What's Wrong with my Lager?

[John Sand]

Hey Chris. The process is discussed in my Lager Redux thread.
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6778&hilit=+lager
The recipe was 12.4# Belgian Pilsner, 1# Carapils. Initial mash was too high, over 168, but cool water brought it down to 156 pretty quickly. 1oz US Saaz @60, 1oz @ of US Hallertauer and Czech Saaz @ 30, 1oz Czech Saaz @ 10 and flame-out. Four packs of 34/70, three were expired. Fermented at 56-57 on 55 degree basement floor for five days until bubbles slowed to almost stopping. Warmed to 61 for five days. Kegged and carbed after four weeks total, put in chest freezer a week later, has now been cooled for four weeks. I thought the sample tasted exactly what I wanted at kegging, but later not so good. I think it has improved now, good enough to drink, but not great.

[BlackDuck]

Thanks John...I want to look this over a little more and see if I can see anything that might lead to your issues.

[John Sand]

Thank you Chris. It could be just Lager Inexperience.

[BlackDuck]

John...after reading through this and the original thread with the recipe I have really only three thoughts on why you think it may not be up to par. First, I'll say that the recipe as written seems to be pretty solid to me, it really should produce a fine lager. My thoughts...first, I really have to wonder if your high mash temp which resulted in low attenuation and the fact the beer finished at 1.022 is probably the main reason for it not being up to your standards. That's a really high final gravity for a Pils. Mine finished at 1.012, which is where it was supposed to finish at. I've also had them finish lower at 1.010 too. I really think the high FG might be the main reason.

The second thought I have is your water profile. What kind of water did you use? A good Pils usually has an extremely clean water profile. I start with 100% distilled water and add back very small amounts of additives. My additives for my 5 gallon batch were 4 ml of lactic acid for pH adjustment, .70 g Epsom Salt, .50 g calcium chloride, and .30 g baking soda. These are all added to the mash water and my sparge water is not treated. My final water profile looks like this:
Ca - 4
Mg - 2
Na - 2
Cl - 6
SO4 - 7
Chloride/Sulfate Ratio - .88 (Balanced)
pH - 5.38

When I first started with Pilsners, I was only diluting my tap water with distilled to reduce some of my numbers. It wasn't until I went to 100% distilled that I could really tell a difference. It just makes the beer more crisp and clean to me.

Third and last...you mentioned green apple in one of your posts, which as Mashani pointed out, comes from acetaldehyde. This is a paragraph on the BeerSmith website:

The compound acetaldehyde (C2H4O), also called ethonal, is a common compound that comes in everything from ripe fruit to coffee. It is also an intermediate compound produced by yeast during fermentation. As fermentation progresses to completion, all of the acetaldehyde is normally converted to ethanol (note different spelling from ethonal) which is the alcohol in beer.

However if fermentation fails to complete for any reason, we can end up with acetaldehyde in the finished beer. This can happen for a variety of reasons related to yeast health.

Some of the common causes for an incomplete fermentation include not pitching enough yeast up front, yeast that starts out in poor health, failing to aerate your wort which will impede healthy yeast growth and also halting your fermentation too soon. You can also get the “green apple” flavor if you have poor temperature control during fermentation which can drive excessive acetaldehyde production or prematurely stop fermentation. Finally you can get it by pitching finings too soon – which can force the yeast to flocculate out before fermentation is complete.

This mentioned incomplete fermentaion...yours did finish high at 1.022!!! The one that sticks out to me the most in this is the comment about yeast that starts out in poor health. You mentioned that 3 of the 4 packs of yeast you used were expired. Fermentis dry yeast typically lasts for quite some time. Which means your yeast was probably pretty old if it had expired. Have to wonder if that's part of it. 75% of your yeast could have not been healthy.

I'll throw this out also...if you want to do a swap with me, I'm in. Bottle one of your pils up and send it to me. When mine is done lagering (in about 6 weeks or so), I'll bottle one and send it your way.

[John Sand]

Thanks again Chris. I have some thoughts too. First, let me correct one of my complaints: this batch finished at 1.013. I originally read and recorded 1.022, but after posting, I went back to look and it was 1.013. I realized that bubbles had been sticking to the hydrometer causing a false reading. It did ferment out.
The yeast, temperature or time could be a culprit here. I read somewhere (BYO?) that an overpitch can cause acetaldehyde. If my expired packs were all good, I may have created a lazy yeast environment.
I'll be happy to swap some beer with you and get your opinion. Mine seems to be slowly improving, it is certainly clearer. I'll keep updating.

[BlackDuck]

Thanks for the correction on the gravity. It may have been a yeast issue then.

[Kealia]

Hey John, how long has it been carbed? Sorry, I'm unclear on that point.

You said it tasted good at kegging time, but "off" later. I'm wondering if you are getting some carbonic bite because it's too soon & the CO2 isn't fully absorbed? In a lighter beer like a Pilsner it would be more prominent than early tastes in other styles.

Just spit ballin' here....

[BlackDuck]

Good thought Ron. Could be possible for sure.


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[John Sand]

Thanks guys. I started carbing as soon as I kegged.

[BlackDuck]

That’s what I do to, but I set it at 12psi and let it sit for weeks.


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[mashani]

I read somewhere (BYO?) that an overpitch can cause acetaldehyde.

This is the exact opposite of what happens to me when I pitch at the "Pro Brewer" (crazy high seeming) pitch rates that Brewers Friends calculator uses.

And you didn't come anywhere near an "over pitch" by that standard.

I have one acetaldahydey beer here right now, it's also a lager, but I pitched at a rate that is no more or less then all the other lagers I made this winter. I'm not sure what / why it is that way, except it's the first time I ever used Mangrove Jack Bavarian lager. But the stuff that I used Diamond and Swiss Lager and 34/70 and also Mangrove Jack Bohemian lager didn't have this happen. And I used more of the Bavarian Lager in the beer I just bottled that I made in the M&B, and it doesn't have this problem. But it also was 1/2 the gravity, but I did pitch proportionally about the same amount... so... so... I don't know.

[John Sand]

I don't know either.
I took this out of the kegerator today. I have company coming for Easter, no bad homebrew allowed. My recent rye pale tastes good, it's on tap instead. The pils is going back in the basement to condition. The only other options I can think of are krausening, further lagering or dumping. Anything else?

[mashani]

Weird esters and/or anything bound to polyphenols will drop out with laagering.

I'm not so sure that weird tartness will, as it's not either of those things normally.

Actual acetaldehyde will only clean up if there are active yeast in the mix.

If your yeast are all gone to sleep and won't wake up, you could try letting the keg warm up and pitching some T-58 into the keg and see if it does anything. T-58 is used commercially as a bottle conditioning strain and won't affect the flavor as long as it doesn't get super active like in a primary fermentation. Llalamand makes a cask conditioning strain too, but it's a lot more expensive then T-58, you can get T-58 for $2.99. You might need to add a little bit of sugar solution to give it something to eat and get started. Once it's going it might clean up the acetaldehyde too.

It depends on if that seems worth it to you to try to salvage it.

[Kealia]

If you go down the route of pitching more yeast, I wonder if it would be a good idea to do a starter so you could pitch a small starter of active yeast into the keg?
That would ensure they hit the ground running. I don't know if that would help to clean up anything that might be in there or not - but I'm putting it out here for discussion on the pros and cons of doing this.

[mashani]

If you do that and pitch the starter at while it's krausening (as in while it's still got plenty of sugars left in the starter to eat), then it might work out well. You just want to make sure it's got something to eat once it gets in there so it doesn't just get become sad yeast really fast and potentially create more problems.