Dry-Hopped Rice Lager with Natural Carbonation

Dry-Hopped Rice Lager

This adjunct lager recipe features delicate floral aromatics from jasmine rice. They combine with bright aromas of tangerine, fresh herbs, and black pepper from thoughtful additions of Crystal and Saphir hops throughout the process. It’s a light, bright beer built with refreshment in mind (Editor’s note: toss a lime in there and live a little).

…with Natural Carbonation

Lagers are the perfect vehicle to showcase the time-honored benefits of natural carbonation and superior foam created through spunding. With restrained ester formation, it allows the captured aromatics of the raw ingredients in this beer to really sing through its dense head.

Even if you’re not set up for spunding, you can force carbonate and think of this recipe as a chassis to try out other combinations of hops and adjuncts. Or if you feel like doubling down on old techniques, read below about how to perform a cereal mash to unlock the starches in other raw and unmalted grains. 

Calculating for Spunding

If you read Spunding 101, you probably already have this down, but let’s work it out anyway. For this beer, target a carbonation level of 2.65 vol CO₂. To achieve this, you need to calculate when to dry hop and bung your tank to capture existing CO₂ and what will be produced in the remainder of fermentation. 

With the beer at 60°F (16°C), the existing CO₂ level in the beer should be 1.96 g/L (1 vol CO₂). Knowing that, the expected final gravity of 2°P, and a target carbonation level of 5.19 g/L (2.65 vol CO₂), you can begin to calculate when to bung your tank.

• First, determine the required increase in CO₂ in g/L to reach your target level of carbonation: 3.23 CO₂ g/L [required increase] = 5.19 g/L CO₂ [target] — 1.96 g/L CO₂ [existing].
• Then use the required increase in CO₂ to determine the required extract to reach that target level: 0.70°P [required extract] = ((2.94 g/L CO₂ / 0.46) / 1,000 g) x 100.
• Finally, determine your spunding point by adding the required extract to the estimated terminal gravity: 2.7°P [spunding point] = 0.70°P [required extract] + 2.0°P [terminal gravity]

And there you have it! Bung your tank at 2.7°P, set your pressure gauge, and let the yeast do the work.

This recipe uses pre-gelatinized rice, which means the starches in the rice are prepped and ready for enzymes in the mash to easily access and convert them to fermentable sugars. Done and dusted. However, if you want to try a raw or unmalted grain that hasn’t been pre-gelatinized, try out a cereal mash in a separate vessel to unlock those starches. It’s not difficult, especially on a homebrew scale. If your brew setup doesn’t have a separate cereal cooker, you can use a kettle on a stove, burner, or pilot system. It just needs to be large enough to get your cereal mash to a boil.

To mix it up with a cereal mash, combine the rice of your choice (or other raw or unmalted grain) with 10% 6‑row barley or 15% 2‑row barley in a thin consistency so the mash doesn’t burn. The enzymatic power in the malted barley will help break down the starches in the cereals as they hydrate and gelatinize. For rice, rest at 154 – 172°F (68 – 78°C) and hold for 5 minutes, then raise to a boil for 30 min, stirring continuously to prevent scorching (other raw or unmalted cereal grains have different gelatinization temperature ranges, so check into them if you go that route). Add to the main mash where the amylase enzymes will convert the gelatinized starches. After that, the rest of the process goes as normal. Try it out!