What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[Edward Siddle]

am still waiting for my 1070 ale with t-58 to dry out! still tasting pretty sweet to me (and sweet in a not-good way). but only been bottles for 3 months so am prepared to be patient. of course it could have been a mashing fault but my notes wouldn't indicate anything drastically went wrong.

[Stu McKinlay]

what was the final gravity?

[Edward Siddle]

1014. not overly high for a beer of that starting gravity i didn't think. admittedly haven't tasted a bottle for about two months. i'm happy to keep waiting. if it still tastes like cr*p at 1 year then i'll ditch it....

[Mark]

you can culture a yeast starter from a bottle of chimay or a bottle of duval, really easy to do and usually successful. i've got something brewing at the moment with a chimay starter, smells estery and phenolic which is probably what you're after

[bj]

Dennis at Dunedin Malthouse has a few different Belgian Style liquid yeasts.
Ive made some ok beers using the 'Abbey' yeast. No notcible "off" flavours, as i used bigish starters and fermented at the lower end for the yeast (18-19). Im sure if you stressed it out a little it would provide more 'interesting' flavours?
Give Dennis a call, he has an 0800 number and will deliver.

[Danny]

Thanks for the advice guys, that should get me startet!

[Edward Siddle]

daughter is crook and off school today and i drew the long straw and get to stay home. in and around making chicken noodle soup, i figure i might as well put down the first lager of the winter.

Franconian Dunkel
3.75kg Munich typ II
400g Caramunich III
50g Carafa I
NZ Pacific Hall at 45 mins, 15 and 5, to 27IBU total.
fermenting with 2x 11g packs s-189 swiss lager yeast.
roughly inspired by this blog post below (a beer i don't know) and also Klosterbraeu Braunbier (Bamberg, one I have had), though i don't want something that is almost black so have cut back on the carafa: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008/04/josef-schneider-essing.html

[HerrSchnapps]

s-189? Didn't know there were other Saflagers, what's it like compared to the s-23?

[Edward Siddle]

only used it once but it's very clean, lighter than the 34/70 (ie. i think it attenuates more). but others may have views too.....s23 i'm not so familiar with, i am planning on giving it another crack later this winter. when i did use it i was actually pretty happy with the results, i didn't mind the little bit of fruitiness it seemed to add.

[Mark]

that beer looked awesome - definitely some inspiration to start brewing lagers. it's only just getting cold enough now though, still got ales on the go.

[HerrSchnapps]

Its been plenty cold in Christchurch for lagers since about 3 weeks ago, I timed my first Pilsner perfectly, brewing the afternoon it snowed! Question though- it fermented for about 5 days at 10-12 degrees, then the weather warmed up and it reached around 15C for a couple of days at the end of primary (though dropped back to 12 before I racked to secondary). How much would this have affected the diacetyl/ester production, or did I just get a perfectly timed diacetyl rest?

[Mark]

i don't think 15C should affect things too much - i think the saf lagers tolerate this ok. not entirely sure, but i think diacetyl rest is around 20C.

been way too warm in palmy, although it's supposed to get really cold soon