Sunday, February 19, 2012

Moving the Red Lager

I just moved the red lager into the aging vessel to let it clear up a bit more.  Fermentation was strong, ending at 1.002.  As such, we have a solid 4% lager for drinking on the deck this summer.  I plan to bottle the beer in late April so it has a good eight to ten weeks of secondary time.  A few weeks of carbonation and its Red Squirrel Lager time!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Brew Day - Red Lager

After such a successful all-grain pale ale product (Furious Cat), I decided on a lark to brew this weekend.  Basically, the last extract brew left me thirsty for another all-grain beer.  So we ran to the local home brew store (LHBS), bought some ingredients, and lit the burner.
The brew went pretty well.  I got a bit impatient during the sparge but it still turned out fine.  The starting gravity is a bit low but as long as we achieve at least 75% attenuation, this should turn out to be a good session beer.
O.G. - 1.032
Ingredients:
9 lbs. Domestic Pilsner
8 oz. Carapils, 12 oz. Caramel 40L, and 2 oz. Debittered Black speciality grains
2 oz. Hallertau hops (bittering and aroma)
Also, I used White Labs yeast this time (the LHBS doesn't carry Wyeast).