Brewing a rice lager at home with Indian rice

What rice does in a lager

Rice is mostly starch, with less protein than barley and very little oil once the bran is milled off. When its starch is converted to sugar in the mash, it ferments cleanly and leaves very little behind. The beer ends up paler, lighter in body and drier than an all malt version, with a crisp, clean finish. It brings almost no flavour of its own. Our guide to rice and maize adjuncts in India explains why commercial brewers use them.

That neutrality is the point. In a hot climate a light, very dry lager served cold is hard to beat. It also means faults have nowhere to hide.

Which rice to use

Use plain, inexpensive white rice. Expensive aromatic rice such as basmati adds cost but not much useful flavour once it has been mashed and fermented. Sona masoori, ponni or other everyday table rice works well. Broken rice, sold cheaply as kanki or tukda in many markets, is ideal because it cooks quickly and is what many brewers use anyway.

Avoid parboiled rice. Its starch has been partly cooked and then set hard, so it behaves differently in the mash. Flaked or torrefied rice from a brewing supplier skips the cooking step entirely if you can get it.

The recipe

For 20 litres at an original gravity of about 1.046, with rice at roughly 30% of the grist:

• Pilsner malt: 2.9 kg (70%)
• White rice: 1.25 kg (30%)
• Hops: a noble type such as Saaz or Hallertau, about 15 to 18 IBU, mostly at 60 minutes with a little at 10 minutes
• Yeast: a clean lager yeast such as W-34/70, two sachets for 20 litres

Pilsner malt has more than enough enzymes to convert this much rice. Above about 40% rice, conversion gets slower and the beer can become thin and watery, so stay below that until you know your system.

The cereal cook and the step mash

Rice starch only becomes available to enzymes once it gelatinises, which happens at a higher temperature than barley starch, often in the high 60s to the high 70s °C depending on the variety. That is above a normal mash temperature, so the rice needs cooking first.

1. Cook the rice: boil it in about three times its weight of water until it is soft and porridge like, around 20 to 30 minutes. Stir often; rice catches on the bottom of a pot quickly. Some brewers add a handful of the crushed malt to thin it.
2. Start the main mash: mix the pilsner malt with water at about 50 to 55 °C. This low rest leaves room for the hot rice to lift the temperature.
3. Combine: add the hot rice porridge to the malt mash. The temperature should rise to about 63 to 65 °C. If it overshoots, stir in a little cold water. Hold it there for 30 to 45 minutes.
4. Raise: heat to about 70 to 72 °C and hold for 20 minutes to finish conversion.

Our guide to step mashing explains why each rest matters. A cereal mash can turn into a sticky mess in a mash tun, so brew in a bag or use rice hulls.

Fermenting a lager at home

Lager yeast wants about 9 to 13 °C. That is the hard part in India. A spare fridge with an external temperature controller is the reliable answer. Without one, some strains such as W-34/70 tolerate the mid teens and still give a reasonably clean beer, though not a textbook one. Our guide to brewing a lager at home covers the options.

Pitch cool and pitch plenty of yeast. Near the end, let the beer warm to about 16 to 18 °C for two or three days for a diacetyl rest, so the yeast reabsorbs the buttery compounds it made. Then cold condition for three to four weeks as near to 0 to 4 °C as you can.

What to look for in the glass

A good rice lager is pale straw, brilliantly clear, with a white head, a faint grainy sweetness and a crisp, dry, quick finish. A buttery note means the diacetyl rest was skipped. A cooked sweetcorn note means the boil was too weak or too short. A fruity note means the fermentation ran warm.

Light lagers are the hardest beers to brew well. Brewing one that tastes the same batch after batch is a real test of your process.