Lager kit recommendation

[Brewski169]

Evening all.

So I've done a few Ciders and Ales (Mangrove Jack's, Muntons, Bulldog Etc) but I would like to try a Lager for a change.

I like the flavour of Heineken. Hate Budweiser! Can anyone recommend a kit I might like?

Cheers

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Lager isn't something you see discussed here often you may find something here while you wait for an answer -

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/favourite-kit.99570/

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I like the flavour of Heineken. Hate Budweiser! Can anyone recommend a kit I might like?

To be honest, there's no real "magic" about the ingredients of a lager, the difficulty is all in the process. The classic Pilsner recipe is super-simple, just pilsner malt and a load of Saaz hops, so they're actually a good place to start making baby steps away from kits - see eg this thread, which is still way more complicated than you need!
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/smash.96063/#post-1073774
There's two main differences between Heineken and Bud - Bud is about half as bitter (12 IBU) as Heineken and contains up to 30% rice which thins it out. So if you prefer Heineken that suggests you prefer some bitterness and an all-barley recipe. The esters of the Heineken A-yeast are also a factor, but we'll put that to one side for now.

The first thing is your water - lager needs low mineral water. Without getting too complicated - if you don't have problems with scale in your kettle (eg Manchester) then your tapwater is low enough in minerals to be OK for brewing, if your kettle furs up (eg London) then you will make better beer by buying in low mineral water like Ashbeck water from Tesco.

Both Bud and Heineken are 5%. You don't say whether you want an all-grain or extract kit - I suspect the latter? Anyway, it's easy to do the numbers if you do all-grain, as the numbers of kg in 20 litres is roughly the final ABV, so you want about 5kg of either pilsner or UK extra pale malt, or about 2.9kg of extra pale extract.

For 24 IBU, assuming a 60 minute boil you want 2g/l of 5% alpha-acid hops, so 40g of a 5% alpha hop like Goldings (Goldings is not "classic" for lager but a lot of British brewers are using them in lagers now). Adjust the amount depending on the alpha content - you'd only need 20g of a 10% alpha hop, or 80g of a 2.5% alpha hop (Saaz are often somewhere down there, so you need a lot to provide the necessary bittering.) I'd imagine Heineken uses a German hop like Hersbrucker, which might be 3% - so you'd need 40/(3/5) = 66.7g That would work well, as you could throw the rest of a 100g pack in at 10 minutes before the end of the boil.

Ideally you want to ferment lager cold - 8-10C is typical. But you can get away with cool room temperature with some yeasts like Mangrove Jack M54 and Fermentis 34/70.

So your DIY lager kit might be no more complicated than :
3kg extra pale extract or 5kg of pilsner/extra pale malt
100g of German hops like Hersbrucker or Tettnang
Pack of M54

Oh, and maybe some Irish moss or Protafloc to help clear it.

But it doesn't have to be much more complicated than that.

 

[Brewski169]

Thanks for the info NB! Much appreciated. Although yes I'm just looking for extract kits for now. Haven't been brave enough to dive into all grain yet

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I thought not - which is why my final shopping list was just some extract, hops and yeast. Because that's all a kit is, in a fancy box. And not surprisingly it works out at about the same money as a premium (ie all-barley) kit - 3kg of extract is about £15, £3-4 for 100g of German hops, £3 for the yeast.

The big, big advantage of buying ingredients separately is that they will generally be much fresher, which reduces the chance of the homebrew "twang" associated with kits that have been sitting on a shop shelf for months if not years. And of course it gives you complete freedom to tweak in whatever direction you want to go, whether you want to reduce the hops and add rice/sugar to go for a Budweiser taste, or go all-barley and have more hops for something closer to Heineken.

 

[Jim Brewster]

If using a true lager yeast you'll also need to ferment at low temperature, then raise the temperature for a diacetyl rest, then store it cold for the lagering phase.

I recently did a pseudo lager with pilsner malt, Saaz and US-05 and it's much better than I expected, and so simple.

 

[damienair]

A few months ago I did the Coopers Canadian Blonde Ale, which I did using light dry malt extract and I dry hopped with Mosaic and Citra hops. The mosaic and Citra hops were just in the background. It turned out great. Really really nice. I would recommend and will be doing it again myself.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

If using a true lager yeast you'll also need to ferment at low temperature, then raise the temperature for a diacetyl rest, then store it cold for the lagering phase.

Not actually true - the Frohberg group of lager yeasts which includes all the homebrew ones, generally seem to be far more tolerant of warmth than the conventional wisdom would have you believe. Fermentis have done extensive tests on 34/70 showing not much difference between a "classic" 12°C and 20°C :

https://fermentis.com/en/news/fermentation/rediscover-saflager-w-34-70/
There's a big thread on "warm" fermented lager over on HBT, where one of the (German!) regulars prefers M54 over 34/70 for having slightly better flocculation.

But in principle I'd agree with you that a lot of people will be quite happy with using US-05 or similar, a lot depends on how purist you need to be when a lot of "purity" is meaningless - there's commercial breweries selling "lager" made with a yeast that's a member of the saison family!

 

[clib]

Mangrove Jack has 4 lagers in its craft range. Golden lager, Pils, Helles and NZ Pils. I don't do lager myself but their ale kits are really good and I've seen very good reviews of their lager kits. Not sure which would be closest to Heineken. Someone else might know.

 

[White Rose Al]

You might find that kit lagers are mainly pseudo lagers as the yeast provided is Ale Yeast.

I can't imagine many kits would come with bottom fermenting lager strains or expect the brewer to go through the lagering process.

As mentioned above Mangrove Jacks kits review well

 

[Jim Brewster]

I can't imagine many kits would come with bottom fermenting lager strains or expect the brewer to go through the lagering process.

Yeah, I think they're mainly ale yeasts in these kits - are there any kits with a known lager yeast? I'd like to try one, could always swap the yeast provided for 2 packs of saflager 34/70 for example

 

[White Rose Al]

That would work, as long as you have good temperature control.

 

[Jim Brewster]

That would work, as long as you have good temperature control.

None whatsoever