What is Lawnmower Beer?
Well it’s not really a recognized style of beer, but more a moniker for the type of beers that are light, crisp and have a mild flavor. There are many different styles that already fit the bill. However many people associate a simple malt bill with some adjunct sugars to dry out the finished product.

Now you might be thinking about the big nationally recognized brewers, but it is possible to brew something just as satisfying at home. More importantly, as an ale!!!

The approach I like to take with lawnmower beers is to keep the flavors clean and simple. Using a good neutral ale yeast makes for and easy ferment, and a quicker turnaround time than if you tried to brew up a lager. I like using American Ale yeast for this. I especially like to use a repitched slurry of fermentis US-05 from a previous beer. Even though this is a dry yeast, it seems to perform unbelievably well on a second pitch. If you can’t plan a brew session when you have this yeast ready, then either make a starter with some White Labs WLP001, or go ahead and pitch two packages of the US-05 (after proper rehydration of course).

Here is another quick and easy light summer beer recipe to continue our trend as summer rounds the bend. Enjoy!

LAWNMOWER BEER

5 Gallon Batch
OG 1045-1050

6.6 lbs light malt extract (2 cans)
1 lb Rice Syrup Solids
1 oz Styrian Goldings (5%AA)- 60 minute boil
American Ale Yeast of choice (I prefer US-05)

Focus on keeping your fermentation under 70F and above 65F. Break out the old “swamp cooler” and that should help you manage your temps.

These summer beer recipes are short and sweet. I’d rather spend my time enjoying good beer on a hot summer day, than brewing it.

Summer is on the way and its time to start thinking about your favorite thirst quencher.
In the summer, wheat beers are probably one of the most popular brews to start with.  This recipe is about as easy as it gets.  The beauty of doing a good wheat is that quality results lie in your process, not so much in your recipe.

All the experts agree that fermenting your Weizen at 62F to 65F degrees gives you the best ratio of banana to clove and keeps a lot of the harsher phenols and alcohols under control.  Be sure to pitch a large enough and healthy starter with this one.  Don’t skimp on the aeration or oxygenation as well.

Here is my basic wheat to get you started:

EASY SUMMER WHEAT
Batch size: 5 gallons
O.G.: 1.049
IBUs: 12-14

6.6lbs LME Wheat extract
0.85 oz Tettnager hop pellets (4.5%AA), 60 minute addition
WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale yeast

Boil the hops with the extract for 60 minutes.  Chill quickly to pitching temps and add yeast starter.  This beer should ferment out rather quickly and be ready for the bottle within 10-12 days if your yeast was fresh.

You can go from brewing to drinking with this one in about 3 weeks. 

For variation, you can steep in some light crystal malts, or some American Victory malt if you want a more complex malt character.  I’d suggest you stick with the base recipe, at least for a first pass to see how the flavors evolve.  The key difference in this beer brewer to brewer will be the brand of Wheat LME you purchase, they all have different color ratings, and different wheat to base malt ratios.  So maybe some experimentation will be needed with different brands if the beer isn’t exactly what you are looking for.

Remember that even though the recipe is simple, be vigilant with your fermentation process to get the right flavor profile.

Brew on!

I recently posted this extract Oktoberfest recipe in one of the great online forums (BKB).  If you want to brew up an Oktoberfest or Marzen but you don’t have the extra fridge space for a true lager version, sometimes you can get away with a really clean Ale yeast fermented at the cooler end of the recommended range.  Ale yeasts like German Alt yeast, or Amercian Ale yeast can give you that clean character. You can also try using the Steam Beer Lager yeast that stays clean at low ale yeast temps.

In researching this post I discovered that this may be a great beer to try using Charlie Papazian’s yeast strain, Cry Havoc.

Regardless, the key to trying to so a “fusion” lager/ale style is to really pay attention to the fermentation procedure.  Pitch big, aerate well and be patient.  The lower temps on an ale slows things down abit.

Here is an old recipe from my brewing notebooks that I used to brew.
Give it a try and tell us what you thought.

“Oktoberfest” Ale 

3.3lb Amber LME
3.3lb Light LME
0.5lb Crystal 80L (or 60L if you can’t get 80L)
0.5lb Munich (8L)
0.5lb Pale Malt (standard 2-row)
0.25lb Chocolate Malt (350L)
1oz Hallertau pellets -60min
1oz Hallertau pellets -15min
0.5oz Halertau pellets -2min
2tsp Irish Moss
Yeast= German Alt yeast or American Ale yeast (see below)

Crush grains and put in large grain bag.  Steep grain bag in one gallon of water at 150F for 30-40minutes.  Remove bag and rinse or let drain into kettle.  Bring grain tea to boil.  Add extracts.  Once boil is reachieved start 75min boil.  With 60min remaining add first 1oz hop addition, 15min remaining add second 1oz hop addition and Irish Moss, add 0.5oz addition just before the flame is killed (2 minutes).

Fermentation:  Be prepared to ferment on the cool side.  Use a good clean neutral flavored yeast that can ferment well at 65F.  Pitch a larger start than normal or use two vials of yeast, better pitched onto some yeast cake from a previous brew.  Be patient with fermentation at cooler temps (60-65F).  Rouse yeast after 5 days of fermenatation to be sure yeast stays in suspension.  This will help drive the beer to the final gravity.  Leave beer in primary ferment for 3 weeks, secondary ferment for 3 weeks to clear, then bottle as normal.

This is one of the few times I’d recommend a secondary.  Mainly because the beer does better with some age on it.
You could always brew this beer now and call it a Marzen (Ale).

Here is an extract version of a recipe I made a few years back. It was a great beer, a little too tart on the cranberries after it aged a bit. So either cut the berries by one third or be sure to drink it up while it’s fresh. (The latter being preferable to the former).

Here is the recipe reproduced here with a few modifications I had to make for local ingredients. The original version of this appeared in the October 2005 edition of BYO magazine!!! We love that mag.

1.5lbs Muntons wheat dried malt extract
3.3 lbs Coopers Wheat liquid malt extract
2.0 lbs of golden clover honey
3.0 lbs of whole cranberries
2 medium navel oranges (seedless)
2 medium apples (Granny Smith)
1/4 tsp. of yeast nutrients
1/2 tsp. of pectic enzyme (dissolved in a little beer before racking)
5 AAU Williamete hops (30 mins) (1.0 oz pellets/23g of 5% alpha acids)
Safale US-05 dried ale yeast (2 packages, formerly US-56)
1.25 cups corn sugar for priming

Brew this up adding the liquid extract late (20 miutes left in boil). Add yeast nutrients right at the end of boil before your kill the flame. Ferment in primary for 7 days. Blend all the fruit in a food processor to make a rough relish; rinds, peels, seeds and all!!!. Put that in the bottom of a secondary fermentor. Rack the beer on top of it. Save a little 80z of beer and dissolve the pectic enzyme in it.  After it is dissolved, dump it in the fermentor. I let mine sit in the primary for ten days, seven may be better to avoid over tarting from those berries.

Spiced Bourboned Oaked Holiday Amber
For 6.5 gallons final volume.
8 gallon run off, 90min boil.
Anticipated OG is 1060-1065
Mash efficiency is 75%

12lb American 2-row (or 7.5lb DME)
2lb crystal 40L
1lb crystal 60L
0.125lb crystal 120L
0.125lb chocolate malt

1.0oz Nugget (12%AA, pellets) 60-min
0.5oz Nugget (12%AA, pellets) 15-min

4.0oz American Oak Chips
8.0oz Bourbon/Whiskey (see comments below)
1/4 tsp cinnamon-ground fresh
1/8 tsp nutmeg-ground fresh

Mash in at 154F, 90 minute mash.
Boil for 30min, then start with 1st hop addition.
Irish Moss at 20-min mark.

Yeast WLP002 (or WY1028)
Use two vials of yeast or pitch a hearty dose of yeast cake from a previous batch.

Primary ferment at 68F for two weeks.
During primary:
Steam Oak chips in water steamer on high heat, 5 minutes. Steam chips, do not submerge.
Place oak chips and bourbon in a clean mason jar, cap immediately. Let sit in cool place during primary fermentation. Right before transfer to secondary strain the oak out, add spices to the bourbon, and shake well (This will sterilize the spices).
Rack beer to secondary, dump in oak bourbon spice mix. Secondary for two months at 68-70F.

Notes on secondary and Bourbon:
OK, so I don’t actually use bourbon, I have found that Johnny Walker Red Label is sort of smokey and hot, but when mixed with the beer it ages out to a smooth bourbon like quality. But this is where the extended secondary comes in, it really helps move that HOT nasty Red Label taste to the back of the beer, but it keeps a just noticeable supporting role. You can leave the oak chips in during secondary if you want a stronger oak flavor, it’s an experiment I haven’t done. When adding the bourbon mix, you can prime and bottle right away. Then bottle condition for two months and get the same effect. But there is something about bulk aging the entire 6 gallons together that just works for me.

It’s important to take good notes, kids!

Here is my log sheet that I use to keep important information straight. It’s still a work in progress, but it works for me so far! Feel free to print it out and use it. I usually print a formulated recipe from the beer recipator along with one of these logs. Then both the recipe sheet and the log sheet go into a binder with plastic sheet protectors.

Protectors keep me from getting “Sheet” on my sheet in the brew-house!

Brewing logsheet

I know some people have asked me about extract versions of my all-grain recipes.  In the future, I will do my best to remember to post an extract version of the recipes I post.  In the meantime, I wanted to put up a post about converting recipes and how I convert any all-grain recipe to extract.  That way readers can double check my math if they wish (and call me out on it!) or you can use my method to convert any recipe you see on the web yourself.

First off some personal philosphy:
While not an original thought, I agree with many others on this simple premise: Formulate all your extract recipes using only Light Malt Extract.  Once you have brewed enough extract beers from kits and you start to formulate your own recipes, using only light extracts makes good beer sense.  Primarily, it will standardize the base malt flavor profiles in your beers, which will lead to predictable results each time you brew.  Secondly, it gives you a lot more control over the flavors you get because you are controlling all the specialty malts and grains yourself.  Lastly, it will make it a hell of a lot easier to convert that recipe to all-grain should you go that direction some day.  It’s a lot easier to convert 10lbs of DME to ~16lbs of pale malt grain than it is to convert 10lbs of dark DME to who knows how many pounds of pale malt, crystal malt, chocolate and black patent; for example.  Dark dry malt extract (DME) is made with a combination of the malts I mentioned above, but it’s according to some maltser’s recipe.

OK…on to the calculations. ( I have two methods for doing this the first is more “accurate”, the second is “good enough” for the first pass.)

METHOD #1
First off, keep all the specialty malts the same in any recipe you wish to convert to extract.  For the most part that will be a good starting point. 

Next, you need two pieces of critical information the total pounds of base malt (usually Pale malt, Marris Otter, Munich Malt, Pilsner Malt, etc. etc.) and the extract efficiency.  Most of the time I assume 70-75% efficiency when formulating recipes.  This number should be given by most completed recipes but it may not be available for a recipe that hasn’t been brewed yet.  Multiply the pounds of base malt by 37PPG (point per pound per gallon, this is the typical PPG for base grain).  That equals the total points of extract assume 100% conversion and recovery.  You need to convert that total points to actual points but multiplying that last number by the percent efficiency (as a decimal).
Example:  10lbs base malt * 37PPG is 370 total points.  The actual points is going to be 259 (370*0.70=259). 

In 5 gallons, that would yield an expected OG of 1052 (259/5gallons= 51.8)

So what you need is 259 points of extract from DME or LME (Liquid Malt Extract).  For my calcs, I use an assumed 44PPG for DME and 37PPG for LME.  Just divide the total points needed by the points per pound of DME or LME.
259 points is ~5.8lbs of DME (259/44PPG)
or 259 points is 7lbs of LME (259/37PPG)

Use that much calculated extract, and steep the same amounts of specialty grains as you would with a normal extract kit.

METHOD#2
Look for the anticipate OG of the recipe you wish to convert (don’t even look at how much base malt there is).  Multiply the OG points by the batch size to get the total points of extract. For example, 5 gallons of 1050 beer would contain/need 250 points worth of extract (5 gallons*50 [from 1050 OG]=250)

Simply divide that number by the PPG of DME or LME as I did at the end of method #1.

250/44=5.6lbs DME
250/37=6.7lbs LME

Again, use that amount of extract and steep the specialty grains as you would a normal extract kit.

This method is less accurate but easier to deal with.  I often use this method if I want to just get a quick idea how much extract to buy or I want to quickly convert a recipe for someone.  It is the best way to easily get a total amount of extract (DME or LME) without worrying about efficiency in the all grain brewers mash.  The only draw back to this method is that you will end up with a slightly higher OG because this method ignores the contribution of gravity points to the OG.  But that is relatively small contribution, and if you plan to rebrew a recipe to tweak it (I recommend that approach) then you can change the extract values then.

I hope that helps with converting recipes.  If there are questions or challenges to my method of converting, post them as comments and I will address them or attempt to clarify the methods as needed. (Hopefully this post won’t turn into an excuse to forget to post the extract version of each recipe I put together in the future)