Hey there. Hope your brewing adventures have been going well. Yesterday I had time to brew up my Harvest Lager using home grown hops and a Mexican Lager strain.
Recipe Thoughts
The grain bill is simple. I got a nice American pale malt to mill along with a pound of 60⁰ L Caramel malt. I planned to make an amber colored, sweet wort that would go well with all the hops going into the beer.
I bought all the ingredients I needed from Rebel Brewer. These guys like to send love notes along with their packing slips.
How sweet.
Hop Additions
I re-read my notes from last year’s harvest brew and it was clear I should add more hops to the kettle. I started off with an ounce of my Magnum hops once the boil started rolling. These hops do very well in my beers. I have brewed with them for many years now and they provide that same clean, smooth bitterness as the hops I buy in the stores do.
Then, with 20 minutes to go in the boil, I added an ounce and a half of the home grown Mt. Hood hops. In the past, I would put in just an ounce, and I am hoping a little bit more will work. Thinking about it, I should have added a full two ounces. Next time.
Once the boil was done, I did add 2 ounces of Mt. Hood hops to steep before the chilling began. Because there were so many cones in the kettle, I put these hops in a fine mesh bag and shoved it under my immersion chiller so that it would stay submerged. After 20 minutes of steeping, I ran the water through my chiller and started to bring the temperature down.
The plan is to dry hop right before the end of fermentation with probably another 1 to 2 ounces of hop cones. I will have to see how much I can get into the carboy when the time comes.
Mexican Lager Yeast Starter
For this brew, I bought two vials of White Labs WLP940 Mexican lager strain. I made two 3 liter starters and it’s a good thing too. One of the vials had an expiration date of October 9th which on brew day was only 4 days away. Of the two starters, that one took an extra day to get started. By the time I pitched it, it was at the peak of fermentation. I am glad I went through the steps of making a starter. If I hadn’t I would have had some sluggish yeast and it probably would have produced a crappy beer.
Making yeast starters has majorly improved my beer brewing. Get into them if you haven’t already.
Chris
My starter of 940 was 57 days old and still took over 12 hours to get going. I made an ale and lager ( I brew 10 gallons ) and the hops came out more in the lager than the ale. I don’t know if it is a yeast thing or a lager thing. Anyway, the 940 made a great beer and I plan on using it again. Looking forward to your tasting results.
Cheers,
Chris