Back in November, one of our local breweries, Beaver Island Brewing, hosted a wort drive event featuring the Sterling Pounder Maibock, a recipe by Michael Dawson, author of “Mashmaker: A Citizen-Brewer’s Guide to Making Great Beer at Home”. There were various tiers of participation but I was only in for the 5 gallons of wort as I was out of town. Thank you Steve Cook for picking up my wort for me!

I promptly racked the wort from my keg to a sanitized carboy and pitched with 3 packets of LeSafre S-23 Lager yeast (rehydrated) @ 50º.  I was a little surprised that I had a very active fermentation within 24 hours of pitching. Six days later I started raised the temp slowly to 58º. At 13 days I started the D-rest, raising the temp once again to 63º for two days before cold crashing.

With a starting gravity of 1.067 and finishing gravity of 1.012, I ended up at 7.2% abv with 81% apparent attenuation. With primary fermentation complete, it was time to lager this puppy in a keg. Seven weeks at 38º drops it pretty clear and leaves it very clean, crisp, and slightly sweet. I then closed transferred to a keg with gelatin for 36 hours at 38º and close transferred once more to a co2 purged keg for carbonating and serving. I’m looking for a brightly carbed, sparkling beer so aiming a little high for 2.4 volumes, so I set the pressure at 12psi as suggested by the carbing charts.  I’ll leave this for about a week or so until the co2 equalizes in the beer before reducing to serving pressures.

The photos are the final beer after clarifying and on the way tot he serving keg. Beautiful, clear, bright yellow golden beer. Can’t wait for it to carb up and drink.