First Helles

I wanted to try my hand at Lager brewing. Usually, I do all grain brews--but for this one I simplified to make it all about the yeast and working with the yeast to produce a good beer. With that in mind, I set up a simple extract recipe with DME/LME and traditional Bavarian hops. I find that it is nice to do an extract brew when I need to get something into kegs to meet increased consumption.

Since this was my first go with Lager yeast. I stepped it up with a Starter to get the pitch rate I wanted. I ran the starter for 24 hours at 70dF, then I cooled it down to fermentation temp. I boiled the extract recipe for 75 minutes used a counter flow chiller, oxygenated the wort and put it into my cooler with a 48dF temperature target. After about 6 hours cooling, decanted the starter and added the yeast to the wort. I had a pretty good fermentation going in about 24 hours.

I held the temperature at 48dF for 14 days, then gradually raised the temperature to 64dF. Held it there for two days then gradually decreased temperature back down to 48dF and then down to 40dF.