Coopers Euro Lager-what hop

[rotten]

It looks good to me although i don't know know much about most of those ingredients. I can't beleive how quick my obsession with a better beer has moved since i started using the forum. Going to order some crystal malt, munich malt and more hops tomorrow after going through john palmers 'how to brew' again. Will know tomorrow when trying to order but does Pale LME mean a style of liquid malt? If i can't find 'Perle" hops, what would be similar? Gonna make a pilsener and a malty-bitter oktoberfest soon.
Cheers

[bullfrog]

I'm not too worried about the bitterness because i think when you boi, you lose some due to evaporation. I'm actually considering dropping the overall batch size by the amount lost in boil to keep bitterness. (does that make sense to anyone?)

The boil evaporation hinders your hop utilisation because it sends the boil gravity up (same amount of malt with less water). It isn't that there ends up being less wort with isomerised alpha acids that gets diluted by more water; it's that less of the alpha acids get isomerised. I'm not sure if it's recommended or not, but I tend to top up my boil volume during the boil, to make up for the evaporation. You generally get a bit of a scum line where the wort originally came to in your pot so I just have a kettle on hand and top back up to that line whenever it starts dropping too much.

EDIT: And yes; Pale LME is a liquid malt. LME = Liquid Malt Extract where DME = Dry Malt Extract.

[Anna]

Morning Rotten! I don't understand why you couldn't download Brewmate. You certainly don't have to pay anything - or even register. I have daily dialogue with Rob, the developer, and he is adamant that it is, and always will be, free! Anyhoo, here's the link in case you want to try again:

http://www.brewmate.net/downloads

I was going to attach the .exe file itself, but looks like pm's don't allow attachments.

I am currently testing a new version which, when released, will have Aussie style options and also Coopers (and other) kits listed in the Fermentables. It really is nice and easy for K&B brewers like myself, 'cause you don't have to worry about boil times, etc.

Great to see you two guys pushing the boundaries with your hops!

[Chrisp]

Rotten how are you going, i know what you mean about how quickly the obsession is growing. Going to sleep latley thinking about the next brew, or what i can do to improve ect. Found the perle hops. If you go to the craftbrewer web page and enter it into the key word search it should come up. it says it is a spicy, leathery slightly floral and fruity bittering hop. A close relitive of hallertau, and northen brewer.Used in APA's, wheats, and pilsners. Hope this helps. Started using grains recently myself, and loving them. Purchased a cooking thermometer from the HBS and digital scales from k-mart . Have a look at carapils for the pilsner.

[bullfrog]

Have a look at carapils for the pilsner.

Carapils, in my understanding, is only really used for head retention. It isn't so much a malted pilsener malt; more a grain that's to be used in place of maltodextrin.

[Chrisp]

Yeah fair call bullfrog,i have read it is dextrine based, didnt know it was specifically for head retention just that it was a good spec grain rather than base- malted grain. I did think though it is a good starting point to get into grains. Would you recomend a malted pilsner and would it need cracking and mashing
Cheers Crisp

[Trough Lolly]

Gday guys.
I have only made 1 lager before and that was purely a K&K brew, 10 weeks old now and still green. Looking to do a true cold temp lager.
I have heaps of Tettnager, Saaz and a bit of Amarillo left. Looking to Tettnager at the moment, unsure how much to use though. Could i mix Tettnager and Saaz.
Fermentables I have to use are plenty of DLME and Dex. Can Coopers European Lager as base. I can boil up to 3.5 ltrs MAX.
Any suggestion appreciated.
Cheers.

G'day rotten,
Getting back to your original question, Tettnanger and Saaz are ideal hops for a Euro Lager. The Tettnanger are ok for boiling, as long as they have a fairly decent alpha acid rating. I wouldn't waste them for bittering if they're under 3.5% A/A.

More importantly, you mentioned that you want to cold ferment the beer which is a great way to make a true Euro Lager. So what yeast did you use? The important point here is that the yeast has a significant impact on the finished beer. Fortunately you can easily purchase some dry lager yeast including W34/70 or S-23 to do the job. S-189 is an excellent dry yeast and if it's fresh I find it one of my personal favourites. The keys to a good lager are fresh ingredients, temp control and patience - use a quality yeast and the beer will be much better than any tinkering you'll ever do with your hop calculations.

Cheers,
TL

[rotten]

G'day TL. I used S-23 yeast, heard it was pretty good and i had one on hand. Tett hops were 4.5% from memory, an australian grown product from craftbrewer. Have managed to keep temp between 14-16 degrees which is not as cold as i would have liked, but good enough. My normal temps are 18-20 degrees. Trying to make sure everything perfect seeing as i can't drink it for so long.
Cheers

[Trough Lolly]

You'll be fine - allow more than a week for the lager to finish off in primary...

Cheers,
TL

[rotten]

No worries, i'm making sure i don't touch it for two weeks. Secondary fermentation for me is in the bottle. How strongly would you suggest to rack, and to cool or not to cool after primary. I can store in shed at approx 12 degrees this time of year but it will fluctuate.
Cheers

[Trough Lolly]

The shed is fine - if you have a fridge and temp controller, you could cold condition / lager all of the bottles, but if you don't want to get too involved, the shed will be fine. Depending on how many bottles you have, open one a month and see if you can detect the gradual improvement in the beer after each bottle. It's a pretty inexact science as you won't have exactly the same conditions in each bottle, but if you can keep them cold, you should be able to detect the subtle changes in the beer's character as the months go by.

The first thing you should notice is carbonation levels going up. See if you can pick up any butterscotch (diacetyl) flavours or cabbage (DMS) flavours...hopefully you wont!

Cheers,
TL

[rotten]

No worries. I do store them in an old non working fridge in the shed, i could drink them straight out of there this time of year it's pretty well sealed and cool. I like cold beer though even in winter so they still go in beer fridge before drinking to get that chill haze.
Cheers.