A month or 2 back, not long after I joined the forum, I had a hankering to make a lime lager. A few years back I was in Florida and found myself drinking Bud Light Lime for the best part of the holiday. The stuff was lovely and went down a treat.
Now, I know that the proper beer and ale makers/drinkers among you will be turning your nose up at this so this really won't be for you guys I'm afraid. I am a lager drinker ("I drinks it all of de day"), always have been and always will be. To this extent it's actually very hard to find any amount of good lager extract recipes, because browsing through the net shows that anyone mentioning bud, stella, becks or any of the other highly successful lager/pilsner brands get quite quickly shot down in flames with comments like "pisswater" etc. Even the site/thread where I found this recipe started with "I don't know why I'm even bothering to write this recipe as it will be tasteless garbage", or words to that extent.
Not to be disheartened I asked about it on here and low and behold I wasn't shot down in flames. Quite the contrary, I got help, I got support and I had people asking for updates on its progress. So thanks for that, especially to pittsy for all the help.
Anyway, enough of the blah blah. Here is what I went with...
Ingredients:
Wyeast German Ale yeast 1056 (I ended up with a German one due to no stock)
Extra Light Dry Malt Extract (2.5kg)
Cane Sugar (200g)
Honey (0.85kg)
Cascade Hops (30g)
Gypsum (1tsp)
Irish Moss (1tsp)
Lime Zest (60g) 10 limes.
Water (23L)
Instructions:
Bring 10L of water to the boil then take off the heat.
Stir in the malt, honey, lime zest and gypsum and bring back to the boil.
Add 8g of Cascade Hops and continue boil for 30 mins.
Add another 8g of Cascade Hops and continue boil for 15 mins.
Add 1 generous tsp of Irish Moss and continue boil for 15 mins.
Take off the heat then add remaining 14g of Cascade hops.
Allow it all to steep for a couple of mins.
Strain out the hops
Pour mix into fermenter and top up with water to 23L.
When temp is around 20-22 degrees C pitch the yeast*
OG should be around 1.050
Allow to ferment for 10 days at 20 DegC, FG should be around 1.010 giving 5.2%.
Transfer to secondary for a further 10 days @ 20 DegC.
Rack with 200g priming sugar then bottle. (Option to filter while transferring).
10 days at 20 degrees in the bottle
5 days in the fridge
Sample after a month (minimum).
Some notes that I made while doing this are as follows.
-The hops are a PITA, if this is your first extract brew be sure you have a way of getting the feckers out, I had a nightmare lol. I'm prepared now though with a hop bag and a honey strainer.
-The honey will give the beer a bit of a haze that might be difficult go get rid of. If you want to avoid this allow the wort to cool in the pan and then add the honey. Once it drops down to around 80deg it should be fine to add. It's the carmalising of the honey that causes the haze.
-The lager will appear to be quite dark in colour, when it fully clears in the bottle this will subside a LOT. I think the honey caused this darker colour also, as I boiled it in the wort.
-It isn't as clear as previous brews that I have made, again I think this is down to the honey. Make no mistake it's as near as damn it, I'm just used to crystal lol.
-If like me you are using bottled water then store it in the fridge. When it comes time to dropping the temp of the wort, it's a nightmare if the water is room temp. I had mine in the bath with cold water running over it for 3 hours lol.
The pint is absolutely fantastic. It has a stunning flavour and a lovely aroma and slight hint of lime. I will most definitely be doing this one again, it's the best thing I have made in homebrew by a country mile. The only slight negative I could put on it is that it actually has a little TOO much body for a lager. Next time I make this brew I'll be dropping 1kg of DME and chucking in 1kg of brewing sugar. With that in mind, it's a very small change that I will be making... I have no idea how this will effect the outcome. At the moment it is damn near perfect IMO.
I'm dumping a couple of bottles into the fridge just now, I'll post pics later
:drunk:
Now, I know that the proper beer and ale makers/drinkers among you will be turning your nose up at this so this really won't be for you guys I'm afraid. I am a lager drinker ("I drinks it all of de day"), always have been and always will be. To this extent it's actually very hard to find any amount of good lager extract recipes, because browsing through the net shows that anyone mentioning bud, stella, becks or any of the other highly successful lager/pilsner brands get quite quickly shot down in flames with comments like "pisswater" etc. Even the site/thread where I found this recipe started with "I don't know why I'm even bothering to write this recipe as it will be tasteless garbage", or words to that extent.
Not to be disheartened I asked about it on here and low and behold I wasn't shot down in flames. Quite the contrary, I got help, I got support and I had people asking for updates on its progress. So thanks for that, especially to pittsy for all the help.
Anyway, enough of the blah blah. Here is what I went with...
Ingredients:
Wyeast German Ale yeast 1056 (I ended up with a German one due to no stock)
Extra Light Dry Malt Extract (2.5kg)
Cane Sugar (200g)
Honey (0.85kg)
Cascade Hops (30g)
Gypsum (1tsp)
Irish Moss (1tsp)
Lime Zest (60g) 10 limes.
Water (23L)
Instructions:
Bring 10L of water to the boil then take off the heat.
Stir in the malt, honey, lime zest and gypsum and bring back to the boil.
Add 8g of Cascade Hops and continue boil for 30 mins.
Add another 8g of Cascade Hops and continue boil for 15 mins.
Add 1 generous tsp of Irish Moss and continue boil for 15 mins.
Take off the heat then add remaining 14g of Cascade hops.
Allow it all to steep for a couple of mins.
Strain out the hops
Pour mix into fermenter and top up with water to 23L.
When temp is around 20-22 degrees C pitch the yeast*
OG should be around 1.050
Allow to ferment for 10 days at 20 DegC, FG should be around 1.010 giving 5.2%.
Transfer to secondary for a further 10 days @ 20 DegC.
Rack with 200g priming sugar then bottle. (Option to filter while transferring).
10 days at 20 degrees in the bottle
5 days in the fridge
Sample after a month (minimum).
Some notes that I made while doing this are as follows.
-The hops are a PITA, if this is your first extract brew be sure you have a way of getting the feckers out, I had a nightmare lol. I'm prepared now though with a hop bag and a honey strainer.
-The honey will give the beer a bit of a haze that might be difficult go get rid of. If you want to avoid this allow the wort to cool in the pan and then add the honey. Once it drops down to around 80deg it should be fine to add. It's the carmalising of the honey that causes the haze.
-The lager will appear to be quite dark in colour, when it fully clears in the bottle this will subside a LOT. I think the honey caused this darker colour also, as I boiled it in the wort.
-It isn't as clear as previous brews that I have made, again I think this is down to the honey. Make no mistake it's as near as damn it, I'm just used to crystal lol.
-If like me you are using bottled water then store it in the fridge. When it comes time to dropping the temp of the wort, it's a nightmare if the water is room temp. I had mine in the bath with cold water running over it for 3 hours lol.
The pint is absolutely fantastic. It has a stunning flavour and a lovely aroma and slight hint of lime. I will most definitely be doing this one again, it's the best thing I have made in homebrew by a country mile. The only slight negative I could put on it is that it actually has a little TOO much body for a lager. Next time I make this brew I'll be dropping 1kg of DME and chucking in 1kg of brewing sugar. With that in mind, it's a very small change that I will be making... I have no idea how this will effect the outcome. At the moment it is damn near perfect IMO.
I'm dumping a couple of bottles into the fridge just now, I'll post pics later
:drunk:
