Jay's Brewing

One of the more interesting beers in my opinion has to be the Saison.  It is one of those beers that you can have 10 different Saisons and they could all taste entirely different.  There is one thing that all of them should have in common though, “Funk”.  It’s a term that brewers use to describe a good Saison. We’ll get into that but first a quick history on them.

The 101 on Saison

Saison’s are a Belgium style beer.  The word actually means season in French.  The beer was made in a French-speaking part of Belgium.  These were their versions of Pale Ales which were brewed for the workers during the harvest season.

The way to look at Saison’s are they are a refreshing brew for the summer time. Historically each farm had their own flavor to the Saison because these brews were made in the farmhouse.  That is why these beers are also called Farmhouse Ales.  Also historically these beers were in the ball park of 3.5% for alcohol.  Today you see that a lot of them around 5%-7.5%.

Composition 

What’s cool about Saison’s are that they don’t have a lot of rules.  Usually in a Saison you’ll find that they will have spices in them: coriander, paradise seed, ginger, bitter orange, sweet orange.   Typically the malts that you use will be  a pils malt with a little bit of wheat as well, doing this gives a light golden color to the beer.  The hops are typically a bit strong because they would act as a preservative for long storage.  Today brewers add their own interpretation to the Saison and the, “Rules” turn into, “Loose Guidelines”.

The last thing about Saisons are that the yeast that you use is meant to give the beer some funk.  The yeast is at its prime around 85 degrees.  A Saison yeast prefers around 72-85 degrees.  Fermenting at a high temperature will bring out some weird funky flavors, aka the “FUNK”.  You get fruity esters and some spicy flavors that are hard to replicate if you don’t get up that high.

I’ve heard of people actually taking a space heater and space heating their Saisons or they put an electric blanket around it.  Personally I end up usually wrapping the fermenter with tin foil then take a blanket or a towel and  wrap it up again.

The Recipes

I wanted to give two quick examples of a Saison recipe to get you on your way with making Saison.  We have the converter to help with converting LME to DME to Grain on our blog as well.  These recipes show a trend in the types of ingredients that might be used as well as a general direction.  I found both of these recipes on beertools.com.

Saison Recipe #1

3 lbs Pils DME

3 lbs Wheat DME

1 lbs Honey

8 oz Aromatic Malt

1 oz Northern Brewer (60min)

1 oz Styrian Goldings  (5min)

1 oz Sweet orange peel (5 min)

.5 oz coriander Seed (5min)

1 gram Paradise Seed (5min)

WLP 565 Saison Yeast

OG: 1.058

FG: 1.010

SRM: 9.92

IBU: 31.4

ABV: 6.3%

Quick Analysis 

This recipe is going to have a pretty big smell to it.  The coriander and the paradise seed are going to come out first with a spicy nose, blended with a citrus nose from the orange peels.  The hops are going to be pretty earthy for the most part.  If you wanted to give this recipe a bit of tang, I would add some acidulated malt to it.  Also another suggestion is to take out the honey and just use some honey malt to it.  If honey malt is too sweet for you use some flaked rye to give a bit of mouthfeel and a bit of spiciness.

Recipe #2

6.5 lbs Light LME

1 lbs Light DME

2  lbs Candi Sugar

1 oz Styrian Goldings (60min)

.5 oz Willamette Goldings (60min)

.5 oz Kent Goldings (2min)

1 oz Dried Ginger Root (15min)

1 oz Bitter Orange Peel (15min)

WLP 568

OG: 1.073

FG: 1.014

SRM: 5.47

IBU: 37.4

ABV: 7.8%

Quick Anaylsis

I like this recipe because they have the ginger root in it and that’s why I chose this one.  This is going to be a fairly big beer.  The ABV is a little high for me but if you are into that style of beer then this may be a better fit for you.  One thing I would like to say is if you choose to bottle this one, let it bottle condition for a bit (2-3 months) other wise you really end up risking that it is going to taste, “hot”.

Conclusion

Saisons are pretty neat beers to make.  If you are into the types of beer where you like to show case your abilities with matching together flavors and smells you really might want to consider making a saison.

If you have a killer Saison recipe that you would like to share, feel free to share and as all ways please leave your comments and questions in the space below.

Cheers.

The water that you use for your brew will make the world of difference.  Most homebrewers don’t give it too much thought, at least I didn’t.  It wasn’t until earlier this week that I was helping trouble shoot a beer and we realized that something was overlooked.  Actually the biggest ingredient was overlooked, water.

So how important is the water that you use for your brewing?  We will get to that in just a second but first I need to catch you up to speed.

How We Figured Out It Was The Water

The beer was given to me to trouble shoot, and the fact of the matter was I helped design the recipe so I was pretty familiar with the ingredients that went into it.  Also the brewer that had this issue is a more than capable brewer (knows how to follow instructions, sanitize, yadda yadda yadda) and then I tasted it – there was an off flavor to it.  It was an IPA that had this harsh flavor, a weird flavor to it actually.  I was stumped, so I started going through all of the possibilities and my only suggestion was to let it age in the bottles a bit longer and taste it in a few weeks.

It wasn’t until a week later, the customer came back and we were chatting about his weekend house and how he didn’t brew this recipe during the week but rather on the weekend.  With that comment we figured that the biggest difference between his brews made during the week (which have been consistently good) and the brews made on the weekend was the water profiles are polar opposite.  The water he uses at his weekend home is extremelysoft versus during the week it is much harder.

Now Why Does That Make A Difference?

I learned this from people who lived in Seattle.  Apparently in Seattle the water is extremely soft, it’s almost like rain water (from what I’m told – I’m not a water expert by any means) and they would tell me that it was a pain to make APA’s and IPA’s.  They would have to add water salts to the water to make it harder.  So why does this make any difference at all?  Well the reason is that certain water profiles will lend better to different styles of beer better than others.

The chemistry of the water determines the effect that each type of grain addition will have on the beer as well as the hops have with that beer.   It’s the reason why really good light lagers come from Czech and really good stouts come from Ireland/Great Britain.

Need More?

Maybe it’s best to show with some examples and charts (I love charts).  This information can be found on howtobrew.com.  I tried to cut it down and make it a bit more comprehensive though.

First We Need An Example Of  Brewing Water Table

Water Profiles From Brewing Cities

It doesn’t take too long to realize they all have different water profiles.  These different water profiles are just what’s in the region – they aren’t building them up.

So What This Actually Means

Different water styles mean different things for beer.  Certain minerals will accent on different malts as well as hop flavors depending on the concentration of them.  That’s why in general if you go to a homebrew shop they will tell you, “When making beer, don’t use distilled water – you need those minerals in them when making ales”.

To further drive this point home, here is an elaboration on the information above.

Pilsen

The low hardness as well as the low alkalinity really help with getting the proper pH to be reached with only base malts – they don’t use many or any specialty grains.  The lacks of sulphate helps with a light hoppyness.

Dortmund

This city has pale lagers.  It has more malt flavor to it because of the higher levels of minerals.

Vienna

Similar to Dortmund lagers but lacks the amount of calcium, sodium and chloride.  The only way that they got the acid levels to be correct was to add Toasted Malt, hense the amber color for Vienna’s.

Munich

It has a fairly balanced water profile, they do however have to use darker  malts to help balance the carbonates and acidify the mash.  It has low sulfates so it really accents on the maltyness rather than the hops.  This is why they have malty beers with light hoppyness.

London

With high levels of carbonate it makes the use of dark malts more promising in the mash.  The high level of carbonate makes it more favorable to use dark malts to balance the mash, but the high chloride and high sodium allow the beer to be smoothed out.  Think porters and browns.

Edinburgh

This is very similar to the London styles of beer, but it has more bicarbonate and sulfate making the beer a bit more malty and using less hops to achieve balance in the brew.

Burton-on-Trent

Again it’s pretty close to London water.  The hardness of the water is pretty high.  The high level of sodium in the water helps produce a clean hop bitterness.

Dublin

Has a high level of bicarbonate, because of that this style of beer really embraces the maltiest and darkest malts beer. Because of the low-level of sodium and chloride it has a mellow amount of hops.

One Step Closer To Going Water Crazy

Now that you know this, how do you know what your water profile is.

• As a last resort you can send your water to get tested .  Once you do that you should get back a table letting you know what your water is.
• Maybe someone already did the work for you is another option.  A lot of homebrewers are pretty nice people and sometimes you can find on a forum or a blog someone’s report on the water profile for your city, town, or county.  So I would take a look on the internet before you rush out and spend money on getting your water tested.
• Also your county, town, or city may have public information on your water contents – may be worth checking.
• If you use bottled water, you can call up the manufacture and they should be able to tell you as well.

Yep We’re Water Crazy

We’re here, we are officially making a really big deal about something that only homebrewers would find interesting. Here is another chart that will help you, “correct” your water to the style that you are brewing.   Again this can be found on John Palmers site.

Salts for Water Adjustment

I Have To Bring You Back To Reality

It’s really easy to get lost in this, very easy.  So time to bring you back to reality and full circle this thing.  I’m not advocating that you need to be obsessed with your water profile by any means, that’s unless you want to.  I guess my point can be summed up like this, be conscious of what the water profile from where you brew.  It may be better for certain styles over other styles.

Finding out that your water doesn’t work for your favorite style of beer could be unfortunate, and if that is the case maybe you should consider playing with it a little bit or go the easy way, buy bottled water from a region that is near your favorite style and brew with that.  But for the most part, I would just recommend brewing around it. Just at thought.

Well hope you enjoyed, and leave your comments and questions in the space provide below!

I hear about customers having bad experiences with their homebrew and really it can be boiled down to handful of different reasons, and by a handful I mean 9.  I was inspired after reading the beertools blog and decided to come up with my very own, 9 ways to jack  up your beer.  Just know depending on your company, another phrase can be used.  

Quick Observation

After reading this post I started to see a trend.

If you revert back to a popular post that was put up a while back about the different types of brewers, I feel that most of these problems unfortunately happen with chilax brewers (8 out of 9).  Normally I could see these mistakes happening because of hitting the sauce hard while brewing and well, the reaction time slows down and mistakes happen.

The homebrewer that these problems never happen too are of course, the elusive narcissist homebrewer.  They can’t make any mistakes and if there was a, “mistake” they meant to do it – it’s not in their genetics to mess up.  Beers fault – not theirs.

With out further delay here is the list of the 9 most common way to completely jack your beer up and some quick solutions to prevent it from happening.

1. Lack Of sanitation Or Sterilizing Of Equipment

If you want bad beer, make sure to invite wild yeast and other bacteria.  Don’t clean and sanitize your equipment, it’s a sure way for your beer to go down the tube pretty quick.   This has to be the most common way to mess up your beer.

Solution: Clean and sanitize everything that is post boil.  For bottles we have a trick on how to save time as well. 

2. Never Using Brewing Software, Keeping Notes or Record Recipes

It’s pretty hard to problem solve or make the same recipe twice if you never keep any records of it. If there is a problem with your beer and you can’t look back to see what you did it starts to become a swag for trouble shooting.

Solution: At the minimum I would keep the recipe, and if you are creating the recipe – use free brewing software to give you estimates on where your beer is supposed to be.  

3. Keeping Your Ingredients In A Warm, Moist, Sunny Place

If you want to make bad beer a great way to do it is keeping all of your ingredients in the wrong place.

If the hops are in hot place (like your car) they will degrade quicker then if kept at room temp or in a refrigerator.  If they are kept in the sun (near you kitchen sink) over time they will be start to smell skunky.  Your screwed before you even started brewing…

Another quick way to mess up your beer is, buy pre-crushed malts – classic.  There is a difference between buying grains and getting them crushed right then and there (freshly crushed) versus buying pre-crushed grains (Already packaged with a sticker on the bag).  It could have been months ago that those malts were crushed and if that is the case, oxidation of your malts will have already set in.

Solution: Buy fresh ingredients, and if you don’t plan on brewing keep your ingredients in a dark cool spot – no moisture. 

4. You Don’t Boil Rather You Just Mix Together

If you are looking for ways to lower the stability of your beer, don’t do a full 60 min boil and just mix everything together.

Solution: Keep track of the time that the boil was started.  Unless the recipe said specifically otherwise assume you are supposed to do a 60 min boil.  

5. Add Low Quality Yeast

Lose track of where your yeast is as far as the expiration. Weak yeast will give a head start to micro organisms taking over your beer.

Solution: This is where the emergency pack comes into play.  You really want to use fresh yeast when possible, if not, there is a chance of contamination and the beer will go bad. 

6. Not Fermenting In A Cold Place Or Fermenting In Too Warm Of  A Place

If you don’t follow the general guidelines for the type of yeast that you are using your beer will taste fruity or like butter.  Simple as that.

Solution: Know if you are using ale yeast or lager yeast and know the temp range for the yeast.  For most brewers you want to start with an ale.  If you are interested in lagers we have a guide on how to make lagers.  Also try brewing with the season and not fighting the temp ranges that are in you house.

7.  Trying To Get Your ABV Up By Adding Lot’s Of Sugar

A great way to make your beer taste like malt liquor is going in with the intention of having a beer that is just high in ABV and that’s it.  So you add a ton of sugar or honey to your beer.  Guess what, it will taste like malt liquor.  Could have just bought a 40 oz and saved yourself the trouble.

Solution: Make a balanced beer.  Some beers will be higher gravity just by nature but, with that said, they are balanced.  If you really do want a high ABV beer, don’t drink it young.  Let your beer stay in the bottle measured in months not weeks.  It will mellow out and taste better with a bit of time. 

8. Bottle Your Beer By Adding Sugar To Each Bottle, And Cane Sugar At That

When adding a sugar to each of your bottles of beer, you are greatly increasing the chances that there will be an inconsistent carbonation to your beer. Adding table sugar to your beer (if it’s not boiled in the wort) will make your beer taste like apple cider every time.  We have a post up about that one.

Solution: When it comes to bottling, heat up about 1 cup of water and add in your corn sugar (3/4 cup) or dry malt extract (1 and 1/4 cups) make a quick mixture (until it is all dissolved), siphon your beer on top of that in your bottling bucket, then give a quick stir with a sterilized spoon.  You are good to go.  Or if you would like use carbonation drops. 

9. Never Take Advice From People That Know What They Are Doing

The worst mistake that you can make as a brewer is to think that you know more than everyone else and that you have nothing to gain from anyone.

Solution: I don’t care how long you have been doing this hobby or how good you think you are you can learn from other homebrewers (books, forums, blogs, people etc.).   Take advice and pointers from people that know what they are talking about.  It’s honestly how I keep learning about the hobby, I just talk to my customers and find out what they do and take it into consideration.  Hense the amount of “Tips and Tricks” that are put up on this blog.

Conclusion:

Like I said in the beginning of the post, I think a lot of these problems chilax brewers might be prone to.  #9 though is the narcissist brewer – they take the cake on that one.  All of these problems have solutions and easy ones at.  So good luck with your brewing!

My question for you is what type of brewer do you think is most prone to making mistakes?

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I was told after the last post that I forgot to put some examples of lagers recipes.  Time to correct that mistake.  I’ll blame it on my excitement about the Lager guide.

I wanted to give a few examples of lager recipes to get you started in the lager world.  If you want to convert the different malt extracts to all-grain we do have a chart for that as well.

All of these recipes are good recipes for your first go at  lagers.   Other then the first recipe (The Sam Adams-ish brew), you’ll notice that these are pretty light lagers.  This was no mistake.  I wanted to have a variety of lighter lagers for the summer time.

Dark American Lager (Similar To Sam Adams)

8 oz Crystal 60L

8 oz Maris Otter

7 lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract

1.5 oz Tettnanger (45min)

.5 oz Hallertauer (15min)

.5 oz Hallertauer (5min)

WLP 838 Southern German Lager

OG: 1.054

FG: 1.011

SRM: 11

IBU: 24

ABV: 5.7%

Standard American Lager (This One Is Easy)

5 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract

1 lb Corn Sugar

.5 oz Willamette (60min)

.5 oz Willamette (10min)

WLP 840 American Lager

OG: 1.050

FG: 1.011

SRM: 2.36

IBU: 14

ABV: 5.1%

Easy Pils (Again Another Easy One)

5 lbs Extra Light Dry Malt Extract

2 oz Saaz (60min)

1 oz Saaz (2min)

WLP 800 Pilsner

OG: 1.045

FG: 1.010

SRM: 6

IBU: 40ish (depending on the alpha, ours is 2.8% – 3.0% but a lot of people are getting 5%ish for their saaz)

ABV: 4.6%

Light American Lager (Kinda Like Bud Light)

3 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract

2 lbs Corn Sugar

8 oz Rice Hulls

WLP 840 American Lager

OG: 1.045

FG: 1.004

SRM: 1.64

IBU: 12.1

ABV: 5.3%

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So I wanted to put this post up because well, I’m super proud of it.  Before at Jay’s Brewing if you needed something milled, I had a mill in the back and I would mill it up for you.  Well that isn’t any fun for you, you should be able to mill your own grains!  Now you can mill your own grains with a push of a button, it isn’t loud either (like a drill).

1. Push the black button
2. Count to 2
3. Start pouring your grains down from the top through the chicken wire (chicken wire is there so you can’t hurt yourself by accident).
4. The grains come out of the gutter that is on the bottom of the mill into a bucket.
5.  Boom it’s done.

It is fast and the mill can crush any of the grains that we carry.

Here is a video of the mill

The Last Thing The Grain Will See

▶

Here is the mill in action (about 1.5 lbs of grain).

(Normally crush grains with the mill using a rolling start.  In this case, I didn’t have an extra set to hold the camera, so I had to improvise.)

The Grain Mill In Action

▶

The Mill From The Outside

What The Inside Of The Mill Looks Like

This project summed up one thing for me.  If you start a sentence with, “All you have to do is just_____” or “It’s fairly easy you just ____” that means that it will be a hard project.

I had to fabricate parts for this.  Learned about small motors, how pulleys work, how to gear down something that runs at 3400 RMP down to 330 RPM, how to make switches and the list goes on.  It started with, “All you have to do is JUST motorized it”.

I’m glad it’s done and beyond that I’m excited it works as well as it does.  I hope you guys enjoy it and also you will see your efficiency get pretty high if you use it for all-grain.  Like I said, the crush is among the best I’ve ever seen before.

Cheers

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So if you are looking for a free brewing calculator, this one is pretty sweet.  It seems like it doesn’t have any glitches and one that I would recommend.  Its from “Brewers Friend”

Cheers!

I’ve been taking pictures ever since Jay’s Brewing has moved so that we could look back on the progress of Jay’s Brewing because so many changes have, and will happen.  Quite honestly the design that we have and are still going after has been almost 100% influenced by customer suggestions.  So please keep up with suggestions we really do take them with heavy consideration.   I wanted to put together a quick timeline of Jay’s Brewing from the time we moved from our old shop.

Before I start I need to give a special thanks to my family/friends for helping me out  with the move.  First to my old man for his help with the building and giving ideas for designs.  Then of course to my mother for her, “IF YOU THINK IT YOU CAN DO IT!” cheerleader mentality.  My sister for helping we with the back room and bringing me food when I was here until 2am working on many nights.  Pat my mead making bud and excellent fisherman for helping with the staining of the wood and just about everything that went down at the shop.  Josh my partner in crime and brewing buddy for helping with the late nights.  Also Sean for the incredibly awesome beer Steins from Germany – can’t wait until your state side.  And of course for everyone that offered to help and stopped by to visit when I was moving (specifically I’m talking about customers – you guys rock).  I honestly think that customers of Jay’s Brewing are some of the coolest people out there.  And thank you for all of the excellent ideas!

I tried to pick some monumental pictures for this.

(The Place Being Empty & Looking Out)

(Uhh Yea, I’m Opening When?!”)

(Late Night Working On The Place After Carpet And Painting)

(It’s  Coming Together!)

(It’s The Simple Things In Life…)

(Building The Grain Shelves – The Bell Will Go Up Soon & It Will Be Awesome)

(H.F.H – You’re Amazing”)

(If I’m Not Brewing Or Salsa Dancing I’m Fishing – Killer Stein)

(So Legit)

(This Is What The Place Looked Like After I Just Had Moved From The Old Location.  Panic Is Setting In…)

(Looks Just As Bad In The Light Of The Morning)

(First Shipment Coming In, Better Bottles Off The Yin Yang)

(The Grain Shelves Are On The Way!)

(Josh Trying To Look Busy. And Watch Out For The Wall Of Bottles, You Break You Buy It Josh)

(Believe It Or Not, I Didn’t Need A Ladder For Anything.  Being 6’4 Is Amazing When It Comes To Changing Light Bulbs And Stacking. )

(Front Room Is Starting To Take Form)

(A Mill Would Look Amazing Here.. OH WAIT A MILL IS GOING TO BE THERE!)

( Starting To Really Look More Like A Homebrew Shop)

(Time To Meet Your Maker Grain… The Mill)

(And That’s Why I Needed To Build  A Box.  Didn’t Want Any Missing Fingers.  It’s A Beast.)

(Self Service Is Amazing, Thanks For The Suggestion!)

(Bulk Malt Extract – 180 lbs Each Container. )

(The Fridge Of Heavens Breath – Thanks For The Help With The Art Tina!)

(Hops…)

(Getting Those Wine Kits In Slowly & The Place Is Coming Along!)

And that’s where we stand right now! More to come also.  Our webpage is going to get updated soon, we have more in  the store then what is reflected on our website. Don’t worry I didn’t forget about getting WYEAST.   Once I get what is referred to as Molasses Gates our kits will be ready and you will start to see things change on our website and then WYEAST to come.

Also if you are suffering from some nostalgia of our old shop you can check it out in a video that was done there before we moved.

Hope you enjoyed and thank you for telling your friends about Jay’s  Brewing!

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Spring is in full swing and you might want something other than an ale to drink, maybe a lager?  If you have had your doubts on your abilities to make a lager this is the guide you want to read. It’s time to make a lager and get your line wet.

(Fishing + Beer = Good Time)

I wanted to come up with a comprehensive yet an easy guide on how to lager your own beer – this is the product.  I will be  completely honest with you though, I make way more ales than I do to lagers in the year. The ones that I do make turn out damn good though.  However I do have friends and know some homebrewers that make lagers and that’s all they make. They would be able to run in circles around me when it comes to making lagers in consideration to the knowledge and skills they have.  With that said, I will do my best to explain the world of lagering.

My hopes are that at by the end of this post you will have the competence as well as the confidence to come up with some really amazing lagers that will surely impress your friends, and you will once again hear them say, “YOU MADE THIS?!”

(I HAVE NEVER TASTED ANYTHING THIS GOOD!) 

Quick 101

For those that are just getting into homebrewing, there is a difference between lagers and ales.  Lagers are bottom fermenting that ferment in cooler temps while ales ferment at room temp.  Ales tend to be fruitier and lagers tend to be more crisp in flavor.

Most likely you’ll hear that lagers are harder but they really aren’t, I wouldn’t typically recommend someone who is just getting into homebrewing though.  The only reason is that there is a process to the fermenting that is a bit more engaging.

There are a few reasons also that I might not recommend lagers for beginners and 3 off the top of my head are this: 1) You need temp control 2) Can’t judge them as well with the air lock 3) Take longer then an ale.

With all that said, if you want to do lagers – this is the last post that you will need to read on how to do them.  We’ll go step by step then break it down a bit more so you can really understand what is going on.

Lets Get Started:

To be able to do a lager you need cold storage.  When you are doing a cold storage for your beer you are lagering. Lager yeast does ferment differently than ale yeast does.  When ales ferment at low temps they normally lag out but when you use lager yeast they just keep fermenting at a low temp.  Also the cold temperatures will make the yeast settle at the bottom of your fermenter which is why it is referenced to as bottom fermenting.

(So Cold…)

The Steps For Lagering Look Like This

1) Make your yeast starter (or not).

2) Pitch your yeast at 65 degrees, when you see the first signs of fermentation bring down your ferementation to 45 degrees.

3) Typically about 10-14 days after lagering, you will bring back your fermentation temperature to 62-65 degrees. This is called a Diacetyl rest.  I’ll have more on this.  You will keep your fermentation here for 2-3 days.

4) Rack your beer into a secondary fermenter, and start bringing down your fermentation 5 degrees a day until it gets to 45 degrees.  Lager for about 6 weeks. Start your, “I’m Lagering Calender” once you have brought it down to 45 degrees.  I suggest continuing to bring down your temperature all the way down to 35 degrees if you can, continue with the 5 degrees a day lowering.

* In some recipes you will see that they will tell you to ferment your lager at 50 degrees for a period of time.  The only problem I have found with this is that sometimes it is hazy and also you will get some non lager flavors out of it.  If you do the method that is described above it should help you out a bit getting a crisp and clear lager.

More On Step 1

So the reason why people will tell you that need to make a starter for a lager is, the yeast is going to be working extra hard and you want to do what you can to ensure that the beer ferments.  If you have ever come into the shop and you ask me anything about what I do for starters I usually will tell you one thing, “I don’t make starters.”.  I don’t have a big reason why I don’t other than laziness and yep, laziness that’s all.

So do my lagers turn out fine without a starter?  Yea, they are fine.   I can understand why in theory you would make them but I just don’t and my beers have yet to suffer from them.  Moving on though.

More On Step 2

One thing that you want to take into consideration is that you want your yeast to be at the same temp as your wort when you are pitching, or pretty close to the same temp (try for less than 10 degrees difference).  If you don’t do that, your yeast will go into shock essentially and lag out.  There isn’t too much more to elaborate on that other than just be considerate of the temp that you are pitching, you don’t want frozen yeast and don’t want crazy warm yeast.

Once you start to see your fermentation pick up, start dropping down the temp to 45-50 degrees (or what the yeast strand prefers).  You are lagering now.  You don’t want to do it to fast or again the yeast will freak out and you might get into some problems.  Leave it at this temp for 2 weeks.

(Crisp And Clear)

More On Step 3

After 2 weeks you are going to raise the temp up (62ish).  This is called a diacetyl rest.  Typically you end up doing this when the fermentation is about 75% done, which for me has been around 10-14 days.  The way to check is take a gravity reading or just take my word for it, 10-14 days.

You you end up raising the temp up this is called a Diacetyl Rest.  What you are doing is you allowing the yeast to produce more CO2 to blow off any off flavors/smells and it will take out a notorious buttery flavor that homemade lagers tend to pick up.  You only keep it at this temp for 2-3 days.   I view this as a critical point because after my 2-3 days I will transfer my beer into a carboy for the next stage of fermentation.  The next step we are going to really start lagering the beer like crazy.

More On Step 4

Rack your beer into a secondary and it is time to start lagering your beer again.  Start bringing it down 5 degrees a day until you hit 45 and then lager it for 6 weeks.  If you can, try to get the lagering down to 35 degrees. With the last 3 days lower it to 33 degrees and it will clear up the beer. Then you are done.

Is Bottling A Lager Different?

Most of the time there is no difference between bottling a lager and an ale. The only time that I would really suggest that you might want to go about it differently is when beer has been lagering for more than 2.5 months.

Sometimes when it has been lagering for that long it’s hard to get any carbonation out of it in the bottles.  But that may be my own personal experience.  The way around that one is that you end up adding some slurry (1/4 cup)  to the bottling bucket and helps.  I must admit I usually just bottle as if it were an ale and I don’t have any issues.

I typically will condition my bottles at the same temp that I did my primary fermentation at for about 14-21 days.  I’ll raise them temp on them to that 62 degree range for about 2-3 days and then end up lowering the temp down to  33-35 degrees for a few weeks as well.  The reason I do this is because, the fermentation that occurs in the bottles with the corn sugar will end up leaving a hint of Diacetyl flavor again.  So I end up doing a rest then lager it again.   It produces a pretty clear/crisp lager.

Doing that insures a pretty crisp beer.  I don’t think you have to do that but it a habit that I have formed.

Conclusion:

Like I said, it’s not hard, just time-consuming.  Homemade lagers are a different animal but one that you should not be scared of - especially if you like lagers.  If you start doing lagers, I might advise doing an Amber at first because the lighter you go the more delicate they become. But if you follow the directions above, it shouldn’t matter too much, you should be able to come up with a pretty good lager no matter what.

If you primarily do lagers and have some tips, please leave it in the section below.  I know that it would be much appreciated by home brewers that are just starting to look at the world of lagers.  We have a post on some basic lager recipes as well.

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The quest continues for  Belgium beers.  This will be the last of the Belgium beer recipe for a little bit because I don’t want you to get bored or burnt out with one style of beer – leave that up to me, no need to torture yourself over doing one style of beer over and over again.  I’ll be sure to post up some recipes on IPA’s as well as lagers.  With that said, I wanted to talk about a style of Belgium beers that is looked over often.  That style is “Biere de Garde”.  The actual translation from what I’ve been told is, “Beer for keeping”.   If you want to get technical it is actually a french style of beer.  This style of beer was historically brewed in late winter as well as the spring.  It was originally done this way to avoid weird yeast problems.  This beer would be comparable to a strong pale ale with a Belgium twist.

This recipe is going to give you a spicy and aromatic Belgium style beer.  Below is the recipe:

Style: Biere De Garde

OG: 1.067

FG: 1.016

IBU: 26

SRM: 6

ABV: 6.5%

Ingredients

4 oz Cara Vienna

4 oz Aromatic Malt

2 oz Biscuit Malt

8 lbs Extra Light DME

1 oz Northern Brewer (60min)

1/4 oz Tettnanger (15min)

1/4 oz Hallertau (10min)

WLP 550 Belgium Ale Yeast

About This Recipe: 

To get a full read on specialty grains check out a post that we have on it.  But in a nutshell, this beer is all about having a sweet, bready and aromatic type flavor to it.   Having such a large amount of Extra Light DME will give it a big malty flavor.  The hops are there but don’t make this one if you are looking for a an IPA.

Since it has a relatively high ABV%.  It might take a bit longer in the bottle then a typical ale.  I would recommend this one staying in the bottles for about 6-8 weeks.  By that time it should mature a bit and have a less, “hot” flavor to it.

Also if you were looking at doing this all grain, our conversion chart might be helpful.

Directions:

• Heat 2.5 gallons of water up to 150 degrees
• Steep grains for 30min
• Take grains out
• Add malt extract
• Bring to boil
• In beginning of boil, add Northern Brewer hops
• Boil for 45 min
• Add Tett hops and boil for 5min
• Add Hallertau hops boil for 10min
• Kill boil, cool down, put in fermenter and fill up 5 gallons
• Pitch yeast

Conclusion

Like I said, I won’t be posting up all of the Belgium beers I’ll be doing because there will be a ton of them.  But as far as a good one to take a break on for a bit this couldn’t be a better one.  Next recipes coming up will be about how to lager as well as some pretty killer IPA’s and Pales.   Let me know if you wanted any particular recipes you would like to see in the space provided below and we can see that we can do.

Cheers!

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With the farmers market about to open fresh local fruit is going to be abundant.   One wine that is pretty easy to make and is pretty good is strawberry wine.  When I’ve made this one in the past I thought it was going to be sweet but it really isn’t.  It’s surprisingly dry.  This wine is pretty good and really not that hard to make.  A nice one to have on reserve.

Ingredients – Makes 1 Gallon

3 lbs Strawberries

2.5 lbs Sugar

1 Campden Tablet (optional)

Lalvin D47

1 tsp D47

1.5 Cup Orange Juice

1 tsp Citric Acid

0.5 tsp Tannin

0.5 tsp Pot Metasulphite

Directions

1. Wash berries and put them in plastic bucket that is cleaned and sanitized (you will need a lid for it).
2. Mash berries, add sugar to mash and mix together.
3. Add 2 liters of water, and crushed campden tablet.
4. Let it sit for 24 hours
5. Pour you mixture into fermenting vessel and fill with water until you have 1 gallon.
6. Strain out the solids.
7. Add orange juice, wine yeast, yeast nutrient, citric acid, and tannin.
8. Allow the fermentation to complete and rack as needed to clarify.
9. When it has completed fermenting add Pot Metasulphite then bottle, cork and wait for at least 6 months before drinking.

Hope you enjoy!