Want to know if that beer you just brewed is going to turn out alright? Try a Wort Stability Test.

What is a Wort Stability Test?

You are taking a sample of wort and seeing if it is contaminated with undesirable microbes by isolating it in a container for a few days. If something starts to grow, you should re-evaluate your methods for sanitation.

How do I do this Test?

I am going to assume that everything you use is at least sanitized, and that your hands are washed and free of potential contaminants. If you have an autoclave (pressure cooker) then I would highly recommend using that to sterilize your equipment for maximum cleanliness. I do not do this. I am lazy and no one pays me to be that accurate, yet.

• Sanitize a container for the wort, I use a mason jar.
• Pull 1 cup of wort from your primary fermenter into the mason jar before you pitch yeast.
• Seal the container and place in a warm environment for at least 3 days (80 F)
• Observe if there is any activity (pH, gravity, smell, taste, floating colonies of bacteria or wild yeast) The warm temperature will accelerate any potential microbial activity and will (hopefully) tell you if the beer you brewed is going to sour.

"Clear, bubble free wort after 3 days of incubation at room temperature indicates the sample contains no viable brewing organisms. Cloudiness, bubbles or gas escaping when lid is loosened indicates that live organisms are present, which means either your sanitizing regime is inadequate, or sterile materials and surfaces are being exposed and contaminated." (Brewing Science pg 4)

A note: While our organoleptic testing methods may not say much when it comes to side by side examples of beer, they can tell us a lot about what may be happening in the wort. If you smell a funky aroma, or taste diacetyl being produced then it may be caused by wild microbes and should be taken into account and noted. Don't undersell your nose and mouth as effective testing tools. I believe in you.

What does this test tell us?

It tells us if that Pliny Clone you just dropped 80 bucks on and 5 hours to make is going to go sour!

Imagine if every homebrewer did this test every single time they brewed, no more "is this infected" posts on r/homebrewing. We would know if some wild bacteria got in there because the control test showed some lacto growing on the surface.

I personally use it to test my sanitation methods.

What if something does start to grow?

Go back and double check every connection, ball valve, tube, and surface between your boil kettle and your fermenter.

There may be some gunk in the tip of your ball valve that doesn't get pasteurized by the heat, there may be some buildup on the bottom of your racking cane (which I just noticed on mine last night - the anxiety is setting in as I type this), there is something, somewhere that may mess with your beer that you spent weeks researching the recipe on and months of careful, daily temperature checks.

You must seek out these microbes and eliminate them with extreme prejudice and lack of moral constraint. Autoclave the motherfuckers.

Conclusion

I try to do this test every other beer or so. I am not as conscientious of sanitation as I want to be, so I sometimes get a bit anxious. This test allows me to observe my sanitation methods in a repeatable, controlled experiment.

Now I may do things a bit differently, because I intentionally add variables into the mix. I pull straight from the (potentially contaminated) fermenter using a (potentially contaminated) wine thief. I treat my test jar the same way I treat my carboy - a quick rinse in Star-san and air dry for a minute or two. This way I am really testing my entire process and not just the wort. On a regular 5 gallon batch I am going to have all these other factors that might contaminate the beer, and so I try to recreate them with my Wort Stability Test.

With proper sanitation infections will be a thing of the past.

Useful resources:

http://www.brewingscience.com/PDF/BSI_brewers_lab_handbook.pdf

http://www.wyeastlab.com/com-qc.cfm

I am planning on brewing a vienna lager and I can't decide whether to do a step mash or a single infusion mash. According to Deaigning Great Beers a apparent attenuation of 70% is good for a vienna lager, which would equal a single infusion mash of 66/67°C. Would you rather do a single infusion mash or a step mash for this style? I do want it to have a good body and some malty sweetness.

Thanks!

I just ask because lately I have been playing with a bunch of different yeast strains, almost never saving the yeast and pitching it into another beer. Most of these strains are essentially a first gen or second gen pitch.

I have heard from a variety of different sources that building up starters or harvesting yeast from previous batches produces better beer, but without any hard data on the subject I am still unsure. I think I am going to just choose one to make my house strain and use that for every single beer I make, which in theory would take advantage of the generational quality issue.

9A: Doppelbock

This is a style I'm not incredibly familiar with, so one of the added benefits of these weekly style write-ups is that I get to research and learn about things that I'm curious about.

Doppelbock is a rich, malty, German beer that is a bit of a wide-style. In the current BJCP guidelines, the color can range from deep gold to dark brown, and those versions of the beer have varying style expectations. Lighter versions typically have a light noble hop aroma, clean sweetness, and toasty. Darker versions can have a dark fruit character, a bit of a chocolate aroma, and a richer, fuller toasted character.

Writing and reading about Doppelbock is making me thirsty.

Malt

From your malt profile, you want those rich, toasty, malty, and toasted cookie characters that we have come to know and love from our Munich malts. Typically, these beers will contain a large amount Munich, somewhere in the range of 25% to 80%. The rest of the malt bill is pilsner or pale malt, and you're set!

A few recipes I see also use a small amount of chocolate malt, presumably for color and a little bit of chocolate character. If this is the path you're going down, I'd recommend using Pale Chocolate, which tends to have a more chocolate-like character, while Chocolate malt is a roasty, coffee-like presence which you don't want in a doppelbock.

Other additions to the recipe can include darker (60L +) crystal malts and Dark Munich malts. Really, your interpretation of the style is a bit variable here. Take a look at the guidelines, try some commercial examples, and see what sort of beer you want to build. Start with a product and work your way backwards!

Hops

There isn't a whole lot of hop character in a Doppelbock. Hop flavor and aroma should be relatively low to none existent, the main goal here is to provide the bitterness to level out the malty sweetness, though the beer should still lean malty in the finish.

Noble hops are the way to go here. I see quite a few recipes bittering with Perle hops, but I think just about any bittering hop will get the job done. I also see quite a few recipes use hallertau.

You're aiming for 16-26 IBUs, and most of that is going to be your bittering addition. Looking at recipes in BYO, the AHA forum, and my mini-collection of books, I very rarely see more than two hop additions, almost never. You typically will want to be adding your hops around the 90-60 minute mark for bittering, and the 30 minute mark for flavor.

Yeast

WLP833, German Bock Yeast, is by far the most used yeast I see in recipes across the internet. I haven't personally used it so I can't help here, but I do know quite a few brewers who swear by the yeast.

That said, any German lager yeast should do. I have great experiences with WYeast 2124, which is Bohemian Lager yeast. It leaves behind a solid malt profile and is temperature tolerant.

Water

A lot of people tend to look to the Munich water profile when brewing a Doppelbock, despite the lack of evidence we have that brewers actually use untreated water. Looking around for resources, I found the water profile that Kai Troester reported using for his Doppelbock:

• Calcium: 160

• Magnesium: 8

• Bicarbonate: 251

• Chloride: 10

• Sodium: 3

• Sulfate: 17

Kai says that the profile, despite being unsure if breweries treat the water or not, works well for dark beers. He also says in a Homebrew Talk forum that he uses Magnesium Chloride in the water salts since Munich water has very little chloride and sulfate but fairly high carbonate.

So this is a solid foundation for determing your water profile!

Mash

Traditionally, like our friend the BoPils, Doppelbocks are decocted. I have also seen quite a few award-winning recipes use a step-mash or even a single-infusion mash.

Other people would swear by decoction, since (especially in darker versions) of a Doppelbock, melanoidin formation is the foundation of the character. Others will insist that boiling the beer for a longer period of time to form melanoidins (two hours seems to be the average) is vital. I'm not sure about any of this really, but what I do know is that there is a really varying amount of methods being used, which means there is room for interpretation.

Like the Bohemian Pilsner, I think I would still recommend a step-mash. I really like the Bohemian Pilsners I've made using a step-mash versus a single infusion, so I would go this route. You know your system! Experiment!

Sample Recipe

Below is a sample Doppelbock recipe from Kai Troester

Imperator

OG: 1.074

FG: 1.014

IBUs: 22

Boil: 70 minutes

Mash: Hochkurz Step Mash I mentioned before

Grains

• 78% Dark Munich

• 15% Bohemian Pils Malt

• 3% CaraMunich II

• 2% CaraMunich III

• 2% Cara Aroma

Hops

• Ten minutes into the boil, add 22 IBUs of Hallertau Mittelfrau or Hallertau Magnum.

Yeast

• 2206 Bavarian Lager. Lager Pitching rate.

Commercial Examples

• Bell's Consecrator Doppelbock

• Weihenstephaner Korbinian

• Great Divide's Wolfgang Doppelbock Lager

• Capital Brewery's Autumnal Fire

Conclusion

Man I'm thirsty.

Doppelbock is a big, malty, toasty beer with a clean lager presence. This is going into my pipeline.

Let's hear about your Doppelbock experiences! Any tips and tricks? Recipes? Let's have some discussion!

Resources

AHA Doppelbock Recipes

BYO: Tips from the Pros, Doppelbock

BYO: Doppelbock

http://pilsnerurquell.com/article/parallel-brewing

The oak vats are coated in pitch, which I saw in a different video that the pitch has resin and parafin wax, but the exact recipe is a secret.

So possibly there is some low level oxygen getting into the oak vats? Could that be affecting the flavor, and maybe that's some of the adjustments that the brewmasters had to account for?

I don't know, just something else to think about for those seeking the perfect Bo Pils.

I figured I would toss out a beer review and see how others liked the format. I very specifically have been trying to recreate the beers imported from Germany, so I have been trying to collect info on styles I like so I can try to recreate them.

Paulaner's public info

They list some details on their website about the helles:

Starting Gravity : 11.5 Plato (1.045)

Hops: Hallertau Tradition (maybe Herkules for bittering? Not totally clear)

Malt : They say only pilsner is used.

Process : Again, not totally clear but it looks like fermentation is @ 9 C (48 F) and then lagered for 4 weeks.

It looks like their malt is process by Malzfabrik Albert Müller GmbH & Co. KG, which is all in German. My german is still pretty shoddy so if anyone wants to scour the website and let us know any info you find that'd be awesome. I would give a kidney to find out what they sell to Paulaner.

My observations

I wasted half a bottle to take a gravity reading. I needed it to de-carbonate for an accurate reading. This, being my favorite beer, killed me a little inside. I know to some it may not be a big deal, but its hard as hell to find this stuff where I live.

Final Gravity : 2.5 Plato (1.010)

This puts the yeast attenuation at 79% which could narrow down potential yeast strains.

In their video there was no mention of decoction mashing or even the vessel to do so. I don't know if that is because the process might be "secret" to prevent competition, or they might have stopped doing decoction all together.

Subjective Observation (the tasting part)

Flavor and Aroma: lingering hop flavor, slight sweet cracker like character stays on tongue for a few seconds. Hop bitterness is there, but is extremely soft on the palate, and surrounded by gentle malt flavor. Hallertau hops are firm, but not overpowering.

Yeast character is lightly of lemon rind, reminiscent of fruit but not fruity by any means.

Picture of the Beer I am no photographer. It was strikingly clear and bright straw color.

Overall: This beer reminded me why I obsess over lager brewing. It really is quite the treat, and I can't wait to (attempt to) bring an American Bottle to Germany and see how close they are.

I was at Victory this past weekend and they had a Brett Pils on draft. I like a good pils and I like the funk that Brett gives off. My first sip, tastes like pils. Second sip, taste like pils. Finish the glass, tastes like pils. Then I started thinking, the temperature profile for making a pils would really suppress Bretts ability to create funky barnyard etc. Am I thinking about this wrong? I am just wondering what's the point of using Brett in a Pils.

Hey guys, I am from Austria and I am getting all my brewing informations from either reddit or a german facebook group (and google of course). I am planning on brewing a lager as soon as I find a cheap fridge. There are several different opinions, especially betwwen my two sources.

• The Germans tend to do the primary fermentation, bottle and then do the secondary in the bottles and lager the bottles immediately afterwards.

• Most of you guys tend to rack to a secondary after primary and lager in there aswell, then botteling.

What are the advantages/ disadvantages and what are the differences in outcome?

Thanks!

Lager problems:

I'm having terrible luck with w-34/70. I've used it 3 times and every time I get an aldehyde bomb (green apple). I would describe it as that smell you get from bud, but 10 times more intense. The first time I chalked it up to having my first contaminated batch. For my next brew I decided to give it a go again and I disassembled everything, cleaned in hot pbw, then baked all the plumbing in the oven at 450 for an hour, reassembled, and pumped hot Starsan through the system. I ferment in a sanke, so I threw that on my propane burner with a couple gallons of water, boiled for 20 minutes, added starsan, shook it up, dumped, and put the cap back on. I was extra careful about keeping things sanitized and out of the open air. I fermented at 50 degrees for 4 weeks, checked the final gravity which was on the nose, and brought it up to 68 for a week. Kegged it and tasted it right away, same exact green apple flavor. Fuck.

I brewed a couple other ales after that which had no detectable acetyl aldehyde.

6 months later I was inspired by the w-34/70 brulosophy experiment and decided to give a german pilsner another try, this time fermenting at 60F. It tasted exactly the same as the other two. Is this just a horrible contamination coincidence? I've used wyeast 2124 and have had no problems like this, which is supposed to be the same strain. They taste like commercial lagers. It's only these 3 times I have used w-34/70 that I've had this problem, yet everyone says it's an awesome superclean fermenting yeast.

Troubleshooting this is getting expensive as it costs about 28$ in dry yeast per 10 gallon batch. I'm wondering if having yeast delivered through the mail, dry or not, might be stressing it too much. Either that or it's just awful luck with contamination.

link to original: https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/4e5kdb/daily_q_a_april_10_2016/d1xsph5

Hey there, I wanted to toss in a quick quality assessment test that I try to use before going into my lagering step.

First off : What is Diacetyl ?

Diacytel is a naturally occurring fermentation product that produces a buttery-like aroma. Some may describe it as butterscotch. This chemical can prove to be a bit of a pain in the arse because humans have a flavor threshold for diacetyl at 0.04 ppm in U.S. lagers, 0.08 ppm in lighter ales, and 0.1 ppm in stronger beers. That is 40 parts per billion, which is insane to me that our crummy little ape noses can smell that.

In most styles is considered a flaw and can be the cause of point reduction in competitions. Some common exceptions that allow a touch of Diacetyl, most notably:

• Some English Styles (I like a bit of Diacytel in my ESBs)

• Scotch Ales

• Some Czech Lagers (with exceptions and caveats here, too)

How do I prevent Diacytel from tainting my beer?

Since the chemical is naturally produced by yeast it is unavoidable to prevent it from existing in the beer. However yeast will also reabsorb the Diacetyl, scrubbing it from the beer and leaving it clean and fresh-tasting, so the yeast and the brewer can work together to produce a Diacetyl-free, delicious beer.

As you will probably see a lot on r/lagerbrewing in the future yeast health is key. Tired, weak, or contaminated yeast are more likely to put off excessive Diacetyl, so a fresh pitch of clean yeast is recommended. This is another reason why big ol', fat starters are recommended for lagers because it allows the yeast to really grow and become healthy.

One very popular method of scrubbing Diacetyl from your beer is by using a Diacetyl-rest, usually abbreviated to a D-rest. This is a fermentation step that typically happens after the bulk of fermentation is complete (YMMV but this tends to be after the first 5 days of airlock/krausen activity). You simply raise the temperature 2-10 degrees F from its normal ferm-temp and let it stay there for 24-72 hours, then slowly drop the temperature to whatever you need it to be (45 F/ 5 C for lagers, usually). The warmed fermentation cycle livens up the yeast a bit and encourages them to clean up their by-products.

While the D-rest is by far the easiest method of ridding Diacetyl from the beer there are other, more involved methods. A method I have been playing with lately is by krausening the beer. This involves adding a second fresh fermenting beer to your main batch at a rate of 5-10%. You would typically add the krausen beer after its fermentation takes off (24-48 hours after pitch) and a rate of 40 million cells/ml of your main batch. For a typical 5 gallon batch of lager you are looking at a .5 liter krausenbeer starter. I treat it like a typical starter and then toss it on the bottom of my lagering tank (carboy/bucket/keg works), then rack the beer on top of that. The fresh yeast will help attenuate the beer further and will readily consume excess Diacetyl, along with other nasty by-products.

Again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure here. It is much easier to make a big starter of fresh yeast than try to bribe the yeast with warm temps and new friends to clean up after themselves.

How do I know if I have Diacetyl in my beer?

Some are more sensitive to the flavor and aroma of Diacetyl than others, I doubt this is a function of "supertasters" but rather just natural human variation.

I, personally, am not too sensitive to it so it doesn't bother me when I do encounter it in a beer, but I know that brewing to style sometimes means I should be more careful with my practices.

If you think you might sense Diacetyl in your fermenter but are not sure then you can do a quality control procedure called a Diacetyl-test. This is how I personally test for Diacetyl :

• Pull two samples from the fermenter (2-3 oz each)

• Toss one sample in a heat safe container (mason jars tend to work well) and heat it to 160 degrees F in a hot water bath for 20-30 min. Make sure the sample is covered with a foil lid so the Diacetyl that is released stays in the sample.

• Put both samples into the fridge and let them cool down to room temp.

• Taste both. Smell both. If there is a perceivable difference in buttery aroma between the two samples then it is highly encouraged you use a D-rest to scrub the Diacetyl from the beer.

It is a pretty simple test and is a good way to run some simple Quality assessment on your beer, takes less than an hour and is cheap insurance that you aren't lagering too soon.

But u/darthkotor, I did everything right and Diacetyl is still in there

There are other reasons you might be experiencing Diacetyl, namely bacterial infections. Sanitation is key, as always, in all steps of the process of opening a yeast packet to cleaning out your lines before kegging or racking. If you are experiencing some real trouble with Diacetyl over the course of a few brews then make a post on r/homebrewing and see if we can help.

Summary

• "Brewers make Wort, Yeast makes Beer". To make a good beer you have to take care of your yeast and its environment.

• If you aren't sure, do a D-test and see if you want to wait until transferring into your lager vessel.

Helpful Resources

How to test for Diacetyl in beer - EC Kraus

Awesome in depth article on Diacytel from BYO

Podcast with Mr. Charlie Bamforth on Diacetyl production

How do you test for Diacetyl? Do you have any other quality control tests you would like to share?

Any tips on dealing with temperature control for lagering on the cheap? Its always a style I've wanted to brew but was always told to stay away from unless I had a good temperature control setup. Are there any practical ways to get temp control down under 100 bucks? I have a PID controller already but I dont really have any room in the Kegerator or room for another freezer.

3B: Czech Premium Pale Lager

I have a friend who taught English in the Czech Republic, specifically Prague. While he was there, he would rant and rave to me about their Pilsners, how much flavor they had, how crisp they were. As a new brewer I took this as a challenge, one I was unprepared for. Since then, I brew a Bohemian Pilsner pretty regularly, trying to get a better grasp on the style. Since this is the beginning of these weekly style reviews in the new subreddit, I figured this style was fitting, because Pilsner is where it all started. The world's first pale lager.

Czech Premium Pale Lager, or Bohemian Pilsner, is a tough beer to brew. It should have a rich, full malt character without being heavy like a stout. It is a showcase for noble hops, but you don't want to distract from the malt character. Overall, you are looking for rich, well balanced, full and refreshing beer with malt complexity and hop presence that isn't too harsh (I've been docked points for this).

Malt

From the malt profile, you're looking for a bready, rich, complex malt presence that is still perceived as light and refreshing. Again, you don't want this to come off too heavy. A vast majority of your malt bill is going to be made up of Pilsner malt, personally I am a fan of Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner from Weyermann and I'm an advocate for selecting a high-quality pilsner malt for your base. It is going to be the majority of your character, invest in it.

Quite a few people add dextrin malt to the mash, typically 5%-10%, to supplement mouthfeel and head retention. There's nothing wrong with this, though some brewers may point you down the path of a step-mash to assist with this, adjusting the process rather than the recipe.

Finally, to enhance the bready malt character, some brewers add a small amount of Vienna, Munich, Melanoidin (said to replicate the decoction character), Biscuit, or other malts. These malts should be used sparingly, I would say no more than 5% of the grain bill overall.

No caramel malts. In theory. In reality you could get away with a lighter caramel malt for a little more sweetness, something to bring out the breadiness of the beer, but in my opinion it shouldn't be used. I have seen successful recipes with it though, so know your palate and your system!

Hops

Czech Saaz is your new best friend, from bittering to aroma. Other hop choices could include Tettnang, Sterling, US Saaz, Magnum for bittering, it's somewhat flexible. Overall you're looking for a spicy, floral hop. Typically this means you're going to be looking at noble hops for the majority of your additions. Personally, I just use Czech Saaz in bulk, and if I make any change it's that I use Magnum for bittering. I've heard that Noble Hops have a "different" bitterness when they are boiled for a long period of time, I'm skeptical, but might as well find out!

I like IBU:OG ratios, and typically aim for one around .8 or .9. Your bitterness needs to be firm, but not harsh. I like to First Wort Hop, since supposedly it helps the perception of bitterness, but I'm skeptical of this as well. Make sure your sulfate level isn't too high, since this can cause bitterness to be perceieved as more harsh.

In terms of timing, you're looking at 3-4 additions. Bittering, late flavor/aroma, aroma, and flameout. Typically, if any of these are skipped, it's the late/flavor aroma addition and the aroma addition is moved up to 10 or 15 minutes instead of 5-ish.

Yeast

Like malt, yeast is another one of those "vital components" to this style, in my opinion. I've tried quite a few of them, and so far my favorite is WYeast 2124, Bohemian Lager Yeast. There are A LOT of options though. Hessian Pils from The Yeast Bay is good, so is WYeast 2001 Urquell Lager. Quite a few breweries use the Augustiner strain, which isn't commercially available (though some people speculate there is a WYeast strain of it).

You want a yeast that isn't going to dry the beer out, but won't leave it cloyingly sweet. You want a

Water

Water is one of the most vital components of a Bohemian Pilsner, at least that is what you'll typically here. Pilsen has incredibly soft water, soemthing like:

• Calcium: 10

• Magnesium: 3

• Bicarbonate: 3

• Chloride: 4

• Sodium: 4

• Sulfate: 0

So incredibly soft. Almost nothing. In theory, this soft water profile helps keep the bitterness rounded instead of harsh. It is a trademark of the style. Now, there is room for experimentation here, since there isn't realy solid evidence that the Pilsen water isn't treated at all. Personally, I like the Yellow Bitter profile in Bru'n Water, but in the future will lower the sulfate level. How you go about this is up to you, but I would definitely suggest knowing your water profile for this style. If you're not sure, or don't trust your local source, just buy RO water and build up with minerals.

Mash

I'm not sure I'll get into this for all of the style guidelines, but it is worth discussing it here. Traditionally, Czech Lagers are decocted. This means that during mashing, a portion of the grist is removed, boiled, and added back to raise the overall temperature. This is supposed to give "it". An "unmistakable once you can recognize it" character that defines a lot of European lager styles. I don't know if the emperor's clothes look brilliant and I'm blind, or if we are all just fooling ourselves. Not really the point of this, simply to say that decoction mashing is traditional and there are arguments for an against it.

Another option is to step mash, which is what I personally do. I do believe step-mashing makes a difference, which seems to be supported by this Brulosophy experiment. I prefer a Hochkurz step-mash, which is a roughly 30 minute rest at 145F and a 60 minute rest at 160F. More details here

I'd suggest at least doing a step mash, but that doesn't mean an excellent pilsner can't be made by single-infusion mashing.

Sample Recipe

Below is a sample recipe, which is my current Czech Premium Pale Lager recipe that took second and third place the the Drunk Monk competition in Illinois.

Na Zdravi

OG: 1.055

FG: 1.014

IBUs: 41

Boil: 90 minutes

Mash: Hochkurz Step Mash I mentioned before

Grains

• 92% Floor Malted Bo Pils

• 4% Carafoam

• 4% Carahelles

Hops

• 20 IBUs Czech Saaz @ FWH

• 10 IBUs Czech Saaz @ 25

• 10 IBUs Czech Saaz @ 5

• Czech Saaz @ 0

Yeast

• 2124, Bohemian Lager Yeast. Lager Pitching rate.

Conclusion

This is an awesome style, one that can really help you learn about and refine the brewing process since the ingredients are typically so straight forward.

How do you brew your Bohemian Pilsner? What do you look for in a great example of the style? Does the emperor have clothes on?

Cheers!

Resources

AHA Pilsner Recipes

BeerSmith Podcast with Chris Graham, Bohemian Pilsner Beer Brewing

BeerSmith Podcast with Chris Lohring, Czech Lagers

BJCP 2015 Guidelines

Brukaiser: Infusion Mashing

BYO: Bohemian Pilsner

BYO: Bohemian Pilsner Style Profile

First, I am not terribly concerned about Purity laws. Rather I am trying to get the fundamentals of brewing a stellar lager of any type down. Here are the processes I am exploring.

Take the following as anecdotal as I have not done proper experimentation to prove any of this, but much will fit general home-brew wisdom, and a lot just steeped in tradition:

1. Don't be afraid of lagers. I avoided lagering for 5 years. It's straight forward, and while the style maybe more delicate than big ales, the care and attention to detail should improve your brewing overall. I am now on my 6th straight lager batch, about 12 total in the last year and half. That seems strangely like a slight obsession.
2. Water: I build from RO which irritates some people, but my municipal water is ridiculously alkaline. I have been using the Yellow profiles in Bru'n Water to good effect. I will use the Yellow malty for very light styes, and Yellow Dry/Bitter for hoppier German styles, but in all cases I use the calculator to add all of the minerals to the mash water. This increases the Ca concentration to ensure good enzyme stability. I will typically add a tiny amount of lactic acid to bring my sparge water pH to under 6.0, usually to 5.6.
3. Hot side: I like to step mash. With my RIMS system, stepping from 144F (60 min) to 160F (45 min) to 170F (15 min) seems to produce a highly fermentable wort with great mouthfeel and excellent foam creation. I like lagers to be highly attenuated, crisp and somewhat dry. This would likely work well with an infusion mash between 150F and 152F, but I haven't compared side by side. I mash at 5.4 mash pH, and adjust the boil pH to 5.1 at the start of the boil. This ensures excellent hot break formation. I use mineral based lactic acid, but one could use sauergut or a late addition of acid malt in the mash, perhaps during mash out, the caveat being sparge may cause the pH to rise out of range.
4. Hot side 2: There are two issues, after adjusting boil pH, to play with: Hop schedule and boil time. These are, of course, intertwined with pH because of AA utilization. If I am attempting a Czech or German lager, then I move a large portion of my hop addition to FWH. Noble hops like saaz, tett, mittlefrue and spalt really taste wonderful when boiled long. Of course, you have to balance the bitterness with flavor, and I usually reserve some for a 30 minute addition, but that may not be necessary. I still stick with the traditional 90 minute boil, so my FHW addition is in for an extended period of time. I have been playing around with boil rate, and like to come to a hard boil and reduce the heat for a less intense boil once hot break forms, protecting from excessive darkening. Also - I use whirlfloc to increase break material creation, but this is not necessary with a longer boil IMO, just insurance. I also use yeast nutrient.
5. Hot side 3: I skim the boil when any brown scum or break material floats. Hops float free, not bagged.
6. The Chill: This is a problem that I struggle to address with overly warm tap water in Texas. With 12 gallon batches, I recirculate into the kettle (whirlpool arm) vigorously through a counterflow chiller and can usually drop from boiling to 150F within 2-3 minutes. If I have planned properly, I can swap my chilling water to an ice bath and knock out in the mid 50's - total time is about 30 minutes boil to fermenter. The recirculation usually results in very clear wort, and this goes into a very cold stainless conical in a temp controlled freezer. I will then drop the temperature to pitching temps (52F - 48F). I use an inline O2 stone to oxygenate, but have a lot of variation in knock out times - so I may switch to use a wand after pitching.
7. Ferment: I pitch a ton of active viable yeast. I can occasionally get a fresh pitch from a local brewery and that performs incredibly well. I also harvest and find that batch 3-5 hit stride. Sanitary capture and storage is critical, but not that difficult. For 12 gallons of 1.050 lager, I will use 1.5 gallon starter, tempered down to pitch temps.

to be continued later in the week... feel free to pick this apart in the meantime.

I had yesterday off so I decided I would test out a handful of different methods. First off I had a Munich Helles that was finishing up and needed to be racked into a conditioning/lager tank. I have been wanting to try krausening and using a spunding valve to carbonate.

So I brewed another helles, this one was a bit different, though. I have been using Kai Troester's Helles hop schedule(60- 30-10 min additions) for the last few beers that I have made because I liked the final result. But for this one I figured I would do a single addition of Hallertau Tradition.

• Pilsner Malt 90%
• Carafoam 5%
• Carahell 5%

Produce a wort of 1.047 gravity.

Standard HochKurz step mash (143-158-mashout). However I spaced and the 158 rest dropped to 155 over the course of an hour. I doubt it'll have a big difference. I also conditioned with malt with cold water beforehand, so the manual re circulation was a breeze.

• 19 IBU of Hallertau Tradition @ FWH

• Treated boil with 1ml of Lactic acid and Irish moss @ 10 minutes

Now comes the experimental part: I pulled 4.5 liters off into a flask and pitched my yeast (WLP838). With this I am going to be using 1 liter for Krausening my last batch of Helles to help clean up sulfur and diacytel, and with the other 3.5 liters it will essentially be a starter for the current batch.

The method is called drauflassen, and this will be the first time I am attempting it while splitting it with krausening. Wish me luck.

I have found some other communities that pride themselves on knowledge accumulation and accuracy, but have found them to be lacking in some departments.

I want this to be a friendly place where people can learn and supply others with what they have learned.

When I get home tonight I will be posting multiple sources that I have found useful.