Double Lager... Second Attempt!

[Bigbre04]

Hey all,

First version of the double lager was really tasty and sold well, but it ended up on the sweet/boozy side. I would like to brew another batch of this when i get a chance and a tank open. here is where i ended up on the updated version. heard Dan Carey talking about their double pilsner winning a medal and he mentioned that they dryhopped it! that makes perfect sense for carrying the hop flavors through.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/1580173

I adjusted the recipe a fair amount, reduced the vienna since i dont really want the sweetness from it, ditched the dextrin and shifted some things around. I could def get rid of the Spec x as well?

I also recently got some Perle so i subbed that for the willamette that i was using before. I also added a fairly heavy dryhop(for a lager). The overall IBUs went up a little bit as well.

Hops flavor wise i really like the concept of a big ass pilsner, but without the booze that was in the first batch(or atleast hidden better).

I will also use Apex Augustinian yeast and ferment it at 52-54f....current double batch of my normal golden lager is taking FOREVER, gonna be a full 2 week fermentation. So far...i have resisted the urge to turn up the temp on it. i think the sweet spot will be around 54f.

here is the first recipe:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/1554840

 

[Mont Y. Märzen]

Could you perceive the promised flavors from SpecialX at that low concentration in prior batches? It is an interesting malt, but I would think you'd need more than 1% to get much from it. It likely also is out of style. I'd just simplify and trade it for more Munich.

Also, those IBUs seem really low. For balance I'd shoot for closer to 70 to match your OG. 60 wouldn't be bad. Of course, that assumes you've had your brews lab tested and you're using a custom utilization in the calculator. If not, expect that your actual IBUs are one-half to one-third of the estimate. And take that as a grain-of-salt caveat because regardless of the estimation math, the more important thing is do *you* perceive it to be balanced or to-style. I generally find shooting for the top end of the IBU range or exceeding it a bit always results in a more drinkable product. If you're finding it is too sweet, up the hops. This isn't an IPA chasing its ABV tail, but the same idea applies.

 

[Dave Y]

I think 42 IBU is enough for what you’re shooting for; my triple weighs in at 9.4%ABV and is only 38 IBU. It’s not overly hot and pretty well balanced.
If it were me I’d pull a little Munich, the spec. and dextrose and sub in some decent Pils, then brew.

if you really think it won’t have the balance needed, maybe kick up to the 45-50 range using a moderate AA hop.

 

[The Brew Mentor]

What else can you use other than Columbus?

 

[The Brew Mentor]

My thoughts would be to drop the special x and possibly up the Munich.
The corn sugar will help with the attenuation on a beer this big and in this amount won't hurt the body.
I'd use a lower cohumulin hop for the bittering as Columbus can be sharp.
I haven't used the loral but the description looks interesting.
I didn't look at the water, but I'd lean towards a balanced profile as there will be plenty of malt characteristics coming through with this.
Fwiw.
Cheers

 

[Bigbre04]

Could you perceive the promised flavors from SpecialX at that low concentration in prior batches? It is an interesting malt, but I would think you'd need more than 1% to get much from it. It likely also is out of style. I'd just simplify and trade it for more Munich.

You would be surprised. It is not so much that you taste it, but it adds a certain note to the finish. it is hard to describe, you get it more on the exhale then in the initial flavor of the beer. Same thing with small amounts of chocolate etc. It adds a roundness to the flavor profile of the beer.

Also, those IBUs seem really low. For balance I'd shoot for closer to 70 to match your OG. 60 wouldn't be bad. Of course, that assumes you've had your brews lab tested and you're using a custom utilization in the calculator. If not, expect that your actual IBUs are one-half to one-third of the estimate. And take that as a grain-of-salt caveat because regardless of the estimation math, the more important thing is do *you* perceive it to be balanced or to-style. I generally find shooting for the top end of the IBU range or exceeding it a bit always results in a more drinkable product. If you're finding it is too sweet, up the hops. This isn't an IPA chasing its ABV tail, but the same idea applies.

Just finished carbing this beer and it tastes exactly how i would expect 63ibus to taste! i havent really messed with the customization on the utilization.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/1578461

I did up the Loral by an oz at 15 mins. shooting for a pilsner style flavor, not trying to be a cold ipa or anything like that.

 

[Bigbre04]

What else can you use other than Columbus?

currently i have the bag of columbus open, i have magnum, but it is only 14aa and its not open. i need to finish this bag before i open another 11lbs of a bittering hop.

My thoughts would be to drop the special x and possibly up the Munich.
The corn sugar will help with the attenuation on a beer this big and in this amount won't hurt the body.
I'd use a lower cohumulin hop for the bittering as Columbus can be sharp.

the pervious batch was a little boozy, sharp bitterness would have been welcome lol.

I haven't used the loral but the description looks interesting.

Love it. also its the closest that i can get to a noble in cryo

I didn't look at the water, but I'd lean towards a balanced profile as there will be plenty of malt characteristics coming through with this.
Fwiw.
Cheers

yup without filtration, the only thing i can really hit is balanced 2. which so far has not been an issue at all.

Subbed out the 2row for pils, yes i caved in and bought 10 bags of pils and 18 bags of 2row lol.



I upped the IBUS a touch from 41 to 43. i could go to 45 and stay in my mental taste picture for this beer...

debating the Augustinian yeast, its really yummy, but DAMN it is super slow at 52f. Im on day 14 of a 12.2 double batch of lager...not super accurate day wise though since i brewed a second batch into it, so i sort of lost a day of fermentation. its slowly chewing down but SUPER slow. 12.2->3.3 in 14 days-ish. its currently warmer doing a d rest, but next time i think i will shoot for 54 for primary...still in the window, but not at the bottom of the window.

 

[Bigbre04]

 

[Dave Y]

Subbed out the 2row for pils, yes i caved in and bought 10 bags of pils and 18 bags of 2row lol.

 

[Bigbre04]

shhhh dont tell people that i gave in.

 

[Mont Y. Märzen]

You would be surprised. It is not so much that you taste it, but it adds a certain note to the finish. it is hard to describe, you get it more on the exhale then in the initial flavor of the beer. Same thing with small amounts of chocolate etc. It adds a roundness to the flavor profile of the beer.

Just finished carbing this beer and it tastes exactly how i would expect 63ibus to taste! i havent really messed with the customization on the utilization.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/1578461

I did up the Loral by an oz at 15 mins. shooting for a pilsner style flavor, not trying to be a cold ipa or anything like that.

That's what I was thinking, 63 is much more balanced than 41 from the initial recipe.

 

[Bigbre04]

That's what I was thinking, 63 is much more balanced than 41 from the initial recipe.

i could bump it up further, i think 45 would be do able, but 63 would place it into IPA territory in my mind. Although i guess it does have a dryhop, but that was only to carry aroma and some flavor over the boozy flavor.

 

[Dave Y]

i could bump it up further, i think 45 would be do able, but 63 would place it into IPA territory in my mind. Although i guess it does have a dryhop, but that was only to carry aroma and some flavor over the boozy flavor.

depends on what hops you’re using.
the calculated 63 IBUs for say a 7.0 AA cascade beer will be nowhere near as bitter as a 63 IBU beer done with a 14.0 AA hop instead.

 

[Bigbre04]

depends on what hops you’re using.
the calculated 63 IBUs for say a 7.0 AA cascade beer will be nowhere near as bitter as a 63 IBU beer done with a 14.0 AA hop instead.

I am not really sure that that is how it works. I will do some research on the topic.

 

[Dave Y]

I am not really sure that that is how it works. I will do some research on the topic.

Mathematically, you can achieve the same IBU number in B/F, but can you hit 60 IBUs with 4AA Tettnanger? Sure. You’ll use a lot of hops to get there and I’ll bet it will taste pretty good and reasonably balanced.

Pull the Tett. and redo with 14AA Magnum and tell me it’s only as bitter as the beer with Tett.

There may be math in brewing, but brewing ain’t as simple as math

This is what frustrated me about WCIPA and trying to come up with my own recipes. I kept trying to get to a solid WC with Cascade and at 5-7AA it just won’t happen. It will be a good beer, and I am partial to Cascade (because I can grow them, not that I have enough for an entire batch of beer but still). But redoing the same recipe with a stronger bittering hop changed the entire character and ... surprise: it was BITTER. Though not necessarily better.

 

[Bigbre04]

Mathematically, you can achieve the same IBU number in B/F, but can you hit 60 IBUs with 4AA Tettnanger? Sure. You’ll use a lot of hops to get there and I’ll bet it will taste pretty good and reasonably balanced.

Pull the Tett. and redo with 14AA Magnum and tell me it’s only as bitter as the beer with Tett.

There may be math in brewing, but brewing ain’t as simple as math

This is what frustrated me about WCIPA and trying to come up with my own recipes. I kept trying to get to a solid WC with Cascade and at 5-7AA it just won’t happen. It will be a good beer, and I am partial to Cascade (because I can grow them, not that I have enough for an entire batch of beer but still). But redoing the same recipe with a stronger bittering hop changed the entire character and ... surprise: it was BITTER. Though not necessarily better.

So i think that the time of addition is really really important in this discussion.

60ibu of tett and 60 ibu of my 24aa columbus cryo added at 60 mins should be very similar bitterness wise. there may be some flavor differences though they would be minor. that is why we use a high AA for a bittering addition, one oz of 24aa columbus cryo would be like 10 oz of 6aa tettnang.

60 ibus of tett and 60 of colum at 5 mins would be very very different animals...after 15 mins you start to really taste the difference in flavor between the two hops. but generally before 15 mins you mainly get bitterness and thus higher efficiency with those hops.

So that 64 IBU IPA i posted above is on draft right now and it is awesome. very balanced bitterness with flavor. it REALLY reminds me of an IPA that i brewed hundreds of thousands of gals of...flagship ipa for a regional brewery. Its not crystal clear yet, but i carbed and packed it yesturday so i wouldnt expect it to be. I love the beer and it is exactly what i wanted and expected from 64 ibus.

DISCLAIMER! I am not trying to come off like a dick.

 

[Dave Y]

So i think that the time of addition is really really important in this discussion.

60ibu of tett and 60 ibu of my 24aa columbus cryo added at 60 mins should be very similar bitterness wise. there may be some flavor differences though they would be minor. that is why we use a high AA for a bittering addition, one oz of 24aa columbus cryo would be like 10 oz of 6aa tettnang.

60 ibus of tett and 60 of colum at 5 mins would be very very different animals...after 15 mins you start to really taste the difference in flavor between the two hops. but generally before 15 mins you mainly get bitterness and thus higher efficiency with those hops.

So that 64 IBU IPA i posted above is on draft right now and it is awesome. very balanced bitterness with flavor. it REALLY reminds me of an IPA that i brewed hundreds of thousands of gals of...flagship ipa for a regional brewery. Its not crystal clear yet, but i carbed and packed it yesturday so i wouldnt expect it to be. I love the beer and it is exactly what i wanted and expected from 64 ibus.

DISCLAIMER! I am not trying to come off like a dick.

For at least the sake of simplicity, I will limit my discussion to only the main bittering hop addition. IOW, if you were to brew 2 identical beers, changing out only the bittering hop from a low to medium alpha hop to a really high alpha bittering hop to achieve the same IBUs as calculated here, the 2 beers will not be that subtly different, they will be different.

to your response, I agree about timing, flavor. in fact, in my WCIPA adventures, the flavor was similar, but the bitterness was perceivably higher.
and I took your response as only that of an experienced brewer without any snark or offense. It’s a beer forum. we’re not going to beef over a few IBU’s.
;-)

 

[Bigbre04]

For at least the sake of simplicity, I will limit my discussion to only the main bittering hop addition. IOW, if you were to brew 2 identical beers, changing out only the bittering hop from a low to medium alpha hop to a really high alpha bittering hop to achieve the same IBUs as calculated here, the 2 beers will not be that subtly different, they will be different.

to your response, I agree about timing, flavor. in fact, in my WCIPA adventures, the flavor was similar, but the bitterness was perceivably higher.
and I took your response as only that of an experienced brewer without any snark or offense. It’s a beer forum. we’re not going to beef over a few IBU’s.
;-)

OH WE BEEFIN! lol

I honestly prefer Magnum, but I cant get it in cryo. That being said, there is an efficiency factor that comes in to the discussion.

I honestly dont know that you could tell the difference at a normal bittering amount between 2 different hops used for bittering when they are boiled for 60 mins. i know that mag and columbus smell very different, but in the final product(with a normal bittering charge) that it would be a noticeable difference when you add in all of the other hop additions. That being said, you may be able to taste a difference with a heavy single addition of bittering forgoing the rest of the hop additions.

 

[Dave Y]

OH WE BEEFIN! lol

I honestly prefer Magnum, but I cant get it in cryo. That being said, there is an efficiency factor that comes in to the discussion.

I honestly dont know that you could tell the difference at a normal bittering amount between 2 different hops used for bittering when they are boiled for 60 mins. i know that mag and columbus smell very different, but in the final product(with a normal bittering charge) that it would be a noticeable difference when you add in all of the other hop additions. That being said, you may be able to taste a difference with a heavy single addition of bittering forgoing the rest of the hop additions.

If I get some cycles free, I may be able to split a batch up and boil with different hop schedules, I’ve done back to back brews to compare, but haven’t done a split batch for this particular endeavor.

I am in a brewing freeze until at least week 1 - week 2 of September and have at least 10 gallons to make happen. One will be a Pils, and since I have a Bavarian lager strain ready for repitch, another lager in that family would be convenient.