Republished from BrewingTechniques' July/August 1996.

Brewing Canadian Lagers

The breweries will not tell me their grist compositions, but I do know that starting gravities are about 16-17°Balling (1.064-1.068 S.G.). Malt is probably a 2:1 ratio of two-row/six-row Harrington or Manly malt, or up to 100% two-row, and the fermentables/adjuncts ratio is anywhere from 3:2 to 3:1. Years ago in Newfoundland they used grits but now prefer syrups. Though I believe no specialty malts are used, I understand they do sometimes add wheat, corn, potato starch, and so forth. I hear that one brewery even uses six-row malt when not using any additional starchy adjuncts, because six-row malt has a greener/grassier nature and because it contributes a desired dimethyl sulfide (DMS) note in the finished beer. Hop levels are probably at 16-22 IBUs, using Northern Brewer for bittering and Hallertau, Saaz, or Cascade for flavoring and finishing. Fermentation takes place in either a true lagering process (Labatt's) or a modern aging system using an unknown European lager yeast.

In my home brewery, I brew 5-10 gal batches and do not filter.

I have read many books on home brewing, including yours, but some questions linger:

I've also noticed that the level of iron (0.08 mg/L) is just above the recommended level of 0.05, but everything else seems fine, except the chlorine. Maybe I should use distilled water when diluting my high-gravity lagers. Can you suggest any alternatives to help me avoid this expense?

A: You seem to be serious about duplicating a Canadian-style lager. That being the case, my first recommendation is not in response to any of your questions. You mentioned in passing that you do not filter your homebrew. All modern Canadian lagers are filtered. If you do not follow this practice, you will not get within shooting distance of the beers you are trying to emulate. Filtration changes beer flavor in ways that are not at all subtle.

Now for the questions. I don't know about Canadian breweries, but the major American breweries abandoned the use of antioxidants years ago. I don't think they are necessary if your bottling technique and brewing practices are sound. I do not recommend the use of potassium or sodium metabisulfite because the flavor is always perceptible in the finished beer. You can rely on other techniques to minimize oxidation of the wort and beer. To dechlorinate water, simply boil it or run it through a carbon filter.

Activated carbon would probably be some help in removing the compounds that are precursors of chill haze, but it will also remove other flavor compounds that you want in the finished beer. The easiest way to get rid of chill haze is to chill the finished beer to about 32°F (0°C) and filter it. That's how the commercial breweries do it. Failing that, try Polyclar and silica gel treatment in your lager step. Again, the colder the beer when you treat it, the more effective the treatment will be.

The Corona mill is not made for wet milling. The bearings are not sealed, and wet milling will wash the grease out of them and into your mash. Stick to dry milling.

Air pickup during mashing and lautering is mainly from the mash mixing and the recirculation/runoff. Water heated to sparge temperature range is for all practical purposes deaerated.

I don't know of a source for homebrew quantities of the amyloglucosidase enzymes you are referring to. They are available commercially, but a homebrew wholesaler would have to repackage one of these products for homebrew supply shops. If what you want to brew is the traditional, "premium" type of Canadian lager (as opposed to the more recent "light" or "dry" variants), you don't need additional enzymes to get sufficient breakdown of the starches, especially with a malt/adjunct ratio of 3:1. Starch haze is generally no problem with long mashes. It is more often associated with improper lautering technique, especially high temperatures of the sparge water or the mash itself or poor wort filtration in the lauter tun. With home-brewed adjunct beers, a common cause of haze is inadequate cooking of the grits (whether rice or corn).

When I was home brewing, I had better luck with corn meal than corn grits as an adjunct; it was easier to cook it to gelatinization. I never tried potato starch. Most breweries use 10-15% malt in their cereal mashes. That seems to be enough to prevent sticking and scorching in the cooker. Remember though that brewery vessels are heated with steam. Direct-fire vessels get a lot hotter on the bottom. If you want to cook your own grits, use plenty of water and be careful with your heat. I recommend avoiding the whole messy business by substituting brewer's flaked maize. This substitution will not change the flavor of the finished beer appreciably, and it's a pretty straight trade of a little money for a lot of simplicity.

The clear tube in the illustration is a manometer tube, which I recommend in my new book (2). The level of liquid in the tube indicates the amount of suction you are generating across the filter bed during lautering. You should try to maintain a steady level or sustain a very slight, gradual drop. When the wort is recirculated, the level should drop as the bed is pulled together and the wort clarifies. Once the wort is running clear, you will of course start transferring the wort to the kettle and, soon after, begin the sparge. The manometer tube is very useful at this critical stage. First, it is important to maintain enough suction on the filter bed to hold the bed together. If the level in the tube begins to rise, either there is a blockage that must be flushed out, or the runoff rate must be increased. If the situation is not corrected, the grain bed will expand and open up, allowing fine-ground material to cloud the runoff. Conversely, a large drop in the level indicates that too much suction is being applied to the bed (runoff is too fast), and unless you make adjustments, the bed will pack tight and bring the flow to a standstill - the dreaded set mash.

The longer you leave the wort hot after boiling, the more DMS will form. You have to decide how much you like in your beer. As you observe, some Canadian (and American) beers have DMS as a part of their flavor profile. If you don't want it, cool your wort as soon and as fast as possible after the boil.

According to Principles of Brewing Science (3), high glycerol levels are associated with respiration repression and are also typical of high-gravity and/or poorly oxygenated worts. I suspect that they may also depend very much on the propensities of the yeast strain in question, which leads me into another plug for the Yeast Directory in the 1996 Brewers' Market Guide (4) published by BrewingTechniques. I have used only a few yeast strains in my brewing; rather than suggest one of those, I suggest you research the lists and ask the suppliers for more information about the most likely sounding candidates.

Regarding water: I don't recommend distilled water except as a last resort. Your water is very soft and should make a fine pale lager with minimal treatment. If you must work without a pH meter, at least get a packet of Merck pH test strips. You will probably find that 1/2 teaspoon of gypsum or calcium chloride will bring your mash pH into optimal range.

As for the sparge water, very little phosphoric acid should be needed to get the pH down. It is already very low. There is no way to predict the exact amount required, but you are on the right track in using a very dilute stock solution to treat the water. However, if you intend to brew high-gravity beers, your sparge water may not need any treatment. The gravity of your last runnings will probably be at least 3°P, and probably 4 °P (1.012-1.014). Worts of this gravity usually contain enough buffers to hold the pH below 6.0. Water for diluting the finished beer (sometimes called blending water) should be low in iron, as you observe, but I doubt you'll notice much difference, particularly if you do not filter your beer. The main problem with introducing iron into bright beer is that it speeds up oxidation.

I don't know of any books specifically devoted to Canadian lager beer or brewing, but brewing practices for Canadian and American lagers are virtually identical. I recommend The Practical Brewer (5), if you haven't read it already. As for recipes, you don't need them. You have a very good idea of what goes into these beers already. Because of the vast differences in the scale and technology between your efforts and those of, say, Labatt's, having an exact recipe would not enable you to duplicate the commercial beer in any case.

Cleaning Pony Kegs for Fermentation

A: Maybe. You are only partly right about cleaning Sankey kegs, more correctly referred to as straight-walled, Sankey-valve kegs. Steam is not used to clean them, only to sanitize them. And many small commercial breweries use chemical sanitizers instead of steam, with excellent results.

The bear is not sanitation, but cleaning the things. They are designed to be cleaned in place, upside down, by pumping cleaning solution in through the draw tube (often called the spear) attached to the valve mechanism. This requires a pump of some power. The usual cleaning agent is caustic soda, which is dangerous to work with. So while these kegs seem at first glance to be ideal fermentors for large homebrew batches, the cleaning requirements are daunting. Even though you will remove the spear for fermentation, you are still left with a very dark interior that is difficult to reach into.

Recently a company called Five Star Products & Services, LLC. (Commerce City, Colorado) hit the market with a new cleaner called PBW, which is designed to replace caustic soda. The product is based on sodium metasilicate and an oxygen-yielding compound. Among its interesting properties, the manufacturers claim it is capable, at high concentrations, of soaking off burnt-on carbon deposits from deep fat fryers.

I have cleaned a couple of tanks at my own brewery with PBW, and it seems to be just as effective as caustic when used as the manufacturer directs. It is a lot safer to handle than caustic, and for that reason it might be a good product for homebrew stores to consider. You will still have to scrub the inside of your keg with a carboy brush and inspect the surfaces with a mirror and a small light, but at least you won't risk third-degree burns every time you clean. Also, the stuff rinses a lot easier and cleaner than caustic.

I still recommend an acid rinse following the water rinse, however, to prevent the accumulation of beer stone on the keg walls. A number of mild acid cleaners are useful for this; Five Star sells one called Acid Cleaner No. 1. For sanitizing, iodophor works well. Sanitize the keg immediately before refilling.

Methanol in Home-Brewed Ginger Ale?

A: While methanol is sometimes made from wood (hence the name "wood alcohol"), you have nothing to worry about. Yeast cannot make methanol. The process of manufacturing methanol is completely different. It involves heating wood in the absence of air and distilling the fumes, which are primarily methanol. Ginger is indeed "woody" in texture, but the brewer's yeast you use to make your homemade ginger ale is not capable of breaking down cellulose (the stuff wood is made of), and even if you introduced enzymes that would break the cellulose down to sugar, the yeast would just make ethanol out of it.

I would be happy to demonstrate my confidence in the safety of your home-brewed ginger ale if you would care to submit a sample for sensory evaluation.

References

(2) Dave Miller, Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide (Storey Publishing, Pownal, Vermont, 1995), p. 111.

(3) George Fix, Principles of Brewing Science (Brewers Publications, Boulder, Colorado, 1989), pp 184-185.

(4) Deb Jolda, Ed., "The Yeast Directory - The Compleat Guide to Commercially Available Yeast Strains," The 1996 Brewers' Market Guide (BrewingTechniques/New Wine Press Inc., Eugene, Oregon, 1996).

(5) Harold Broderick, Ed., The Practical Brewer, 2nd. ed (Master Brewers Association of the Americas, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1977).