Sunday 13 July 2008

Whither Lager?

If reader responses are anything to go by, you're just about decoction mashed out. I wondered how long it would take. My money was on the material stretching further than your patience. It seems I've been proved right.

But it would be a shame to finish with lager so quickly. And the relevant books are still piled up on my desk. I may as well continue with another aspect of lager brewing. The obvious choices are: boiling, fermentation or lagering. Any of those three particularly take your fancy?

You're probably thinking "Oh no. Not another endless series of obscure technical posts." "All three choices are dull, dull, dull. Can we get back to travel reports and jokes, please?"

Adding a practical twist is a possibility. I could post details of how to make a particular beer, say, an 1880 Dunkles Export. Or a 1870's DDR Helles. Really useful stuff. If you're a homebrewer with a lager obsession. Or a lager obsessive with an interest in homebrewing. That covers about 99% of the population, doesn't it? Though not me. I'm not a homebrewer. I could call it Let's Brew Lager. Or Lagering for Fun and Profit. Something snappy like that.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

go on then ron, i'd like to see the details on how to brew an 1880 dunkles export.

if i had to pick one of the three topics to hear more about, lagering would be my pick.

i spose the difficulty with some of the decoction posts is to relate it to some kind of real world result - i mean, what do all these different schedules do for the beer? whereas perhaps with grists and gravities it is more easy to make a guess. at least for me.

Ed

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see what you have on Helles. That's a tough one. Get it to be malty/melanoidin while keeping the color light and no off flavors.

Mark Andersen said...

I think the decoction posts were excellent and set me up to do lots of home expirimentation this coming Fall.

I'm interested in either the DDR helles or dunkles export. Actually my real obsession is any brewing/historical information on Franconian beers but I'll take what I can get.

Boak said...

Don't suppose you've got a higher resolution image of the Polish beer label have you?

Ron Pattinson said...

Boak, I'm afraid not.

Anonymous said...

Fermentation, fermentation!

Particularly if you have any insights into the topic prior to Emil Hansen's damnable monoculturing of yeast strains.

Thank you for your wonderful research and writings.