This is a recipe from a podcast http://www.kaiju.fm/by-the-mash-tun/, number 36 here
https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/episode-36-american-lager/
Ingredients cost £19 + delivery
Live Yeast!
This was my first mistake not realising there was live yeast inside:
I made a starter to make sure the yeast was still good.
I didn’t see the sticker
Mash
Dingemans Pilsen Malt (3000 grams) Crisp Flaked Maize (1500 grams)
Strike Water: 30.5 litres for a 22 litre batch size. This was a mistake (don’t know why yet)
Strike temp: 66 degrees
Mash temp: hit 65 degrees
Length: 75mins
Hoisting Brew Bag and Drain
Target Original Gravity: 1.046
Fermenting
So I got 25 litres as opposed to 23 litres I was aiming for. Added 2 litres of starter yeast I’ve now got 27 litres of beer.
After adding my starter yeast, I’ve got an OG of: 1.035
Increasing Alcohol Content provides good background, essentially:
- Add DME
- Add sugars
What to do if you miss OG has some good tip, and I added 300g of DME, and 300g of sugar.
I didn’t boil the DME - just added it. After some stirring of lumps (I will boil it next time to get rid of lumps and to dissolve the sugar) I got an OG of 1.042 which is much closer to the target of 1.046.
Went into the fermenter on Sunday 30th Jan 2022.
After a few days at around 12 degrees (max) fermentation has not started yet which is worrying.
It started after 4 days on Thursday 3rd Feb and was bubbling every 30 secs on the Friday.
Bottling
Bottle date was: Sat 26th Feb 2022.
https://www.hopsteiner.com/co2-calculator/
https://byo.com/article/master-the-action-carbonation/
I went for 2.6 CO2 volume which is 180g of sugar.
FG was 1014 after I added a bit of priming sugar, and target was 1009 (giving 4.8%), so I’ll probably get around 4%
Cleaning bottles. Thank you Gary!
The new capping machine. Surprising how hard you need to press, then it is obvious when it goes on properly.
Steel Bench Top Crown Capper bought for £28.
Drinking
I found that the beer still tasted sweet after a few weeks.
However at the beginning of April it is delicious! So about 11 weeks this has taken. 3 weeks in the fermenter, then 2 months conditioning in the bottle.
I’d rate this as my joint best beer I’ve made along with 2 hearted clone..
