BrewDay 1: North German Lager

North German Lager grains steeping

Yesterday was brew day around here. We brewed a North German Lager recipe (a la St. Pauli's Girl, or so it was described) from Austin Homebrew Supply. This is one of our first attempts at lagering beer, but since the weather is cool, we thought this would be the time to do it. Plus, this way, it will be ready when it starts to get warm and spring-like outside. It was a partial-mash brew. Not very hardcore I know, but like we always say, we are tight on space around here, so it makes sense.

New keg fermenter setup



This was also the first brew where we used our new Sanke keg fermenter. We got the keg conversion kit a few months ago from BrewersHardware.com. However, it took some extra time to find a slim quarter barrel keg to use with it. The 7.75 gallon size is perfect for 5 gallon batches because it leaves plenty of extra head space for all the fermenting action while not taking up too much space in the already crowded work area. In the close up picture you can see that it took a little rigging to get an airlock in place with this new setup. I think next time we'll just set up a blow-off tube. (Note: It is important to obtain Sanke kegs legally).



New setup and corny kegs



In the larger picture, you can see the very high tech method we are using to keep the lager yeast and beer at a happy 50 - 60 degrees Fahrenheit: a tub of water and a frozen half-gallon milk container. The frozen jugs get rotated every 12 or so hours and have done a pretty good job of consistently keeping the water the right temperature. We are also excited about being able to push the finished beer directly in to a corny keg for conditioning and lagering. The beer will have hardly any contact with oxygen until it is served!



The English bitter



In the last two pictures you can see what else we have in the works. We already have a coffee malt stout keg conditioning from a few weeks ago. We love stouts and coffee, so we can hardly wait for this one to be ready in a couple weeks. Also, in the carboy we have an English bitter. This is the first bitter we have brewed, but we really enjoy the style, so we hope it turns out to be tasty. It was a little bit of a gamble, in that the recipe is from AHS's Session Series collection. All the beers in the collection are designed to be ready in just a week after fermenting. I don't know it the flavor is going to be smooth and blended enough after that short a time, so we might give it an extra week or two before we taste it.

So that's the first installment of "BrewDay" here at BrewTaps. We'll post again when we get to transferring and tasting these brews. In the mean time, we'd love to hear what y'all are brewing and any great recipes we have just got to try.

- BrewTaps

http://www.brewtaps.com/