
Clean and crisp on its own is not enough.
Budweisser is testamant to that one.
As much as i try I cannot smell or taste anything but fizzy soda water.
Maybe when the aliens abducted me in the tractor beam they simply removed my taste buds instead of the usual anal probing.

Amstel is a nice beer but a bit too heavily malted for me.
Fosters and carlings r just lawnmower beers that does what it says on the tin at big discounted pricez

I'm sorry I don't know which yeast the Muntons one uses, but if you were looking for a clean, crisp, european style lager, I believe Coopers European lager comes with a proper lager yeast. If you are able to sit your fv in a water bath with a few alternating ice packs to keep it around 12c, I think you'd probably get a much "truer lager" taste as a result.

I'm not sure I would add hops to a lager. What you're doing is dry hopping, which affects aroma. I'm not sure I remember smelling a lager before drinking it. It's all about being clean and crisp for me, especially for German lagers and this is influenced most by a good fermentation, followed by a lengthy lagering process. If you were looking for a Czech pilsner type, there's a bit more spice to the hops and they're a little more fore front, but even then, I doubt dry hopping would be done.

You clearly are giving this a lot of thought, certainly more than I gave when doing kits. Have you considered going all grain, or even extract? What you're doing at the moment is putting salt and pepper on a microwave meal. Why not make something from scratch?

 

[marksa222]

Yes I understand what you mean. My point being Steinhausser will not be dry hopped. I'm not sure dry hopping a kit beer will get you closer to that style, although the correct yeast, a cold fermentation temperature and cold storage period probably would.

AG is really not that hard. I only did 3 kits before going to brew in a bag and I don't think I'd have benefited from doing more kits before I took the plunge, in fact I think i've learnt a great deal more from getting hands on with it.

When it comes to lagers, my personal favourites are Bavarian and Bohemian pils styles. I regularly go to Munich, and if you haven't been, you need to. There's something special about a refreshing stein of Paulaner from the local market at lunchtime on a weekday that just can't be matched by a bottle from a supermarket.

 

[Taximania]

Amazing place mate.
Been twice now for the footie and was at Oktoberfest few years back.
Enjoy most German lager styles including Dortmunder being a fairly light pilsner but not overly hopped to the aroma.

Presumably you can follow certain recipes from advanced brewers on here that will follow a set or particular style then ?

Is it fair to say with the kit forms that the manipulation has already been accomplished by the factory and all we can do is use the addition of aroma hops or vary malt and sugar contents or underbrew to slightly vary the end results.

I will certainly look in AG when I have time Mark but again would like to spend a least a few months reading digesting and having a play and tamper with the kits.

I guess yeast type plays a crucial role in the direction a lager is finished.
Clever part then is knowing which yeast to use for the type of beer your aiming for.


Just a quick one for you.
When I was in school back in the day I worked on a coat hanger in metal work for 2 years solid.
I planished it I hammered it I filed it I welded it with full face mask and placed it under obscene temperature changes.
At the end of my sebatical you still could not hang a coat up on it but I was awarded a c+ for outstanding courage in the face of adversity.

My point being I am not a practical person at heart and used to bawl my paps off as a kid when I received a mechano or airfix or lego set for crimbo.
Why the parents paid money for unadulterated tat and then expected me to try and re-build it all back together in the sick twisted name of pleasure was beyond my comprehension.

Soooooo Takes a deep breath ....

How do I get my hands on a brew fridge that will hold the fv.
I cant build one as I have already just explained above so who stocks them ready to go out of the box.
My storage is fine as I have two larder fridges for lagering the bottles and useful storage of my king kegs for the upcoming ales.
Any websites available as I can only find info for the diy builder

All the best
Taxi;

 

[marksa222]

You can get a temp controller from homebrewbuilder.co.uk for £77.50. You would just need to mount a tube heater (£15 from toolstation for a 60w one) in the bottom of the fridge. Then just plug the heater into the heat outlet of the controller and the fridge itself into the cool.

Admittedly I have been rather intimidated by some of the engineering that posts on here show as I too am usesless at building things, but even I wired my own temp controller and instead of £77.50, it was about £20. Before that project, I had never even wired a plug.

Yes you could look at kits as a canvass for you to tweak certain things and make it your own, but different styles lend themselves to tweaking in certain ways imo. For example, an american ipa would be great to dry hop, but with lager I wouldn't dry hop, but would ferment differently. At the end of the day though, it's your beer, if you like it then its a success.

If you want to learn more before going ag, i'd recommend podcasts as a good resource. In particular basic brewing radio and beersmith ones.