Lager laughter

So, I’m pysched to do my first lager (Munich Helles) after getting the temp control equipment for Chrtistmas and my birthday.

I go to NB Milwaukee to pick up ingredients. No german pilsner, had to go with bohemian pils. No phosphoric acid, had to go with lactic… This is the first time I’ve ever gone to NB and they’ve not had what I was looking for. I should have taken this for a sign.

My process is BIAB with dunk sparge. Get my strike water ready and start dough in. Because I’m and idiot I think my temp is really high, so I stir like crazy and and some ice to get the temp down to 150°F. Mash for 1 hour and start my sparge water heating.

When I check my mash temp at the end of 1 hour, it dropped a ton down to around 120! This is when I figure out that I must have been looking at the Celsius scale on my thermometer when I was mashing in. How can I save this? I readjust my sparge water temp, and move the bag to it so the mash temp is at 150°F. Then I heat the original mash water up to 150°F and combine the two back together, and mash for another 20 minutes (I’m working against the clock, my wife and kids will be home in a couple hours and I want to be done by then).

The boil and chill go fine and I over shoot by expected gravity by 4 points with a reading of 1.054. As I wait for my 5.5 gallons of wort to reach pitching temp of 48°F I notice a ton of cold break in the fermentor(a little less than 1 gallons worth). I rack off this to get a little less than 5 gallons of wort into which I pitch my yeast.

Some days if it’s not one thing it’s another. Some days it’s one thing AND another.

Now for a question. How did my super long protein rest effect my final beer? I assume since I got a decent O.G. that I at least got full conversion…

Two brews ago, we made a steam beer with a 15 minute mash followed by a 10 minute batch sparge and ended up with a 1.068 OG and it finished at about 1.012. Excellent beer.

Dear Wi Vikes fan,
I bought the last bottle of Phosphoric Acid on Thursday. I’ll share if you start wearing the Green and Gold.

PS I’ve noticed alot of changes lately at NB, but I drive by Brew & Gr*w because I have never met nicer people who have really helped me to better understand this hobby. I hope it is just a glitch.

[quote=“flytyer”]Dear Wi Vikes fan,
I bought the last bottle of Phosphoric Acid on Thursday. I’ll share if you start wearing the Green and Gold.

PS I’ve noticed alot of changes lately at NB, but I drive by Brew & Gr*w because I have never met nicer people who have really helped me to better understand this hobby. I hope it is just a glitch.[/quote]

Don’t do it Wivikesfan! Stay away from the Green and Gold. It’s evil.
Seriously though, I think Northern Brewer got absolutely trounced this holiday season and are still recovering. At least here in MN (which is obviously superior in every way to Wisconsin) they are shutting down each store for a day to take inventory and to restock everything.

I’ve never done a protein rest before so I don’t really know how an extended one will affect your beer. Guess you’ll have to tell us.

I love to bore people with stories.
I used to coach a youth football team whose colors are purple and gold. My wife fell into some Packer pre season tickets so for my first trip to Lambeau I got the lawn mowing done, quick took a shower, threw on my coaches shirt. Pulling off HWY 41 I saw the sea of Green and gold and thought “Oh Sh*t”. This was shortly after 9/11 and as the State patrol officer wanded me as we entered he said “You are a moron”. Needless to say I was pretty happy all they sold was crappy beer, because when you are wearing it light beer is better.

Don’t worry Inhousebrew, I will never fall. I’ve learned to put aside my irrational MN born hatered for the Pack, and replace it with a well informed strong dislike.

On the beer side of things the craziness continues. I’m lager in my garage with a ferm wrap and controller. Was working fine until the air temp got up to 60° yesterday. It brought my nice steady 50°F up to 55°F. Who would have thougt I would have had to deal with stuff like this in January.