Just brewed this beer, and I can't stop drinking it. Thank you so much for posting this recipe. A wedge of lime inside the glass while serving really sets off this beer. I ended up using 34/70 instead and fermented at around 23 degrees c for 3 days. It came out amazing. Cheers🍻
Thanks for letting me know. We had the same problem with the last batch, just ended up reaching for it every time we went for a beer. The lime wedge sounds great too.
Great job on nailing the process of brewing a Mexican lager! Your attention to detail really paid off. Can't wait to give your recipe a try and, and see for myself. Keep up the awesome work with your content!
I would like to thank you for this recipe. I just brewed it albeit in a slightly amended form (I have a MiniBrew system) but I am extremely happy with the result. Some few tweaks for my next attempt and I’m happy for the rest of the summer. Cheers!! 😊
Thanks Rick. A lot been going on, so time to brew and edit has been short (you know how it goes) but I've got a few more videos I need to get edited and punted into the ether soon. 🍺🍺🍺
looking back on some of your videos. thought id share. i did a small addition of herkukes hops at FWH. i boiled to the end till about 15 minutes and added hallertau tradition. ibu was 20. my first mexican lager. turned out very good. if you added herkules and hallertau tradition youll get almost like a lime like flavor and a hint of melon and a somewhat lemon lime twang. it was kinda nice. i used motueka one time like you did here i added 0.75 at the end but it seemed too strong
I like the combination of those two, and can definitely see it in a Mexican lager. As long as the melon didn't come through to strongly. The Hallertau Tradition is a great fit, and I might try that at some point. Something we don't talk about much is hop differences. We all say "oh, I used this, and it created this... blah, blah..." but depending on the hops year or region of origin, we can end up with a really different beer from brew to brew. An example I had recently, was when I re-brewed my Centennial pale. The difference in hops crop year, made a huge difference to the beer. Nowhere near (and I mean not even close) to as much grapefruit. The beer ended a little flabby, without as much sharp citrus bite, still very good, but not a patch on the original. The original was one of the most refreshing beers I've brewed in ages. The re-brew was nothing special. I'd hate to be a commercial brewer, having to try to match a flavour profile, brew after brew, year after year. It must be a nightmare.
Looks great. As luck would have it I already bought some flaked corn and Mexican lager yeast so I am definitely going to give your recipe a try. Thanks for the great videos.
Nice job, I use instant Polenta as the corn adjunct. Always nice to see you take on styles. I love German beer and Mexican style is very refreshing. Mittelfreh and Sazz is a good start. As you have stated, lots of modern hops to amplify the style.
Thank you. 🍺🍺 Polenta is certainly the easiest corn form to purchase from the supermarket. I use flaked if I remember to add a load in when doing a grain order..... but my memory isn't getting any better.... so generally off to the supermarket.....
cheers for the video and recipe - brewed this and it's really really good. went down very well at wifes bday party last week! will be brewing again i think. felt a little thin/flat at 12psi so bumped it up to 15psi and much more satisfying. Used the Omega liquid mexican lager yeast - have had excellent results with that range including the Kolsch which I highly recommend.
That's fantastic to hear, thankyou. I've got a keg on tap at the moment, and I agree, it's better on the high carbonation side, it just brings out the crispness a bit better. I haven't tried the Omega mexican lager yeast, but I believe it's pretty close to/the same as, the White Labs version, so a nice substitution. 👍
thanks again - im brewing this for the 2nd time in the morning; did you brew it again and any improvements you could recommend? was thinking of adding a touch more motueka @brewandbuild
I have brewed this again, but as part of a yeast comparison. As I was comparing a new yeast, I felt I should keep with the original recipe. However, the next time I brew this, I intend to up the Motueka by probably 5 grams. The rest of the recipe is spot on for me, so no other changes intended. Have a good brew day tomorrow. 🍺🍺
Looks like a great beer, and good video, good to have you back after a break. It was good to hear a bit on the history of mexican brewing. How are you bottling it whist maintaining carbonation? I assume you’re not bottle conditioning
Cheers for that Alan. Yeah, life gets in the way of editing at times. 🤷 No, not bottle conditioning (although I do for a couple of styles) Instead, I force carbonate after clearing the beers, then I'm using a Blichmann Beer Gun. I carbonate about 0.2 vol over my desired end carbonation level, at 3 degrees c, as we lose some carbonation during bottling. Then we CO2 purge each bottle as we go, and fill and cap. There's some short bits of footage of the bottling on a few of the other videos in places (German Pils South and Honey Pale lager, I think)
Great recipe, I would consider trying with Vienna instead of Munich as my understanding is that the darker styles (dos eques amber and Modela Negra use Vienna 12:57)
Vienna is definitely a great option, and I would say a larger dose of that instead of the Munich would give a very similar result. I would say however, that the percentage is small enough in this recipe that I don't think you would notice a taste difference. I've never been convinced of the Modelo Negra/ Vienna malt thing. I'm a little in the camp of thinking it's more likely Munich malt. I've never found any official Modelo information, it just seems to be that every homebrew recipe has decided it is Vienna malt. If you have direct info pointing to Vienna though, I'd be grateful if you could point me that direction. 🍺🍺
@@brewandbuild after I made the comment I noticed your beer color was lighter than the ambers. Relative to your question I did go to the Web sites of Modelo and Dos Equis. Modelo Negra is a Munich Dunkel style, and Dos Equis amber is a Vienna.
@@brewandbuild Most of the modern macro dark Mexican lagers are no longer made anything like a traditional Vienna lager would have been. Most of them use a commercial carmel colorant syrup to make the dark beers, which is why they're so flavor neutral. ;-(
Hello for New Zealand. Great video and sounds like a cracking beer!! It is pronounced mot-you-a-car 😁 I definitely plan to have a crack at this recipe, but unfortunately liquid yeast in many varieties is very hard to come by in NZ. Do you have a dried yeast suggestion? Thanks.
Thanks for letting me know, Sorry, I'll try harder to get it right next time I use it. On the yeast front.. I have to say that WLP 940 is unique amongst the yeasts that I use/have used, and therefore I couldn't give a yeast that I personally have tried and gives the same result. Some argue that it gives a definable Mexican taste to a beer. I don't know whether I could say I get a certain taste from it, but what I can say, is that it is the most amazingly neutral yest I know of, and therefore it allows whatever ingredients you use in the beer to shine through unadulterated. What I have had mentioned to me today is a dried yeast I hadn't heard of: Cellar Science Baja yeast. The reports I'm reading sound like it might be a dried version of the Modelo yeast. If that's true, then that would be the obvious choice. It may also not be available down there, but might be worth a shot if it is. I'd quite like to do a side by side of the two yeasts to see how it stacks up, but I don't know whether I'm going to get time for that any time soon.
Yes! You do iodine tests, too (you ARE obsessive!). I just brewed my Mexican lager, with a similar percentage of flaked corn almost 3 weeks ago. I also planned to add Motueka hops to get a lime flavor, but it's a lot harder to get in the US and my local shop was out. (I'll fill 3 growlers and I'm going to compare: freshly zested lime peel, kefir lime leaves, and Motueka dry hop that my buddy gave me). Mine is still carbonating and clarifying right now and right now it has a distinct corn flakes taste to it that I am NOT enjoying right now. I hope it improves in a week or so... Next time I do an adjunct lager, I think I'm going to go 15% Jasmine rice and 15% corn just to try something different.
Yeah, the Jasmine rice works really well. Go for that for sure. Hopefully that corn taste clears up. i get that a bit during fermentation, but it never seems to carry through to the final product. Good luck with that one. Now kaffir lime leaves. That's never even crossed my mind. I love the idea. Let me know how that works out.
Hi there, It's a Mattmill Master. I keep meaning to do a review of it on my website.... one day..... I have no affiliation with them, but the link to their website is www.mattmill.de/mattmill-master/ I've found it to be a great mill. The rollers are quite narrow, which means the volume it can crush at once is quite small. This means it's certainly not a fast mill. However, speed is not my concern, accuracy and durability are. The narrow rollers mean that the accuracy from one side of the roller to the other is spot on, so all the grain is perfectly crushed at the setting you've chosen. Hope that helps a little.
To be honest, 99% of the work was done for me during the cold crash. It sat at 3 degrees centigrade on the yeast for about 3 weeks, and then it sat cold for two weeks off the yeast in the unitank. I do fine most things with gelatin and this was no exception. This yeast seems to like to drop clear.
Beers containing a lot of low adjunct proteins like Mexican lagers (up to 30% corn) or Rice Lagers (up to 30% rice) tend to get much clearer much faster as they don't provide very many proteins and proteins are half of "non-biological haze" complexes in beer. (Once you get rid of the yeast in beer most haze is a combination of proteins and polyphenols, and beer is unique amongst fermentable beverages in that it has a giant overabundance of protein.)
I brewed a Mexican Cerveza recently and tried Cellarscience Baja dry yeast and was pretty happy with the results. Give it a go if you can, wouldn’t mind hearing your thoughts as a comparison.
I've just been reading about the Baja yeast, that's sounds like it would be an interesting side by side with 940. I'm not saying I will have time to give that a shot (very short at present) but I'm not saying I won't. I'll see.... If I do, I'll let you know. 🍺🍺
Well, I've just split a batch of Mex Lager, one with WLP 940 and one with Baja. As long as I don't mess it up from here, I should get a video out hopefully in a couple of months.
Finally, the results are in. ruclips.net/video/XQj0mlcGUAc/видео.html I have to say that the Baja made a nice lager in it's own right, but when compared to the WLP940, it was lacking vibrancy, and the taste profile was noticably different. I was surprised by the result, as they're both supposedly from Modelo. It makes me wonder if it's the drying process, and if on a re-pitch of the yeast cake, it might be more true to the liquid version. Safale S-05 is like that, and changes a little on the second pitch. None the less, I enjoyed the experiment. Thanks for the yeast suggestion.
I liked the recipe, it looks spectacular. but I wouldn't like to give it the citrus note, rather I would look for something more treacherous. Do you recommend putting SAAZ back after 5 minutes instead of MOTUEKA?
Yes, absolutely. My original thought was to go for Saaz on both hop additions, and it will result in an excellent pale lager. I understand if the lime note is not quite your thing, however, I feel it really elevates it into something quite unique. Good to hear from you.
@brewandbuild today I cut my motueka plant down, winter here in NewZealand. Funny thing was it was starting to grow new shutes, I grow 10 different hop types of NZ hops.
I have t say that I'm a bit jealous of that. There was a point where I set out to grow hops here, but it kind of fizzled out as a project. It's something I really need to revisit. Are you growing yours in the ground, or potted?
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Just brewed this beer, and I can't stop drinking it. Thank you so much for posting this recipe. A wedge of lime inside the glass while serving really sets off this beer. I ended up using 34/70 instead and fermented at around 23 degrees c for 3 days. It came out amazing. Cheers🍻
Thanks for letting me know. We had the same problem with the last batch, just ended up reaching for it every time we went for a beer.
The lime wedge sounds great too.
Looks amazing, congratulation, great beer!!
i see some real genius in your brewing. the beer looks good. its crystal clear
Thank you very much for your kind words. I'm always learning though.
Great you are back and with a beer I definitely have to make. Cheers
😁 I'm still lurking around, I've got a backlog of about 5 beers I need to edit and get out.
Hope you enjoy this one. 👍
Great job on nailing the process of brewing a Mexican lager! Your attention to detail really paid off. Can't wait to give your recipe a try and, and see for myself. Keep up the awesome work with your content!
Thanks a lot for that. I hope it works as well for you as it has me. 🍺🍺
I would like to thank you for this recipe. I just brewed it albeit in a slightly amended form (I have a MiniBrew system) but I am extremely happy with the result. Some few tweaks for my next attempt and I’m happy for the rest of the summer. Cheers!! 😊
I love to hear that, thank you. Happy drinking. 🍺🍺
Great looking beer and a very interesting episode as always. Stunning clarity and a beautiful colour. Nice work again great to see you back cheers 👍🍻
Thanks Rick. A lot been going on, so time to brew and edit has been short (you know how it goes) but I've got a few more videos I need to get edited and punted into the ether soon. 🍺🍺🍺
That is some giant hopper son. i am anxious to try your recipe. Thank you.
Hope it works out for you. Cheers
looking back on some of your videos. thought id share. i did a small addition of herkukes hops at FWH. i boiled to the end till about 15 minutes and added hallertau tradition. ibu was 20. my first mexican lager. turned out very good. if you added herkules and hallertau tradition youll get almost like a lime like flavor and a hint of melon and a somewhat lemon lime twang. it was kinda nice. i used motueka one time like you did here i added 0.75 at the end but it seemed too strong
I like the combination of those two, and can definitely see it in a Mexican lager. As long as the melon didn't come through to strongly. The Hallertau Tradition is a great fit, and I might try that at some point.
Something we don't talk about much is hop differences. We all say "oh, I used this, and it created this... blah, blah..." but depending on the hops year or region of origin, we can end up with a really different beer from brew to brew.
An example I had recently, was when I re-brewed my Centennial pale. The difference in hops crop year, made a huge difference to the beer. Nowhere near (and I mean not even close) to as much grapefruit. The beer ended a little flabby, without as much sharp citrus bite, still very good, but not a patch on the original. The original was one of the most refreshing beers I've brewed in ages. The re-brew was nothing special.
I'd hate to be a commercial brewer, having to try to match a flavour profile, brew after brew, year after year. It must be a nightmare.
Looks great. As luck would have it I already bought some flaked corn and Mexican lager yeast so I am definitely going to give your recipe a try. Thanks for the great videos.
That sounds like you're good to go on that. Good luck with the brewing, and I hope it turns out well. 🍺🍺
Nice job, I use instant Polenta as the corn adjunct. Always nice to see you take on styles. I love German beer and Mexican style is very refreshing. Mittelfreh and Sazz is a good start. As you have stated, lots of modern hops to amplify the style.
Thank you. 🍺🍺
Polenta is certainly the easiest corn form to purchase from the supermarket. I use flaked if I remember to add a load in when doing a grain order..... but my memory isn't getting any better.... so generally off to the supermarket.....
cheers for the video and recipe - brewed this and it's really really good. went down very well at wifes bday party last week! will be brewing again i think. felt a little thin/flat at 12psi so bumped it up to 15psi and much more satisfying. Used the Omega liquid mexican lager yeast - have had excellent results with that range including the Kolsch which I highly recommend.
That's fantastic to hear, thankyou.
I've got a keg on tap at the moment, and I agree, it's better on the high carbonation side, it just brings out the crispness a bit better.
I haven't tried the Omega mexican lager yeast, but I believe it's pretty close to/the same as, the White Labs version, so a nice substitution. 👍
thanks again - im brewing this for the 2nd time in the morning; did you brew it again and any improvements you could recommend? was thinking of adding a touch more motueka @brewandbuild
I have brewed this again, but as part of a yeast comparison. As I was comparing a new yeast, I felt I should keep with the original recipe.
However, the next time I brew this, I intend to up the Motueka by probably 5 grams. The rest of the recipe is spot on for me, so no other changes intended.
Have a good brew day tomorrow. 🍺🍺
@brewandbuild thanks that's exactly what I was thinking re the Motueka! will give it a go. as you say hard to think of anything else to improve it.
can't for the life of me remember if I raised to 22degC for a diacetyl rest on my 1st brew of this. Did you do it and is it needed? cheers again!
Looks like a great beer, and good video, good to have you back after a break. It was good to hear a bit on the history of mexican brewing.
How are you bottling it whist maintaining carbonation? I assume you’re not bottle conditioning
Cheers for that Alan. Yeah, life gets in the way of editing at times. 🤷
No, not bottle conditioning (although I do for a couple of styles)
Instead, I force carbonate after clearing the beers, then I'm using a Blichmann Beer Gun. I carbonate about 0.2 vol over my desired end carbonation level, at 3 degrees c, as we lose some carbonation during bottling.
Then we CO2 purge each bottle as we go, and fill and cap.
There's some short bits of footage of the bottling on a few of the other videos in places (German Pils South and Honey Pale lager, I think)
Ive just brewed this, nova lager, brewed out in 2 days under pressure, begging in 3 days after the yeast cleans up.
Let me know how it goes with the Nova Lager. 👍
Great recipe, I would consider trying with Vienna instead of Munich as my understanding is that the darker styles (dos eques amber and Modela Negra use Vienna 12:57)
Vienna is definitely a great option, and I would say a larger dose of that instead of the Munich would give a very similar result. I would say however, that the percentage is small enough in this recipe that I don't think you would notice a taste difference.
I've never been convinced of the Modelo Negra/ Vienna malt thing. I'm a little in the camp of thinking it's more likely Munich malt. I've never found any official Modelo information, it just seems to be that every homebrew recipe has decided it is Vienna malt.
If you have direct info pointing to Vienna though, I'd be grateful if you could point me that direction. 🍺🍺
@@brewandbuild after I made the comment I noticed your beer color was lighter than the ambers. Relative to your question I did go to the Web sites of Modelo and Dos Equis. Modelo Negra is a Munich Dunkel style, and Dos Equis amber is a Vienna.
@@brewandbuild Most of the modern macro dark Mexican lagers are no longer made anything like a traditional Vienna lager would have been. Most of them use a commercial carmel colorant syrup to make the dark beers, which is why they're so flavor neutral. ;-(
@@adamarndt7617 I can certainly believe that of the large macro type companies.
Hello for New Zealand. Great video and sounds like a cracking beer!!
It is pronounced mot-you-a-car 😁
I definitely plan to have a crack at this recipe, but unfortunately liquid yeast in many varieties is very hard to come by in NZ. Do you have a dried yeast suggestion? Thanks.
Thanks for letting me know, Sorry, I'll try harder to get it right next time I use it.
On the yeast front.. I have to say that WLP 940 is unique amongst the yeasts that I use/have used, and therefore I couldn't give a yeast that I personally have tried and gives the same result. Some argue that it gives a definable Mexican taste to a beer. I don't know whether I could say I get a certain taste from it, but what I can say, is that it is the most amazingly neutral yest I know of, and therefore it allows whatever ingredients you use in the beer to shine through unadulterated.
What I have had mentioned to me today is a dried yeast I hadn't heard of: Cellar Science Baja yeast. The reports I'm reading sound like it might be a dried version of the Modelo yeast. If that's true, then that would be the obvious choice. It may also not be available down there, but might be worth a shot if it is.
I'd quite like to do a side by side of the two yeasts to see how it stacks up, but I don't know whether I'm going to get time for that any time soon.
Great video! Is this your full time job now? 😂 you look well!
Cheers, 😂 It may as well be, it certainly takes up plenty of time.
I think it's all the beer that gives me that healthy glow.....
Thank you for posting this recipe. How much Mg, Na and HCO3, please ?
Thanks for watching.
The full water profile is Ca 49 ppm, SO4 75 ppm Cl 60 ppm, Mg 5.4 ppm, Na 4.1 ppm and HCO3 22.4 ppm
Yes! You do iodine tests, too (you ARE obsessive!).
I just brewed my Mexican lager, with a similar percentage of flaked corn almost 3 weeks ago. I also planned to add Motueka hops to get a lime flavor, but it's a lot harder to get in the US and my local shop was out. (I'll fill 3 growlers and I'm going to compare: freshly zested lime peel, kefir lime leaves, and Motueka dry hop that my buddy gave me).
Mine is still carbonating and clarifying right now and right now it has a distinct corn flakes taste to it that I am NOT enjoying right now. I hope it improves in a week or so...
Next time I do an adjunct lager, I think I'm going to go 15% Jasmine rice and 15% corn just to try something different.
Yeah, the Jasmine rice works really well. Go for that for sure.
Hopefully that corn taste clears up. i get that a bit during fermentation, but it never seems to carry through to the final product. Good luck with that one.
Now kaffir lime leaves. That's never even crossed my mind. I love the idea. Let me know how that works out.
hello, tell me about your crusher in more detail or give me a link to it, please)))
Hi there,
It's a Mattmill Master. I keep meaning to do a review of it on my website.... one day.....
I have no affiliation with them, but the link to their website is
www.mattmill.de/mattmill-master/
I've found it to be a great mill. The rollers are quite narrow, which means the volume it can crush at once is quite small. This means it's certainly not a fast mill. However, speed is not my concern, accuracy and durability are.
The narrow rollers mean that the accuracy from one side of the roller to the other is spot on, so all the grain is perfectly crushed at the setting you've chosen.
Hope that helps a little.
@@brewandbuild thank you so much for the detailed answer, you helped me))))
Are you fermenting this under pressure? If so, at what pressure?
I'm afraid I'm not. It's a standard cold temp, non pressure ferment.
How did it turned out to be so clear. Any secrets??
To be honest, 99% of the work was done for me during the cold crash. It sat at 3 degrees centigrade on the yeast for about 3 weeks, and then it sat cold for two weeks off the yeast in the unitank. I do fine most things with gelatin and this was no exception. This yeast seems to like to drop clear.
Beers containing a lot of low adjunct proteins like Mexican lagers (up to 30% corn) or Rice Lagers (up to 30% rice) tend to get much clearer much faster as they don't provide very many proteins and proteins are half of "non-biological haze" complexes in beer. (Once you get rid of the yeast in beer most haze is a combination of proteins and polyphenols, and beer is unique amongst fermentable beverages in that it has a giant overabundance of protein.)
I brewed a Mexican Cerveza recently and tried Cellarscience Baja dry yeast and was pretty happy with the results. Give it a go if you can, wouldn’t mind hearing your thoughts as a comparison.
I've just been reading about the Baja yeast, that's sounds like it would be an interesting side by side with 940. I'm not saying I will have time to give that a shot (very short at present) but I'm not saying I won't. I'll see....
If I do, I'll let you know. 🍺🍺
Well, I've just split a batch of Mex Lager, one with WLP 940 and one with Baja. As long as I don't mess it up from here, I should get a video out hopefully in a couple of months.
Nice one! Look forward to the review.
Finally, the results are in.
ruclips.net/video/XQj0mlcGUAc/видео.html
I have to say that the Baja made a nice lager in it's own right, but when compared to the WLP940, it was lacking vibrancy, and the taste profile was noticably different.
I was surprised by the result, as they're both supposedly from Modelo. It makes me wonder if it's the drying process, and if on a re-pitch of the yeast cake, it might be more true to the liquid version. Safale S-05 is like that, and changes a little on the second pitch.
None the less, I enjoyed the experiment. Thanks for the yeast suggestion.
I liked the recipe, it looks spectacular. but I wouldn't like to give it the citrus note, rather I would look for something more treacherous. Do you recommend putting SAAZ back after 5 minutes instead of MOTUEKA?
Yes, absolutely. My original thought was to go for Saaz on both hop additions, and it will result in an excellent pale lager.
I understand if the lime note is not quite your thing, however, I feel it really elevates it into something quite unique. Good to hear from you.
Whats your OG and FG?
The OG was 1.050, but I seem to have missed putting the FG in the video. It was 1.012
@brewandbuild thank you, I'm brewing this beer now, can't wait to try it. I appreciate the work you put in.
Good luck with it. I hope it turns out well for you. 🍺🍺
Great video! Did you lager this beer after fermentation?
Thanks for that. Yes it got lagered. I lost track of exactly how long, but it would have been around four to five weeks in the tank before bottling.
The hops are pronounced Mot u eka 😊
Thanks Bruce, I'm hearing that a bit from the Kiwi sector... 😁
Sorry, I'll try to get it right the next time I use it.
@brewandbuild today I cut my motueka plant down, winter here in NewZealand. Funny thing was it was starting to grow new shutes, I grow 10 different hop types of NZ hops.
I have t say that I'm a bit jealous of that. There was a point where I set out to grow hops here, but it kind of fizzled out as a project. It's something I really need to revisit.
Are you growing yours in the ground, or potted?
Looks awesome. You lost me when I could hear you swallowing though. That’s a sound that is just not pleasant to hear for me.
Ahh, sorry about that, I'll try and take it on-board for the future.
Thanks for letting me know, and thanks for watching.