Some hints for a dark lager?

[timmy]

Hey all,

I picked up a tin of Cascade Golden Harvest lager cheap the other day and wanted to make a dark-ish lager out of it. Based on what I have in the cupboard, I was thinking:

1-1.5kg JW Pale Malt mini mashed
100g Crystal
50g Choc Malt
50g Melanoidin??
Hallertau for flavour/aroma
S-189 yeast

I've only ever done very simple lagers so not really sure about this. Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Tim

[drsmurto]

I would do a mini mash with munich.

Ditch the crystal and the melanoidin.

Steep 50-100g of carafa spec III or mash it with the munich.

Hops and yeast are fine in a lager.

Just my 2 c.
DrSmurto

[timmy]

Thanks doc.

I only suggested pale malt because it's the only base malt I have apart from wheat until my next order from G&G.

Would I be better off using LDME instead?

[drsmurto]

It depends on what sort of beer you are trying to make.

A lager that tastes like a lager but is dark?

Not trying to being a smart arse (altho i regularly achieve this) but if thats what you are after add some carafa spec III for colour.

If you want the extra flavour associated with dark lagers (think schwarzbier and munich dunkel) then you want some darker base malt in there to provide the background flavour not just change the colour.

Still to make a schwarzbier but have TLs recipe that he has posted on this site.

2.50 kg Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (5.9 EBC) Grain 43.48 %
1.50 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (14.0 EBC) Grain 26.09 %
1.25 kg Pilsner (Weyermann) (3.3 EBC) Grain 21.74 %
0.25 kg Caraaroma (Weyermann) (350.7 EBC) Grain 4.35 %
0.25 kg Carafa Special II (Weyermann) (817.6 EBC) Grain 4.35 %

So whilst this also contains carafa the key ingredients are the base malts - vienna and munich. You cant replicate these with LDME or the like so your only option is a mini mash.

[James L]

that schwarzbier recipe looks darn diddly good.. i might give it a smash after this pilsner in the 10C fridge has finished fermenting, might even use the same yeast (wyeast 2007), or i could grow up some oktoberfest blend... i was wondering what i would do with that 25kg bag of vienna i picked up...