Samuel Adams Boston Lager

[Tadge]

Just a twist on this one,


Went back to the states for a few weeks and tried SA winter lager. Has coriander and .............citrus (maybe). I could google it for more info, but it is a fantastic brew from a swiller.

Definatley better than the boston lager.

Tadge

[Trough Lolly]

Was browsing recipes, and came on this:

Samuel Adams Taste-Alike Beer

The recipe looks interesting enough, except for one thing....
I wouldn't be pitching the yeast at 80F!! I'd chill the wort down to under 15C and add some lager yeast - suggest S-23 (Dry) or Wyeast 2124 or 2112 (Liquid).

Cheers,
TL

[kangarool]

OK, I did attempt this, per rwh's guidelines, a couple months back. It's not the greatest, but it might be due to its still being too early to really judge properly

I worked hard to control the temperature for a lager, and am pretty confident that I kept it around 12-14 deg. for the duration of primary (2 weeks or so). But i don't have a fridge, so the temp wasn't constant, but it didn't flucuate too much I'm sure.

It has now been in bottles for ... let's see... just over 4 weeks. I've tried a couple bottles, and while the taste isn't bad, they are very undercarbonated. I'm not sure if I added enough priming sugar to the bottles, or if they have been kept to cold since bottling to carbonate, or if they haven't yet had enough time.

anyway, so far it's been not a disaster, they are still drinkable, but i've been the least impressed compared to, say, my LCPA/SNPA brew, which is already excellent after just a couple weeks in bottle.

I guess you could say I was warned...

[Turner]

ok guys here's a question

i'm about to put this one down tonight (as per rwh's recipe)
my question is: i don't have a massive pot, and don't feel like buying one. can i put the extracts in the fermenter as normal, and boil the hops on their own in a smaller saucepan on my stove, adding them a bit later?

hope that's not too retarded a question or answered elsewhere a million times already - i'm at work and not really meant to message board it up, haha.

thanks

[rwh]

Yes, you can. But add malt so that your boil has the same gravity as you will be fermenting at. So if your boil is 1L, add 1/23 of the fermentables, if it's two litres add 2/23 of the fermentables etc.

The reason being, the hops does actually chemically interact with the malt, so you will get a different result from boiling the hops in plain water.

[Turner]

ok sounds cool!
i probably won't be that good at measuring 1/23 of 3L of malt etc, so can i "guesstimate" how much malt to put in and not do too much damage?

i will be using about 1L of mix at the most

[kangarool]

Just one more post on this while it's still a live topic... I did pull my bottled bunch out of the cold shed, and let them warm up for a few days to get the carbonation happening... worked a treat. Totally changed my perspective on the drinkability of this batch, and i'm back to being very happy with it.

Just to make sure, I picked up a bottle at the bottleshop next to the East Brunwick pub, around lygon and victoria st. or thereabouts (at $4.75 a bottle!), to taste test/compare.

And I'm happy to announce, sip for sip, rwh's recipe and my brewing skills have given me a very, very close approximation, and that's at just a month or so in bottle. So, even for a novice brewer like me, this is a very achievable concoction, and not a bad option at all for a cold rainy melbourne winter saturday arvo book-by-the-fire kind of beverage.

[rwh]

can i "guesstimate" how much malt to put in and not do too much damage?

You sure can.

An example: for a kit (1.7kg liquid) plus kilo (1kg LDME), doing a 1L boil, I'd add 100g LDME to your boil.

Calculated thusly: 1.7*0.8 to convert liquid weight to dry, so total dry weight: 2.3kg. Therefore 1/23 size of boil = 100g LDME. You could just approximate with like 4 tablespoons of LDME if you like.

[Turner]

thanks for the info mate!

i just put it down then. waiting for the wort to cool down as we speak

[davekate]

I like a Boston Lager, its not a bad session beer. Good to have in the keg for BBQs! (I keep the other keg of Forbidden Fruit a secret)
Here is the recipe I use from Clone Brews - -

Clone Brews Samual Adams Boston Lager (Extract)

For 19L

1.8kg LME
1.1kg Light DME
.23kg 60L Crystal (Steeped)
57gm Tettnanger (60 Min)
14gm Mittelfruh (15 Min)
14gm Tettnanger (2 Min)
7gm Mittelfruh (Secondary)
Wyeast 2112 California Lager Yeast or
WLP810 San Francisco Lager Yeast

OG: 1.049 - 1.052
FG: 1.011 - 1.013
SRM: 9.5
IBU: 35
ABV: 4.9%

Cheers
DK

[Turner]

I just tasted the first one last night
There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't really taste like Sam Adams. ah well!

[rwh]

Haha that's the problem with clone brews. Most people end up noticing that they taste better than the original and stop being so obsessed with the cloning process, and more obsessed with the making friggin awesome beer process.