Lager brewing, first few brews gone wrong

[Nick207]

Good evening everyone.

Very new to brewing and had a question about what I'm doing wrong. So got a recipe online for a lager and watched approx 3 thousand brewing videos on youtube and choose different things from different methods to suit my equipment. Ill give you a detailed guide to my process and see if there's any big no nos I'm unaware of, apologies in advance for the long post.

So the recipe I decided on was for 5 gallons but i didnt want to waste my ingredients and be stuck with 5 gallons of disgusting beer for the first few brews (in hindsight a very good decision) and then move to 5 gallons when i was move comfortable. So i divided all the measurements by 5 so i could make a 1 gallon brew without wasting too much and these are the measurements for the 1 gallon listed below.

2 gallons of water brought to and maintained at 150f
860g pilsner malt (biab)
Mashed for 60 minutes
Removed bag and brought to a boil adding 10g saaz hops
After 50 minutes adding half tsp irish moss
After 55 minutes adding 3g saaz hops
Take off after 60 minutes and cooling wort to 50-60f
Pour my wort into carboy through a sieve and add 3g german lager yeast
Left to ferment for 2 weeks at 50-60f
Bottle with carbonation drops and leave at room temperature for 4 weeks

My first brew i have tried and never in my life have i binned a beer that wasnt empty but there was something very wrong with this one. A lot of sediment at the bottom and tasted like very fizzy gone off milk. My second brew seemed to go a lot better and is currently 1 week into fermentation and looks a lot better than the first and had a better OG reading but still a lot of sediment in the bottom. Hopefully its just minor things i need to tweak and not a complete re think of my process. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Nick207]

Also any details i may of missed that may help let me know and ill do my best to provide them.

 

[MackemBrew]

Other people will be advise better as I've only brewed a couple but I would check your timings and ensure your temperature control is on point.

Last pilsner I brewed I fermented out for about 3 weeks, towards the end added a diacetyl rest, then transferred to the fridge to condition and lagered at 3°c for about 8 weeks then kegged.

Although I believe you can get a great, crisp pilsner that actually has taste as opposed to the mass produced fizzy water out there, it takes some work to perfect. Stick at it though

 

[Stephenj]

With the first brew, did it ferment out properly, and off tastes/smells at bottling? How long did you condition it for?

As mackembrew states, lager/pils I believe need much more attention to temps and conditioning/lagering than ales IMO. I've never had fizzy milk before though. There are others on here with much more lager experience than me who might shed further light on this.

 

[xozzx]

Lager is one of the harder beer styles to do as a beginner and temp control is far more important.

Did you take OG and FG? 3g yeast for 1 gallon might not have been enough, likely it wasnt finished fermenting when you bottled.

Did you aerate the wort before fermenting?

How did you bottle it? Did you avoid getting air in when bottling.

Also, how did you clean and sanitise your equipment?