New brewer

[Crunk]

That I know, in Stuttgart I was taught to pronounce it as:

Prost,

Nice to meet you all, I am in awe of the wealth of knowledge here. Looking forward to learning all I can.

[Weizenberg]

[Crunk]

I do apologize if it offended you it wasn't meant to do that I wish I had more time in Germany to learn a lot more now I will have to learn it here at least the Brewing part hopefully some lifelong friendships come out of it

[Crunk]

Prosit is much better, prost by definition is quite informal or even rude, again I meant no disrespect.

[Brandon]

[Crunk]

Greetings Brandon, I noticed you also live in pennsylvania I am in Dillsburg south west of harrisburg, I am extremely interested in being able to brew quality german style lager, maybe we can get together sometime for collaboration and a few beers, I could definitely make good use of some advice and even a little training.

I would be happy to contact you anytime that's good for you, if you would be interested and have a little extra time which I know is limited for most people. The brew clubs around me are too busy, and not accepting members currently, and most in my area are concentrating on craft beers ipas not so much into traditional german bavarian lagers,

Feel free to text me if you get a little time.

My name is gene.

1-717-448-2639

[Weizenberg]

[Techbrau]

Just FYI, there are many different breweries in Germany named "Hofbrau" something or other, and most of them are not affiliated with one another. "Hofbrau" roughly translates to "Royal Brewery" and German history being what it is, there were many, many small kingdoms with their own "Royal Brewery". So Stuttgart Hofbrau has nothing to do with Munich Hofbrau, neither of which have anything to do with Wurzburg's Hofbrau, and so on.

If you haven't read through this yet, take a look: http://www.germanbrewing.net/docs/Brewi ... les-v2.pdf

The key to getting the "elusive" German light lager flavor that I think you are searching for is to employ a process that takes into account the quality control factors which modern German breweries pay attention to, but most homebrewers and microbrewers don't pay (enough) attention to. These include:

1) Extreme reduction of oxygen pickup at all stages of the brewing process, hot and cold
2) Taking care not to "overcook" the wort by boiling it too much
3) Being very mindful of pH throughout the process and using sour wort (sauergut) to adjust it instead of mineral acids
4) Having a good, straightforward, but perfectly balanced recipe
5) Impeccable fermentation

Around here, we generally solve 1) on the hot side by preboiling all of our brewing water to drive off dissolved oxygen, using a modest amount of antioxidant (sodium metabisulfite or campden, to the tune of ~30-40 mg/l), eliminating as much air uptake as possible during the mash/boil, and removing all sources of oxidation catalysts, which are predominantly transition metals found in the water or that leech from brewing equipment. You can address the metals by a) changing over your entire system to well-passivated stainless steel (no copper) and b) using RO water and/or employing a metal chelating agent like Brewtan B. To give you a point of reference, most homebrewers don't bother degassing their water, and start out with about 5 or 6 ppm dissolved oxygen in their strike water before they even add the grain. This is enough dissolved oxygen to completely destroy the delicate, fresh grain flavor found in your favorite German light lagers within a minute or two of dough-in. A lot of homebrewers believe that HSA doesn't exist, because it happens so fast and so easily that you could go your whole life without ever tasting non-oxidized wort. It actually takes a lot of effort to avoid HSA.

Most of us abandoned decoction mashing because it introduces too much oxygen and you risk overcooking the mash. With good malt, you can ideally get away with a Hochkurz infusion mash of 30 minutes at 62c, 30 minutes at 72c, and 5-10 minutes at 76c. The malt from Germany has been weird lately, though, with an unusually high gelatinization temperature and in some cases a low level of modification. So if you get such malt, you may need to introduce a short protein rest around 55c and increase the beta rest from 62c to 64-65c.

On the cold side, we prevent oxidation by racking the fermenting beer to a keg (filled completely to the brim), in a closed way if possible into a purged keg, when the beer still has approximately 1% fermentable extract (or 4 gravity points) left before reaching final attenuation. The yeast in suspension finishes up the fermentation, which scavenges any and all oxygen that was picked up during racking, and provides natural carbonation simultaneously. After you've done this, don't open up the keg at all until it's kicked (opening it up to add dry hops, gelatin, etc. will completely undermine all of your hard work)

We solve 2) by boiling the wort as little as possible and with as low of a flame as possible. For me, that means boiling with the lid almost entirely covering the kettle, and aiming for an evaporation rate of approximately 6% over 50-60 minutes.

3) Make sauergut if you can. Acid malt is a poor substitute but the next best thing. Mash at 5.2 to 5.4. Knockout at 5.0-5.1.

4) There are many, many good recipes and will need to take some time to find one you really enjoy. A good starting point is 10-15% vienna malt, 3-5% carahell, and the rest pilsner malt - but experiment. Try using munich malt instead of vienna malt, or caramunich instead of carahell. Use enough hops, but exercise restraint. It is very easy to over-hop and cover up the malt flavor too much, or under-hop and end up with a flabby beer. Every system achieves a different hop utilization and you will need to experiment and fine tune via trail and error. For a helles, a good starting point is to shoot for 16-18 IBUs. You can get this entirely from a single 60 minute addition, or divide it between a 60 minute addition and a 15 minute addition. Keep the 15 minute addition to below 0.5 g/l of hops.

5) You need to find a yeast that works for you. WLP835, WLP838, and WY2206 are favorites around here. We like to ferment cold, pitching at 6-8c and fermenting at 8-10c. You need to pitch a good amount of healthy, freshly propagated yeast (~15 million cells per ml for a standard strength 12 plato beer) that was grown with a good amount of oxygen, and provide at least a little bit of oxygen to the cold wort after you add the yeast (~6-8 ppm).

If you want to buy the best be-all, end-all textbook that exists in English then this is the one:

https://www.vlb-berlin.org/en/technolog ... nd-malting

You can order it directly from VLB and they will ship to the states. Forget everything that every other junk homebrewing book says and just follow Kunze, because it is the bible of brewing.

[Crunk]

That is a huge help. Many of the points made in this post I follow meticulously, the others I will get my act together on immediately.

Wlp838 is my favorite.

My lagers come out very smooth mouth feel, almost creamy or oily, no acidic bite (which I look so forward to)

My boils have been 90 minutes

I have been racking to the keg as a secondary, then I cartridge filter that to another keg with co2 then I hook up my blichmann quick carb for an hour. My carbonation seems weak.

My beer barely has head to it but laces nicely in the glass.

It has too much chill haze also.

I think I need a few lessons.

[Crunk]

And I'm purchasing the recommended book. Immediately.

I am planning on brewing this saturday, I will be implementing all this information into this session.

Thank you very much, I will keep you all updated.