Lager brewer from Southampton

[Chip Wilson]

Hi all,
Glad I've found this site, its looks superb.
I used to brew lager from kits about 30 years ago with generally disaapointing results! My 23 year old son has done a couple of kit ale brews recently and we are both now keen to do more brewing. I only drink lager (yeah, yeah..i know) but I'm currently building a workshop and going to put in a fridge with a tube heater and inkbird controller to give myself half a chance of success.
I travel all over the south of england with work (Legionella Risk Assessments) and so if anyone would like to give me the benefit of their all grain lager brewing experience, or maybe I could drop by and see their setup etc, then it would be really appreciated.
Regards
Chip

 

[Agentgonzo]

Hi all,
Glad I've found this site, its looks superb.
I used to brew lager from kits about 30 years ago with generally disaapointing results! My 23 year old son has done a couple of kit ale brews recently and we are both now keen to do more brewing. I only drink lager (yeah, yeah..i know) but I'm currently building a workshop and going to put in a fridge with a tube heater and inkbird controller to give myself half a chance of success.
I travel all over the south of england with work (Legionella Risk Assessments) and so if anyone would like to give me the benefit of their all grain lager brewing experience, or maybe I could drop by and see their setup etc, then it would be really appreciated.
Regards
Chip

Hi there.

I don't brew lager, but am just outside Romsey. Nice to have another local on the forum

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum

 

[Twostage]

Other end of the country from me. There's loads of knowledge on here. Its best to use the search function or have a look through the forums as there is probably an answer to everything you can think of.

I think brewing lager used to be a dark art but now with temperature control its relatively easy to knock out a decent lager. I brewed one when we were having a cold snap and the temperature control was used to provide heating rather than cooling .

Welcome aboard.

 

[Rwilts]

Welcome

 

[bob_walker99]

Hiya Chip, I’m another noob here, I’ve only brewed a handful of lagers, and only the last one was drinkable, but I’m going to do another soon for summer, and want to iron out my mistakes from last year! I’ve been trying to do an Asian rice lager, and the last one was ok, but it had a bit of an odd aroma, a bit “homebrewy”. The taste was good enough, but it wasn’t amazing. Difficult to iron these things out without another brewer tasting it though. Would be good to swap notes!

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi all,
Glad I've found this site, its looks superb.
I used to brew lager from kits about 30 years ago with generally disaapointing results! My 23 year old son has done a couple of kit ale brews recently and we are both now keen to do more brewing. I only drink lager (yeah, yeah..i know) but I'm currently building a workshop and going to put in a fridge with a tube heater and inkbird controller to give myself half a chance of success.
I travel all over the south of england with work (Legionella Risk Assessments) and so if anyone would like to give me the benefit of their all grain lager brewing experience, or maybe I could drop by and see their setup etc, then it would be really appreciated.
Regards
Chip

Good morning and welcome.
Nothing wrong with being a lager drinker in spite of what a certain hobgoblin may say.
While I've got electronic temperature control, I rarely use it and I tend to brew with the seasons and in the winter it's lagers. Lagers don't have to be pilsners, you can take the recipes of many styles and ferment them cold with bottom-fermenting yeast and then store cool for drinking late spring and summer.
So this winter, I've done a Vienna, two New Zealand pilsners, a smoke beer, a Peroni clone, some straight eurofizz pilsners and a couple of inventions of my own including McDonald's lager brewed with rottenburger spät hops. Spring is in the air and I want to get a few more in before I start using ale yeasts again, including a baltic porter.
I don't brew much in July and August as it's not easy to chill the wort efficiently, but I have brewed very good lager-like beers using lutra yeast, which is very quick and very neutral.
As for dropping by to see my fermenters, very welcome, we're just the other side of the Great Ditch.
Good luck with the Brewing.

 

[Nucbrewer]

Hi and welcome I’m from Romsey. Not brewed a lager yet but did get a pressure fermenter for Christmas so will probably try a kit this year.

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi and welcome I’m from Romsey. Not brewed a lager yet but did get a pressure fermenter for Christmas so will probably try a kit this year.

You don't need a pressure fermenter to brew lager or any other beer for that matter. No doubt it's nice to have one, but just in case readers think it's a necessary bit of kit, it definitely isn't.

What do we understand my "kit" these days? Is it an all grain recipe whose ingredients are assembled by the supplier or is it an extract-based kit?

 

[Nucbrewer]

I’m meaning an extract based lager kit.

 

[Deadhead]

Welcome. Lagers and Pilsners are my favourite to brew! There is great joy in drinking craft lager!
I have an all singing and dancing glycol chiller setup for temperature control, but I know many folks on here use fridges with temperature controllers or even ale yeasts or pressure fermenting, etc. Lots of advice, have a search around the forum.

 

[Davegase]

Hi all,
Glad I've found this site, its looks superb.
I used to brew lager from kits about 30 years ago with generally disaapointing results! My 23 year old son has done a couple of kit ale brews recently and we are both now keen to do more brewing. I only drink lager (yeah, yeah..i know) but I'm currently building a workshop and going to put in a fridge with a tube heater and inkbird controller to give myself half a chance of success.
I travel all over the south of england with work (Legionella Risk Assessments) and so if anyone would like to give me the benefit of their all grain lager brewing experience, or maybe I could drop by and see their setup etc, then it would be really appreciated.
Regards
Chip

Welcome to the forum and welcome back to the hobby.
First tip for brewing all grain lagers is to use soft water. I believe Southampton is a hard water area but there are some spotless water outlets near you. I use spotless water for my lagers. I had the water analyzed at Murphy and son laboratories to confirm it's purity and receive advice on water additions for various styles of beer. Using spotless water requires very little treatment for lager. Using spotless water for a 25 litre batch only required 6 grams of calcium chloride flakes and 5 g of calcium sulfate in the mash.
I would recommend a good brewing app , I use Brewfather.
There are some very good YouTube channels regarding homebrew. I particularly like the HomeBrew network and David heath.

Some people do find David heath a bit controversial though.

 

[Chip Wilson]

Other end of the country from me. There's loads of knowledge on here. Its best to use the search function or have a look through the forums as there is probably an answer to everything you can think of.

I think brewing lager used to be a dark art but now with temperature control its relatively easy to knock out a decent lager. I brewed one when we were having a cold snap and the temperature control was used to provide heating rather than cooling .

Welcome aboard.

 

[Chip Wilson]

Thanks. looking forward to learning loads

 

[Chip Wilson]

Welcome to the forum

 

[The Baron]

Welcome to the forum

 

[Chip Wilson]

Welcome to the forum