Day of the Dead (Mexican lager)
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| Final Look |
Every year friends of mine throw a party during Halloween and like some Homebrewers, a party means an excuse to brew a beer specifically for that occasion. This year Halloween would not be the theme but rather a "Día de Muertos"(Day of the Dead) party was planned as she is of Mexican descent and wanted to pay tribute to all of our fallen friends and family.
With me getting excited about all things Lagers, I was happy to throw a beer together for this party. Knowing the crowd as mostly American Lite and Mexican Style lager drinkers, I knew I had to brew something I'd probably never brew for myself. I've been seeing "Mexican Style Lagers" recently in the craft beer scene and enjoyed a few of those. One noticeable thing about them is they seemed to have two ingredients that I was going to skip on this attempt, Salt and Lime.
- First Wort Thoughts -
After some research I found an article on Beer and Brewing magazine that I used as inspiration for my version. When designing this beer I knew I wanted a crisp finish, spicy/floral notes and it would be awesome to get some citrus aroma and flavor (similar to a Kölsch). Motueka hops are said to throw characteristics of lime and citrus, I knew I wanted to use this hop for my flavor and aroma additions. As to give no one an excuse to say it's too "hoppy!", I opted to use their suggestion of 12ibus for the first bittering and only landed at about 26-28 IBU's total.
Saaz hops which are a favorite of mine was my choose as the First Wort addition. I used a whole oz which got me to about 13 IBU's per Beersmith. Having wanted to give Golden Promise 2-row malt a go, something I'd like to use again (and have in various other styles). I opted to replace the suggested grain of Marris Otter to Golden Promise, which I think Golden Promise will be comparable. I used Vienna rather than Munich as I enjoy the slight sweetness/malty character you get and I could use a higher percentage of it than say Munich without it being overpowering. The only thing they suggested that I used was the amount of flaked corn in the grist, having never used adjuncts in my beer I went with their recommendation.
I originally planned on using a California Common yeast, as even this article suggested moving away from wlp940 Mexican Lager strain for something else, after reading a lot of reviews on the Mexican Lager yeast I decided to go with it, clean profile and people had good results with it despite what the article was suggesting - Let's go!
Recipe:
Beersmith File. Beer XML
Malt:
4lbs - Golden Promise Pale Ale (2.5 SRM)
3.5lbs - Vienna Malt - (3.5 SRM)
2lbs - Flaked Corn (1.3 SRM)
Hops:
1.0 oz - Saaz - First Wort
2.0 oz - Motueka - 5 min.
Yeast:
Mexican Lager (WLP940)
- Brew Day -
Brew day playlist. Periphery |
| Just make your starters in a pot, not in your flask. |
Strike water took a longer time than I was planning considering I did heat up all 9 gallons of needed water, I'm not too surprised about the lag time. You can run into issues doing this like I did where by the time I got the water into the mash tun, it was already to cooled below my strike temp. After some back and forth with the water I reached strike temp. The sparge water hit temp pretty quickly, So I put the hot water into my lauter tun, closed the lid and placed it to the side. I usually only lose about 8 degrees an hour so I go a little warmer to allow it to cool to sparge temp.
The mash was a little chaotic as I had to run errands during the mash. I hit my mash step at 154 degrees and left and went to get ice. I came back with 20 mins left in the mash, I live in LA and I attempted to get in and out of a place quickly but that didn't happen and rarely does in this city. I stirred the mash and checked the temp and noticed I lost a little temp which I chalk up to the window being open on the rare 50 degree LA fall day. I was at 148 and 150 after I stirred, I usually don't lose this much. Always close that window!After an long vorlauf I had some clear wort or so I thought! Sparge got away from me and loosed up the grain bed allowing some grain in the boil, I scoped out as much as possible but at the end didn't seem to be too crazy after all. 1.040 Pre Boil gravity.
Chilled down the beer and got clean and clear wort. I let the wort and yeast starter get to temp before pitching. Got the temp down to 66F using my immersion chiller before transferring the fermenter into my fermentation chamber to reach pitching temp. I wanted to keep dropping the temp until I was about to leave so I left the probe on the fermenter before leaving. I left and forgot about it. (DUH!) I went to La Ale Works after the brew day for a beer, something I've been doing recently after my brew days as I don't usually drink beer when brewing (I said usually not never!). When I got back the temp was too low for that yeast and I didn't place a towel down either. Just a note - I recommend placing a towel down on you're glass carboys if using a Chest freezer as the surfaces of the freezer will get Ice cold in order to achieve the temps you want (Ale's I have less issues with but always with lagers). It's not the end of the day if you don't but I just think it's good practice as once the yeast starts to fall, they may still be working and cleaning up, don't let them die at the bottom because of a bad temperature shift. Okay, back to the beer - I placed the starter outside the freezer to let it warm a little bit and placed it on the stir plate for about 45 minutes. It was at temp and looked to be mixed. Never leave your probe on your fermenter and leave. I should have set the freezer to about 10-15 degrees below my pitching temp and let the probe hang. Pitched yeast at 9pm and went to bed. Sunday Morning, 9 am still no activity. Starter didn’t seem to help lag time, though I did mess it up. Sunday evening they have awoken, the yeast is making its move. (This yeast takes a little time to build up, but once it gets going, this yeast will rip through your wort, just give it some time) |
| Monday Morning |
Tuesday morning not much change just a little more on top, this is not a vigorous fermentation. Carboy temp reads 52-54 so it’s within temp.
Wednesday Night - Yeast is starting to fall down.
Check FG Monday - Currently at 1.013. All my measurements are OFF! so it looks like my hydrometer is off by 4 points. Meaning I most likely should have waited a day before ramping. I calibrated my hydrometer and it's been off - Probably for a while.
Sunday - Sept 16, 2018
Sunday after cold crash it’s clear so I've decided to not fine with gelatin. There is still a slight haze to it but nothing I'm too worried about and it defiantly is clearer than my Kölsch. I will be lagering at 33 degrees for about 20 days at which point I connected gas to start carbing. This beer is to be served Nov 2, 2018. Though I believe I could possibly drink this in a few weeks and could lager on gas, I'd rather not repeat what I did with my Kölsch and do a more traditional lager method.
Monday - October 29, 2018
What a journey this has become and the time has come to test and taste... but before that lets speak about the journey! Between Sept 16 and 10/29/2018. I connected the gas on the 12th of October and just let it go. A week later on October 19th, I had to make a decision that honestly annoyed and scared me. Thursday night Oct 18th, I grabbed a beer from the freezer only to noticed there's a good amount of CO2 in the bottom. I thought I wouldn't bother with it at the time but was ready to look into it on Friday.. Bad seal.... Damn - It... never again will I buy used kegs, only new ones... Once I changed out the post with another one and placed a new seal it was all good, not the end of the world.
Or was it, I literally lost a weeks worth of carbing and only had 2 more weeks. 2 weeks until the party which means only one more week to have this beer finished and make any tiny adjustments if needed. These are the fears running through my head at the time but at the end of the day on Oct 29, 2018... we were complete. It still needs a few more days carbing for my taste. I bumped up the pressure from 10 to 12-14 for the next couple days until it's ready to be served.
This was a really clean tasting lager - not much malt flavors other than bready/toast but it's super subtle. The lime/citrus is slightly in the nose and taste. On the nose you have to search for it, but it's there. If I didn't know I'd say I don't really get lime, but if you told me it was lime, I'd agree. The taste is more on the back end where the clean malt is the major component here with the hops providing an interesting flavor that you don't get in the Marco garbage examples.
Everyone seemed to really enjoy this beer, so much so that we kicked it. I feel the hops introduced people into flavor that wasn't what they get out of a Modelo or Bud Light, but something almost candy like. I remember a friend (she was feeling really good) say it was the best beer she ever had and she wasn't a beer drinker. It seemed to be a hit.
It's funny when you think about designing a beer and sort of going away from what you would want out of it and rather "toe the line" and design something for a group of people or better yet the consumer. I wasn't asked to brew a beer for this party, so no input was given. I was aware of what this group drank, I also knew they were becoming more open and willing to try anything... especially if it was homebrewed. So I played it safe and stuck within the guidelines and didn't get experimental at all. My goal is always to introduce and/or change peoples perception of beer, whether it be through my homebrew or professional examples, if I can get someone who is not a beer drinker to go, this is good.. then I've won. I'm not trying to change their drinking habits completely, but I think we are in the right step. This beer is an excellent spring and summer drinker, until last year every October I've been in California it's been super hot, this October wasn't so this beer may have not matched the cool weather, but if you're looking for a solid Lawnmower beer, give this one a try...
Go Brew!
Wednesday Night - Yeast is starting to fall down.
Checked FG on Friday, At 50% time to ramp up. Still a very young beer. Removed probe from Carboy and going to start ramping up 5-7 Degrees every 12 hr until I reach 68-70 Degrees.
Early Tasting Notes:
"Getting a little sweet citrus notes, no corny off flavors, no apple, no sulfur. It’s still really sweet though it's clean so far. It almost has a Shock Top beer thing going on."
FG At 1.013. Check on Wednesday, Obliviously that number is off, but I check again on Friday and it didn't change, fermentation either has staled or we are done, Cold crashing.
Friday: 1.014. Which means finally I was probably at 1.011/1.010.
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| Already pretty clear Pre-Lager |
Sunday - Sept 16, 2018
Sunday after cold crash it’s clear so I've decided to not fine with gelatin. There is still a slight haze to it but nothing I'm too worried about and it defiantly is clearer than my Kölsch. I will be lagering at 33 degrees for about 20 days at which point I connected gas to start carbing. This beer is to be served Nov 2, 2018. Though I believe I could possibly drink this in a few weeks and could lager on gas, I'd rather not repeat what I did with my Kölsch and do a more traditional lager method.
Monday - October 29, 2018
What a journey this has become and the time has come to test and taste... but before that lets speak about the journey! Between Sept 16 and 10/29/2018. I connected the gas on the 12th of October and just let it go. A week later on October 19th, I had to make a decision that honestly annoyed and scared me. Thursday night Oct 18th, I grabbed a beer from the freezer only to noticed there's a good amount of CO2 in the bottom. I thought I wouldn't bother with it at the time but was ready to look into it on Friday.. Bad seal.... Damn - It... never again will I buy used kegs, only new ones... Once I changed out the post with another one and placed a new seal it was all good, not the end of the world.
Or was it, I literally lost a weeks worth of carbing and only had 2 more weeks. 2 weeks until the party which means only one more week to have this beer finished and make any tiny adjustments if needed. These are the fears running through my head at the time but at the end of the day on Oct 29, 2018... we were complete. It still needs a few more days carbing for my taste. I bumped up the pressure from 10 to 12-14 for the next couple days until it's ready to be served.
Tasting notes:
This was a really clean tasting lager - not much malt flavors other than bready/toast but it's super subtle. The lime/citrus is slightly in the nose and taste. On the nose you have to search for it, but it's there. If I didn't know I'd say I don't really get lime, but if you told me it was lime, I'd agree. The taste is more on the back end where the clean malt is the major component here with the hops providing an interesting flavor that you don't get in the Marco garbage examples.
Others impressions:
Final thoughts:
I really enjoyed the way this beer came out, I didn't get much grain other than the sweetness from the corn, Hops provided a little lime which is what I was aiming for but like I mention earlier I had to search for it, I did perceive it or I at least convinced myself of it. I plan on re brewing this beer with minor tweaks. I'm going to play with the malt build just a bit and adjust the hops a lot. I actually harvested this yeast and used it in a Black IPL (Blog coming soon).
It's funny when you think about designing a beer and sort of going away from what you would want out of it and rather "toe the line" and design something for a group of people or better yet the consumer. I wasn't asked to brew a beer for this party, so no input was given. I was aware of what this group drank, I also knew they were becoming more open and willing to try anything... especially if it was homebrewed. So I played it safe and stuck within the guidelines and didn't get experimental at all. My goal is always to introduce and/or change peoples perception of beer, whether it be through my homebrew or professional examples, if I can get someone who is not a beer drinker to go, this is good.. then I've won. I'm not trying to change their drinking habits completely, but I think we are in the right step. This beer is an excellent spring and summer drinker, until last year every October I've been in California it's been super hot, this October wasn't so this beer may have not matched the cool weather, but if you're looking for a solid Lawnmower beer, give this one a try...
Go Brew!
