You can't brew a decent lager using BIAB

Or so the expert "doubters" said when the great BIAB debate was on in earnest two or three years ago. This even included a Sydney commercial brewer who is on a certain forum, and a major local retailer who is very knowledgeable on all things brewing. The argument went that lagers have to be recirculated or at least Vorlaufed so BIAB was out, sorry.

Anyway my Standard Australian Lager just took out second place in the Pale Lagers at the Australian Amateur Brewing Championships in Canberra judged over the weekend.

No feedback yet, a bit early, but I'm really chuffed for two reasons:

• first, Aussie Lagers ( similarly American Pale Lagers) are the hardest styles to crack because you have absolutely nothing to hide behind.
  second, as we know you can't brew a decent lager using BIAB

I'm currently chilling the very last bottle and will post if the pic comes out ok.

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Glass on left has a wee bit of sediment as it was bottle conditioned and I took it round to mate's place for sample and photo:

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Great job Beachbum ,

I hadn't heard the BIAB lager debate thing. Mine go well at the Royal show here (except for this year - lol) and that's without even putting in much of an effort (filtering etc).

Go get 'em mate .

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Australia
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• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From United States of America
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Thanks guys, I haven't mastered Biabacus as yet, but I can post a text based recipe:
For Overseas brewers a good substitute for Pride of Ringwood would be good old Cluster, and a two row lager malt. A bit of sulphates in the water is characteristic. The mash and fermentation schedules were revealed to me by a guy who works for Fosters.
Of course we never had that conversation, I know nothing Mr Fawlty ...

2013 comps Australian Premium Lager
Australian Premium Lager

Recipe Specs
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Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.500
Total Hops (g): 43.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.049 (°P): 12.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010 (°P): 2.6
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.09 %
Colour (SRM): 3.0 (EBC): 5.9
Bitterness (IBU): 25.3 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
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3.500 kg Lager Malt Australian (77.78%)
0.500 kg Cane Sugar (11.11%)
0.500 kg Carapils (Dextrine) (11.11%)

Hop Bill
----------------
25.0 g Pride of Ringwood Leaf (8.3% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)
18.0 g Hersbrucker Pellet (2.8% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)


Notes
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Mash 63 for 2 hours
Mashout 78 for 20 mins

Ferment 13 degrees rising to 19 degrees over 10 days.
Lager -1 degrees for 7 days.

Recipe Generated with BrewMate

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they must be correct BB, cause I could only manage a bronze with my Aussie lager on the weekend

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Well done, BIAB takes over the comps... I always said it would happen

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Congratulations BB!

Can I ask a few questions though?
I have put your recipe into the BIABacus, but just wondered whether your 23L batch size is the volume at flameout or volume into fermenter? (or something else)?

Also, what yeast did you use?
If the mods allow it, I can upload the file here for comments/amendments then maybe get it moved to recipes?
Who wouldn't want to know recipes that win awards.

Cheers!

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Great Britain
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Beachbum,

Great job! You did us proud! (Everyone knows?) you can't do this or you can't do that, but when BIAB wins they think its a fluke? Each and every time we win. Each and every time they think it's a fluke? (Everyone knows?)

BIAB! Less work, less cost, less time, less storage but more medals!

• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From United States of America
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23L into the fermenter that gives a cornie keg plus some bottles for sampling (in this case about two thirds of a cornie and a few bottles drawn off mid way for the competition)

OOps sorry it's Wyeast Danish Lager 2042 - don't know how that disappeared. Apparently it's very close to Australian yeasts such as the Fosters strains - if they run into problems they ring Copenhagen

No worries if you would like to upload to BIABacus.

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• • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Great Britain
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