Lager Beer
- 4 lb. pale malt
- 3½ lb. white sugar
- 3 oz. hops
- small level teaspoonful salt
- ½ oz. citric acid
- lager yeast - nutrient
Bring seven quarts water to 150°F and pour into the polythene pail. Add the malt at once. Put in the immersion heater, cover the vessel with polythene and wrap the vessel in a blanket to conserve warmth.
Switch on the heater and leave for seven-eight hours. At this stage you may carry out the starch test if you want to. Strain the mash into the boiler, add two ounces of hops and the salt. Boil for one minute and then simmer for forty minutes. Add remaining hops and simmer for a further ten minutes.
Put the sugar and acid in the fermenting vessel and strain the mash on to it through fine muslin. Stir well, making sure all sugar is dissolved, and then make up to four gallons with boiling water.
Cover with sheet polythene and allow to cool to 65°-70°F. Then add the yeast. Cover as directed and leave in a warm place for eight-ten days. If using the hydrometer, take readings after six days and until 1.005 is recorded and then bottle as already directed.
If you are not using the hydrometer, allow beer to ferment out by leaving for a day or two longer or until the beer goes ‘flat’. Then prime - add sugar to restart fermentation - as already explained.
Keep for six weeks in bottles before using. This can, of course, be used sooner than this, but this lager is better for being kept a few weeks.