Long time lurker, only have about a dozen brews under my belt. Had a question about my next extract kit. I am looking for advice from anyone who has brewed a black lager that they have tweaked with one adjunct or another for flavor. I’m a serious hop head so obviously I would love to do a serious dry hopping, but am open to other “flavors.”
Also, on a different note, I am looking for rhizomes for Saaz or Spalt but have been unable to source them. Anyone know if they are available ANYWHERE or are they proprietary.
Sorry I can only answer your last question - Saaz and Spalter have been around way, way, too long to be propietary. What kind of beer is this going to be?
It is just another brewers best kit, but I always try something a little different to experiment. I was thinking of adding some molasses to give it a sweet edge like a Schwarzbier, but I have no idea how much. I also have some wild harvested sarsaparilla root, but i think it would just muddy the flavor so I’ll save it for some root beer.
Re: rhizomes- I wonder if there are any members that have sourced these internationally? maybe they are easier to come by across the pond.
well, I chickened out of doing anything crazy with this brew, except boosting the grav with some extra dme. The math yields an ABV of 5.51 about 1% over what the extract kit would normally produce. I’ve transferred into a corny keg to secondary/lager in my keggerator for a few weeks. My question now is this: My cheap dorm fridge find has a less than ideal thermostat. The warmest it goes on the dail is 39f. So unless I wanted to babysit the outlet and plug/unplug the darn thing, this lagering process starts quite abruptly. I did it. I admit it. I went directly from 58f to 39f. anyone else ever had to crash a lager like this? I’ll wager it will be fine, but wondering if anyone else ever had done this before.
[quote=“pscdouglas”]Long time lurker, only have about a dozen brews under my belt. Had a question about my next extract kit. I am looking for advice from anyone who has brewed a black lager that they have tweaked with one adjunct or another for flavor. I’m a serious hop head so obviously I would love to do a serious dry hopping, but am open to other “flavors.”
Also, on a different note, I am looking for rhizomes for Saaz or Spalt but have been unable to source them. Anyone know if they are available ANYWHERE or are they proprietary.
Thanks in advance![/quote]
A couple of years ago I took the grain bill from my schwarz beer and combined it with the hop schedule and yeast from my czech pils. It turned out pretty good.
I think those rhizomes are available. If you can find a sterling you can use that in place of saaz, they are fairly close and grow better in the U S.
Lets breathe life back into this… Our host got my attention just recently…
I’m thinking next week is a good time to start a Lager series… So brewing this style, are we NOT wanting any flavor from the darkness? Whats your take?
Sneezles61
Interested in brewing this sometime soon, although I would probably be drinking a keg of this myself, so I better make something I really like (my inner circle/covid pod/ of friends/wife/ neighbors would likely not gravitate to a dark roasty beer that screams homebrew, lol)
Stout is not my jam, so there’s that. So a clean lager profile is preferred.
OK… seems like its a very small stout with Lager rather than Ale… I’ve not played with Carafa style malts… Its a de-bittered style malt… No matter what I do, using a dark malt will bring in the heaviness…
hhhmmmm… more plotting and scheming. Simple, small Lager and just a very small amount of very dark malt… Even a chocolate would avoid the bitter side…?
Sneezles61
1/4 lb gave my bock a SRM of 20. I would say 1/2 lb would get you @ SRM of 40… so perhaps 10 oz would be a good black bier.(5 gallon batch of course) SRM Beer Color - Two Beer Dudes
I’m thinking I went down that road… It would be too much… hide the Pils side of this brew…
I will use the chocolate wheat regardless… I do have a bit more to use up…
Sneezles61
Understood, I remember that. Interestingly the BJCP guideliines have the SRM for Schwarzbier as 17-30! 17 is decidedly not black…so there is room for interpretation. Midnight Wheat is nice because I haven’t detected any flavors from it, just color. So an SRM of 30 might be a good middle ground…six ounces. Thinking out loud.
About 5% ABV is a decent road to drive on… I’ll suppose, keep it simple…
50/50 Pils and Wheat…
Next?
Sneezles61
EDIT: scratch the wheat… 80% Pils 20%Vienna… Color with Midnight Wheat… 2 oz…
Agreed. The bock I have in the fermenter currently is close to a Doppelbock, with an expected ABV of 7.3%…thinking I’d like this one to be @ 5% or even a little less…just to have something a little crushable(but with enough body and character to not be a “session beer”, not a fan).
Nice tool to calculate your SRM as you plot your beer…with 2 ounces you’e coming in around SRM of 10-11.
That is fun to play with… But it didn’t have a place to say I would drink it out of a black stein!
It doesn’t appear to get even close to “black” with even 4 oz… I’ll get some de-bittered black malt…
Too much happening today to dive in deep… Tomorrow I’ll get my grainbill together… American-ize it and up the hops? Williamette even?
Sneezles61
EDIT: I have CHOCOLATE wheat… not midnight…
Chocolate wheat and Midnight wheat are similar…I think the chocolate wheat may have a bit more flavor contribution than midnight(which is almost none in my experience). Another good discussion of the dark malt/wheat products below.
I know I’ve had good results in the past with the dehusked Carafa Special products II and III, I think @dannyboy58 uses them…good color without the roast.
I do definitely prefer the carafa SPECIAL over midnight wheat. The schwarzbier I brewed with midnight wheat seems to have more roast and chocolate than I prefer or have had in the past. it’s a busier recipe than I like so i can’t blame it entirely on the MW so I won’t use the recipe again anyway.
I really think the NB black lager looks like a good starting point for this style. It’s essentially a darkened pils which is what I feel the style really should be. My last one was more like a “stout lager”.
