I think it’s about time I add a sack of this to my inventory.
Better get some more Best Pils too, I’m loving that malt.
I’ve still got half a sack or more of it, so far I prefer Munich over the Vienna. But who knows, I’m thinking I might try an all Vienna lager this spring and see what happens. :-\
a well done vienna lager is a fine, fine beer, and the best way to determine if you like vienna as a base. I love all the german base malts equally ;D
What’s your favorite Vienna Lager recipe?
I’d like to do a vienna ipa or pale ale. Sounds like it’d be good.
a good recipe to start off with is 3-5% dextrine, the rest vienna to 1.050-1.052, 1oz of hersbrucker at 10min (per 5gallons!), enough noble hop to bitter to total 25-28ibus.
I like to add a couple pounds of dark munich, just cause i like it, but the above will be dynamite!
this recipe turned a lot of heads at my club’s oktoberfest: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=80958&hilit=+vienna+ipa
Cool, I remember seeing that before. I think I should make a vienna ale of some sort for the spring time.
Not sure of the malt bill, but IMO the beer made my Modelo
" Negra" is great beer. And some say it’s a Vienna lager…
I found myself with a similar problem last night. Ended up with a bag of Vienna & a bag of Munich. After some research today I found a number of options for both:
Vienna Lager
Oktoberfest/Marzen
Maibock / Helles Bock
Doppelbock
Baltic Porter
Flanders Red Ale
Rauchbier (Beechwood smoked Vienna)
Traditional Bock
Munich Dunkel
Schwarzbier
Dusseldorf Altbier
Well I’m out of recipes in the short term and I’m gonna keep my lager yeast going while my basement is still <50F.
I think I’m going to line up a Vienna lager, Baltic Porter & Dusseldorf Altbier.
I don’t know the color of the vienna malt yet. Best’s web-site claims 3-5L.
Assuming 4L I would need 9.5lbs and close to .5 lbs of a 120L crystal* malt to hit the bottom of the color range. Does that sound right?
*(same as dextrine as I gather from a thread over at NB)
no,no,no. 120L isn’t what is considered a dextrine malt.
what I said was dextrine=carafoam=caramel pils. that’s what people mean when they say dextrine - when you get into the higher L, theres a massively different contribution.
the last 3 bags I got of Best V were 3.5L FWIW.
when I said dextrine malt above, I meant carafoam(2-3L) which is what I usually buy.
If you are really concerned about the color throw in a couple ounces of Carafa Special II or III, but please, please don’t use 120L!
You will get some color from the boil, BTW.
Ok. Gotcha.
I have some Best Caramel Pils & some Carafa III but I’m not really worried about color… just curious about the guidelines.
Thanks for all the info.
What do you think they use to get the color in Eliot Ness?
ah man, I wish I knew - god I love that beer.
I have some hints/suspicions though:
Well, for starters, EN is 6.2%, so immediately there is more malt to go around.
I’m not sure if they decoct or not, but that would help darken the beer further.
My friend who’s a Clevelander (and prob the biggest GL fan I know) thought he heard they used biscuit (25L) in the grist, which could also help darken it.
I question maybe a touch of Caramunich III or some Carafa Special?
Well, coincidentally, I guess I made a clone attempt this weekend instead of my usual Vienna since my efficiency jumped about 7 -8 points last weekend (which never happens) so I upped the IBUs - maybe through dumb luck I’ll have come close? Its a little lighter, but we’ll see how the end product comes around as far as taste.
I love an all-Vienna lager. Right now I have a 1.052/1.012, 23 IBU O’fest/Maertzen on tap that tastes terrific. I used Durst Vienna.
I brewed it with a pseudo-decoction, which is essentially the same procedure as a cereal mash for adjunct, but with all malt. I have an article in Zymurgy coming up on this technique. It gives much of the flavor of a decoction with less time, trouble and potentially oxidizing handling.
I mashed in 1/3 of the malt at ~150F, very thick, in a pot and rested it 20 minutes in a preheated oven, then put the pot into a big pressure cooker and cooked it at 15 psi (1 atm) for 35 minutes. This was mostly to develop flavors and some color. A slight improvement in efficiency is incidental. Then after it had cooled, I added it to the main mash, which had been resting at ~144F for 40 minutes, which raised it to 158F. Rested this 20 minutes and then mashed out and lautered.
I used Perle and Mt. Hood hops 2:1 on an IBU basis added at the beginning of a 70 minute boil. No finishing hops. Fermented at 50F with WLP833 German Bock, my favorite lager yeast, then lagered at 32F.
It’s malty without being sweet (77% apparent attenuation, resting the main mash at 144F helps), elegant, spicy (I find a spicy character from Vienna malt), with just enough bitterness to support the malt. The color is right on the money.
I found this a few weeks ago. The only clone attempt I could find on it. No Vienna? Not sure how close it would be.
Jeff, I seem to recall a discussion of pressure cooker decoctions on HBD years ago. Was that you back then? I’m looking forward to reading your article. May be the impetus I need to finally buy a pressure cooker!
Denny - it was Spencer Thomas first and then I followed up later. I think we had talked about it at AABG meetings first, but can’t remember for sure. He did a head-to-head taste comparison of pressure cooked full decoction and normal mash. My contribution was the pseudo-decoction with two separate, parallel mashes, one of which is boiled, with or without a pressure cooker, and then combined.
Ndcube - I would not brew anything out of that book.
Jeff - very interesting technique - thanks for sharing. I might have to give that a whirl.
BTW - do you have a recommended pressure cooker unit? I am looking to purchase one.