Extract kit for malty lager/pilsner

FancyWater

Hi all, would really appreciate some suggestions on a good kit for a refreshing, malty lager or pilsner; ideally something along the lines of budvar.

I've had a bit of success recently brewing coopers ale and irish stout (using spraymalt in both cases) and looking to brew something a bit more easily drinkable and refreshing.

I'd been put off brewing pilsner since my very first attempt at doing a homebrew when I used a Coopers 86 Days Pilsner with 1kg dextrose which ended up very weak bodied, "apple"-y tasting and generally unpleasant.
I gave a lager another shot recently (Masterpint European Lager with 1.5kg LME) and the body is good, but the flavour is really not to my taste: very heavy fruit flavours, puts me more in mind of a wheat beer, something like blue moon. It's my first time using LME so I'm not sure if that might have contributed to some of the flavour.

Any input much appreciated!

TomOnBoard

FancyWater wrote: »

Hi all, would really appreciate some suggestions on a good kit for a refreshing, malty lager or pilsner; ideally something along the lines of budvar.

I've had a bit of success recently brewing coopers ale and irish stout (using spraymalt in both cases) and looking to brew something a bit more easily drinkable and refreshing.

I'd been put off brewing pilsner since my very first attempt at doing a homebrew when I used a Coopers 86 Days Pilsner with 1kg dextrose which ended up very weak bodied, "apple"-y tasting and generally unpleasant.
I gave a lager another shot recently (Masterpint European Lager with 1.5kg LME) and the body is good, but the flavour is really not to my taste: very heavy fruit flavours, puts me more in mind of a wheat beer, something like blue moon. It's my first time using LME so I'm not sure if that might have contributed to some of the flavour.

Any input much appreciated!

Your Apple-y taste sounds like an acetaldehyde issue.. It comes from an incomplete fermentation and/or a lack of conditioning I think.

Getting a Budvar flavour is going to be as much about the hops used as anything. If you could get some Saaz based pilsner extract you'd be laughing...I

An issue that will arise for you is temperature control. Ideally, that style likes relatively cool fermentation- Ireland in February rather than July.

All that said:

Get'erbrewed has a 23 litre Mangrove Jacks New Zealand Pilsner for 11 squids plus delivery. It needs 1kg of brewing sugar, but I'd use a kg of DME (for the extra malty flavour you've requested) instead (or 50:50 if budget is very tight.)

Homebrewwest does a nice blonde in its Craft range that comes fully loaded with all required malts. However, they seem extremely low on stocks lately.

HTH

FancyWater

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Your Apple-y taste sounds like an acetaldehyde issue.. It comes from an incomplete fermentation and/or a lack of conditioning I think.

Getting a Budvar flavour is going to be as much about the hops used as anything. If you could get some Saaz based pilsner extract you'd be laughing...I

An issue that will arise for you is temperature control. Ideally, that style likes relatively cool fermentation- Ireland in February rather than July.

All that said:

Get'erbrewed has a 23 litre Mangrove Jacks New Zealand Pilsner for 11 squids plus delivery. It needs 1kg of brewing sugar, but I'd use a kg of DME (for the extra malty flavour you've requested) instead (or 50:50 if budget is very tight.)

Homebrewwest does a nice blonde in its Craft range that comes fully loaded with all required malts. However, they seem extremely low on stocks lately.

HTH

Thanks very much for the reply Tom

Based on your comment with regards to hopping, do you think the "Mangrove Jacks Craft Series Pils with Dry Hops" on GetErBrewed would do the job? Looks like it's got dried hops in the extract. [can't post a link as I'm a newbie, sorry!]

Or better to start with the New Zealand Pils, and throw hop pellets/hop tea bag onto the order?

Probably fairly apparent by now that I haven't brewed with hops before! In the case of using hops separately does this need secondary fermentation?

Not too fussed on the price at the moment to be honest, I'm happy to spend a reasonable amount to do it properly.

With regards to temperature and settling time after bottling, do these make a huge difference to this type of brew? On the ale and stout I've made I've noticed they're "nice enough" to drink after 1-2 weeks bottled and resting at ~15 degrees, and pretty good at 3-4 weeks. Improving somewhat (but not particularly significantly) after this

TomOnBoard

FancyWater wrote: »

Thanks very much for the reply Tom

Based on your comment with regards to hopping, do you think the "Mangrove Jacks Craft Series Pils with Dry Hops" on GetErBrewed would do the job? Looks like it's got dried hops in the extract. [can't post a link as I'm a newbie, sorry!]

Or better to start with the New Zealand Pils, and throw hop pellets/hop tea bag onto the order?

Probably fairly apparent by now that I haven't brewed with hops before! In the case of using hops separately does this need secondary fermentation?

Not too fussed on the price at the moment to be honest, I'm happy to spend a reasonable amount to do it properly.

With regards to temperature and settling time after bottling, do these make a huge difference to this type of brew? On the ale and stout I've made I've noticed they're "nice enough" to drink after 1-2 weeks bottled and resting at ~15 degrees, and pretty good at 3-4 weeks. Improving somewhat (but not particularly significantly) after this

The MJ Craft Pils seems to have what you need alright. You'll need to couple it with the LME rather than brewing sugar coz you want malty. The yeast in that kit will do best at the lower end of its range. The downside to that is that it'll be quite slow to start.

Here's a thought If you're prepared to invest a bit more effort and slightly more moolah: If you have two fermenters, consider this.. Use the kit with LME and split it into two equal batches. Put most of the m54 yeast in batch 1. Buy an additional yeast from the kveik range in GetErBrewed and pitch half of that into batch 2. The kveik batch will work up to much higher temperatures without throwing out off flavours. You will need to double up on yeast nutrient as the kveiks need more free nitrogen than other yeasts. Dry hop at the end with half in each batch.

Why do this?

1. You're broadening your horizons.
2. You're learning more about this hobby and will gain a better understanding of how different components can change the end product.
3. Kveik based beers are much more forgiving of higher temps in Summertime brewing.
4. You'll have 10 L of two different beers based on the same kit, rather than a single one that, if you don't like, you're stuck with..
5. You're building up your own yeast bank.

Dry hopping is just a stage at the end of the primary fermentation before kegging/bottling. Personally, I dont see great benefit from secondary fermentation as an extra step. An extra week or two in Primary won't do any harm and will limit introduction of oxygen to the brew.

The kveik batch will ferment out ahead of the M54 one and will be drinkable within days although it will improve over the course of a few weeks. You're not going to be keeping either one long-term, as the hop character will wane in the first few months. I'd suggest you spend a bit of time checking out this kveik phenomenon.... Native to the bottom half of Norway and probably with thousands of years of development, it's only been 're-discovered' and getting worldwide attention in the last few years.

Bet you're sorry you asked....

Edit: I should have mentioned that the most appropriate kveik strain would probably be Oslo as other strains can result in some tropical, citrusy and fruity flavours that are noticable departures from a true Czech Pils.

FancyWater

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Bet you're sorry you asked....

Not at all, I probably wouldn't have thought of a dual approach without you mentioning it and I'm still completely at sea with yeast strains etc. To be honest, I'm still fairly early days in general at the moment so not entirely sure how various components contribute; all I know is I've had a couple of bad batches though, and I'm keen to avoid having another 40 pints of muck

You've mentioned a few things there I'll need to do some more research on (e.g. yeast banks - I've just been using the dried packs with the kits up to now). And as for yeast nutrients I've not added anything else in at all up to now beyond the extract kit, water, and LME/DME/sugar.

TomOnBoard

FancyWater wrote: »

Not at all, I probably wouldn't have thought of a dual approach without you mentioning it and I'm still completely at sea with yeast strains etc. To be honest, I'm still fairly early days in general at the moment so not entirely sure how various components contribute; all I know is I've had a couple of bad batches though, and I'm keen to avoid having another 40 pints of muck

You've mentioned a few things there I'll need to do some more research on (e.g. yeast banks - I've just been using the dried packs with the kits up to now). And as for yeast nutrients I've not added anything else in at all up to now beyond the extract kit, water, and LME/DME/sugar.

I hope I haven't made things too complex in my earlier reply. Let me clarify:

Most if not all kits nowadays come complete and all you have to supply is suitable water, a high level of cleanliness/sanitation and faithful use of the instructions supplied. So, the yeast etc are going to be grand, although speed and quality of fermentation will depend on the fermentation temperature that you provide. You generally don't need to worry about things like nutrients unless stated.

It's when you start playing around with the recipe and the process that you can make changes which can impact the final product. In that context, my suggestion about trying a kveik was intended to address possible increased temps that you'll experience in Summer and because kveiks are very vigorous they'll need more nutrients than they'll find in the kit.

So, faithful following of the kit to the letter will provide a good representation of what the manufacturer was trying to achieve, assuming the variables in your control are 'normal'. If you're finding that you're producing 'muck', there's something wrong with your process. We all make an odd bad batch, but if they're regular, I'd say you have an issue in your 'brewery'. Try and describe why it is you think a batch is 'muck' and other ppl may be able to figure out what, if anything, went wrong. Focus on getting the simple things right, with a heavy emphasis on clean and sanitary practices using simple inputs. Be clear on the styles that you really liked and get a kit that emulates that style. However, don't expect to get a clean crisp lager that ought to be fermented at say 10 degrees and conditioned in a cold store, if you ferment it at 20 and leave it beside a radiator for a couple of weeks afterwards. Your process is changing the environment beyond what the manufacturer intended.

One of the most crucial elements in home brewing is understanding yeast: what it is, how it grows, what environment it needs etc. Too often, lads give too little attention to the yeast and blame the other components for a less than desired product. Check out this online PowerPoint that you might learn a few things from:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzoCKipGpHQ

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/biosciences/documents/business/food-innovation-centre/craft-brewing-workshop-oct-2017/brewing-yeast-theory-and-practice-by-chris-boulton.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjxvseKiN3qAhUVTxUIHdesAHQQFjARegQICxAB&usg=AOvVaw3KvSGXIBl0ELOahqk2Urtq

FancyWater

TomOnBoard wrote: »

In that context, my suggestion about trying a kveik was intended to address possible increased temps that you'll experience in Summer and because kveiks are very vigorous they'll need more nutrients than they'll find in the kit.

So, faithful following of the kit to the letter will provide a good representation of what the manufacturer was trying to achieve, assuming the variables in your control are 'normal'. If you're finding that you're producing 'muck', there's something wrong with your process.

I suppose my experience with the last kit has knocked me a bit and now I'm not sure how much of what I don't like about the result is down to what I've done (or not done) vs. the flavour/characteristics of the kit just not being to my taste. I naively thought that moving to a DME or LME would just "make it better"

I'm reasonably confident with the sanitization side of things but you're absolutely right I need to be thinking more about temperature, actually identifying kits that I like and why, and being sure to do things consistently.

Cheers again for the help and the links, I'll get my reading hat on.

In the interest of learning from experience and laying my prior mistakes all out, my experience up to now:

(all using tap water, fermenting between 18-22 degrees for ~7-8 days, resting ~12-16, using the kit yeast)

* Coopers 86 days pilsner, brewing sugar.

Screwed this one up at the beginning, "topped up" the fermenter with boiling water after pitching in the yeast. Poor result (no body, apple-y off taste)

* Coopers Family Secret Amber Ale, light spray malt

This turned out well, good body, good carbonation, nice caramel flavour

* Coopers Irish Stout, dark spray malt

This turned out very well, good body, good carbonation, nice light coffee flavour.

* Masterpint European Lager (stayed 14 days in fermentation, took a while to get two FG readings that weren't different 24 hours apart)

I think this got "skunked" a bit in the fermentation as I didn't have any covering over the bucket (thought it was packed away far enough under a desk, apparently not). Sulphur-ish taste, very strong citrus/fruit flavour very much not to my taste

TomOnBoard

FancyWater wrote: »

I suppose my experience with the last kit has knocked me a bit and now I'm not sure how much of what I don't like about the result is down to what I've done (or not done) vs. the flavour/characteristics of the kit just not being to my taste. I naively thought that moving to a DME or LME would just "make it better"

I'm reasonably confident with the sanitization side of things but you're absolutely right I need to be thinking more about temperature, actually identifying kits that I like and why, and being sure to do things consistently.

Cheers again for the help and the links, I'll get my reading hat on.

In the interest of learning from experience and laying my prior mistakes all out, my experience up to now:

(all using tap water, fermenting between 18-22 degrees for ~7-8 days, resting ~12-16, using the kit yeast)

* Coopers 86 days pilsner, brewing sugar.

Screwed this one up at the beginning, "topped up" the fermenter with boiling water after pitching in the yeast. Poor result (no body, apple-y off taste)

* Coopers Family Secret Amber Ale, light spray malt

This turned out well, good body, good carbonation, nice caramel flavour

* Coopers Irish Stout, dark spray malt

This turned out very well, good body, good carbonation, nice light coffee flavour.

* Masterpint European Lager (stayed 14 days in fermentation, took a while to get two FG readings that weren't different 24 hours apart)

I think this got "skunked" a bit in the fermentation as I didn't have any covering over the bucket (thought it was packed away far enough under a desk, apparently not). Sulphur-ish taste, very strong citrus/fruit flavour very much not to my taste

http://howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-problems

http://howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-off-flavors