Vienna Lager Home Brew

I got acquainted with the Unibrau Pro System when I was visiting my brewing friend Iain Warren at his workplace. I decided to film a brewing video with him and he gave me the recipe for how to brew a Vienna Lager beer afterwards. So let’s go over his Vienna Lager homebrew.

The Unibrau Pro V2 is a homebrewing system made up of two main vessels. The first vessel serves as a fermenter, hot liquor tank and a kettle, whereas the second vessel serves as a mash tun. A heating element is only present in the fermenter vessel. Since the heating element is only on one of the vessels, the wort has to be continually recirculated between the two vessels in order to keep the temperature constant.

Mashing In

To start our brew day, we first filled our hot liquor tank (HLT) with water. You also have the option of filling the cooling jacket with water too, which is what we did. The heating element heats the liquor inside the vessel. Through indirect heat transfer, the liquor in the cooling jacket is also heated. During this heating-up process, we looked at the controller to ensure that the required temperature was reached before we started recirculating the hot liquor between the two vessels.

The temperature difference between the two vessels usually fluctuates around 3-10°F due to heat transfer loss, so we had to keep that in mind when mashing in. Once we moved 20L of hot liquor over to the mash tun, we wanted our mash in temp to be 125°F, so the temperature in our hot liquor tank had to be higher than this temperature to account for heat loss through transfer.

Next, we added in our brewing salts: 2tsp of chalk (to help bring out the malt character), and 2tsp of gypsum (to harden the water). While we waited for the hot liquor to come up to temperature, we measured out our malts. We had 18.7 lbs of Vienna malt, 2 lbs of wheat malt, 2lbs of Munich 2 malt, 1lbs of Munich I malt, 2 ounces of midnight wheat, and 1 oz special wheat.  At Brau Supply they have a handheld drill to quickly turn the rollers in the mill to crush our malts.

When we were at temperature, we mashed in with our grains. Iain poured the grains in slowly, and stirred constantly to ensure that no big clumps of dry grain, or “dough balls” formed. We wanted to make sure all the grains were thoroughly wetted. After mashing in we attached the vorlauf arm to the top of the mash tun vessel.

Wort Collection

The wort travels from the bottom of the mash tun to the hot liquor tank and then back to the top of the mash tun vessel. One of the most interesting features of this 2 vessel system is that the wort is almost always recirculating between the two vessels. Then we had a mash rest for 15min at 125°F, this was a beta glucanase rest which adds body to our Vienna Lager beer. Then we raised the temperature to 140°F to convert our starches into sugars. This step took 15 minutes. Then we raised the temperature to 149°F for 15min to target the alpha-amylase enzymes. Lastly, we raised the temperature to 154°F to increase the fermentability of the wort still in the alpha-amylase range to better dry out.

Sparging

Initially we had the vorlauf arm attached to the mash tun vessel. After converting the starches into sugars, it was time to separate the wort from the grain so we could do a boil. At this stage we replaced our vorlauf arm with our sparge arm. Now if you remember from before, the jackets on the HLT are also filled with hot liquor. This hot liquor now becomes our sparge water. The cooling jacket had around 16L of hot liquor inside.

As the wort travelled into the fermenter, we started the sparge as well. We wanted the amount of sparge water going in to be about the same as the amount of wort being transferred over to the fermenter. Now the nice thing about this system is that unlike the brew in a bag method, where you lose a lot of wort volume once you take the bag out, you can fill the kettle to the very top for your boil with the Unibrau Pro V2. You get more wort, and hence more Vienna Lager beer in the end.

Boiling

We started the boil in our kettle. This was a 60 minute long boil, so at the start we added 1.5 oz of Tettnanger hops. When there was only 5 minutes left in the boil we added another 0.5oz of Tettnanger hops. At the end of the boil we added 2 oz of Saaz hops.

Whirlpooling

After the boil we started the whirlpool. When we set this vessel up for the brew day we put in an elbow shaped pipe which faced slightly downwards towards the wall of the vessel. So when we attached a pipe from the racking port to the whirlpool port on this vessel, the pressure of the liquid coming out of the elbow pipe created a vortex in the center of the vessel, or a “whirlpool”, this motion encouraged the hop trub to settle in the center and bottom of the vessel. We whirlpooled for 10 min and then started cooling the wort down.

Cooling

We attached a hose from the sink faucet to the cooling jacket. The jacket was filled with cooling water and the heat of the hot wort was transferred to the jacket. The now warmed water left the system from the outlet port, through the hose, and down the sink drain. Once the temperature was brought down to 10°C, we removed the trub from the vessel by opening the bottom drain pipe of the fermenter.

Yeast Pitching

Then we recirculated the wort through the top hatch of the vessel to oxygenate the wort. Lastly, we pitched in our Saflager W 34/70 yeast and let it ferment at 10°C for two days. Then at 11°C for two days, and at 12°C for two days. Then at 13°C and so forth until the fermentation was complete. Once fermentation was complete it was lagered for 3 weeks before canning.

Iain Warren’s Vienna Lager Beer Recipe (on the Unibrau Pro V2)

• 2 tsp of Chalk
• 2 tsp of Gypsum
• 18.7 lbs Vienna malt
• 2 lbs Wheat malt
• 2 lbs Munich II malt
• 1 lb Munich I malt
• 2 oz Midnight wheat
• 1 oz Special wheat
• 1.5 oz Tettnanger hops
• 0.5 oz Tettnanger hops
• 2 oz Saaz hops

1. Add the the brewing salts to ~12 gallons of hot liquor.
2. Mash in at 131°F (Mash pH 5.3).
3. Keep temperature at 125°F for 15 mins for beta glucan rest.
4. Raise the temperature to 140°F for 15 mins for starch conversion.
5. Raise the temperature to 149°F for 15 mins.
6. Raise the temperature to 154°F to increase the fermentability of the wort (Mash-out).
7. Begin to transfer the wort to the kettle. Start to sparge the ~4 gallons of hot liquor in the cooling jacket on top of the grain bed.
8. Collect ~14 gallons of wort in the kettle (Pre-boil OG= 1.038)
9. At the start of the 60 min boil add 1.5oz of Tettnanger hops.
10. When there is 5 min left in the boil add 0.5oz Tettnanger hops.
11. When the boil is finished add in 2 oz of Saaz hops.
12. After the boil there is 11.9 gallon of wort (Post-boil OG=1.044).
13. Cool wort down to 10°C and remove the trub by opening the bottom drain pipe.
14. Pitch in Saflanger 34/70 yeast.
15. Allow to ferment at 10°C for two days. Then at 11°C for the next two days. Then at 12°C for the next two days, and then at 13°C for two days etc. until fermentation is complete.
16. Lager the Vienna lager beer for 3 weeks.

Watch it on YouTube Below