It's absolutely pouring down here in Charlottesville today. I love it!
As the temperatures cool, and I wonder again how I ever manage to survive 100º Fahrenheit heat every summer, that's almost 38º Celsius for my metric friends, my mind again wonders if this will be the winter when I make my own lager? For a person so enamoured with lager, it is perhaps a bit strange that I have yet to make one of my own.
I have a couple of reasons why I am yet to take the step into lager brewing, firstly I lack a spare refrigerator in which to lager, and secondly I am worried that I would screw up the decoction process. The first concern is actually rather easy to over come, I have space in my regular fridge for my 1 gallon carbabies to ferment at about 45ºF, and usually December and January are cold enough to lager the beer in my cellar. As such, I plan to divide a single kettle's worth of wort between 3 carbabies, ferment and then blend back together for into a larger carboy for lagering. Really, it is the decoction that bothers me.
I know plenty of brewers who would tell me that decoction mashing is pointless, a relic of a less scientific age, unnecessary because malts are better modified these days, I am sure you have heard the very same arguments, but still I want to try it. I think for my first lager I will avoid making a pilsner, simply because I have so much reverence for the style that when I do brew it, I want to get it spot on and do justice to it.
In researching how to do a decoction mash, I came across this series of videos on YouTube and thought I would share them with you, and wish you all a great weekend.
Decoction Mashing Part 1 - BrauKaiser
Part 2
Part 3
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Brewing with Murphy & Rude
Hopefully by now you have read my article about Charlottesville's Murphy & Rude Malting Company on Pellicle . One thing that I menti...

-
This is the tenth iteration of my annual list of the top ten Virginia brewed beers that I have drunk in the last 12 months. I say this every...
-
It all started by reading Andreas Krennmair's book of homebrew recipes for historic German and Austrian beers. Andreas includes in the b...
-
I have a confession to make, I keep a list of breweries and brewers that I would love to have take part in my Brewer of the Week series. So ...
That makes it seem easy to you? It made me realize why most brewers don't bother these days (although, I certainly appreciate those who do!)
ReplyDeleteI've actually been wanting to start home–brewing, and the big thing that's scaring me off is lagers, since they're what I most want to brew. But, my problem is more fundamental: I live in Florida! Even in the middle of winter our temperatures are too hot for a proper lager, which means I need to get a whole temperature control set up going, and that dramatically increases the cost and difficulty for me. Oh well.
Not easy, just slightly less daunting.
ReplyDelete