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Boerderij_Kabouter · 06-12-2009, 02:22 PM

OK. I am doing a Hochkurz mash. Re-watching Kaisers videos and some more reading has me thinking it is the best way to go for our highly modified malts.

menschmaschine · 06-12-2009, 03:39 PM

I brewed a similar (to your recipe) Helles on Saturday using a Hochkurz mash (added an acid rest just to see if there was any positive difference). I've also been step-mashing my German light lagers recently because after many decoctions, I tried a step-mash on a German Pils and it is malty as all get-out and the color is a little brighter. And my attenuation was slightly better (FG = 1.011 instead of 1.012-1.013), but that may have been from a better pitching rate with W34/70 than what I used to do with WLP830.

Boerderij_Kabouter · 06-26-2009, 11:23 AM

S.G. = 1.020 as of last night, so I raised the temp to 63º for two days. Then It is time for a ramp down!

Boerderij_Kabouter · 09-21-2009, 06:18 PM

This turned out nice, but it is too light to be a Helles. I am calling a blonde lager because that is what it is.

menschmaschine · 09-22-2009, 12:39 AM

Glad it turned out well. What do you mean by too light?... color?

Boerderij_Kabouter · 09-22-2009, 02:49 PM

Well, I suppose the color would be in range but on the very lightest end. Gravity was too low because I made the stupid mistake of not boiling down to my target volume... doh! It was a 14 hour brewday though so I cut myself some slack. I ended up at 1.042 instead of 1.048.

Then, I pitched my dry yeast unhydrated and I think that screwed it up a bit. It is to fruity and not malty enough to be a good Helles IMO. It is however, a rather good blonde lager.

menschmaschine · 09-22-2009, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boerderij_Kabouter

Well, I suppose the color would be in range but on the very lightest end. Gravity was too low because I made the stupid mistake of not boiling down to my target volume... doh! It was a 14 hour brewday though so I cut myself some slack. I ended up at 1.042 instead of 1.048.

Then, I pitched my dry yeast unhydrated and I think that screwed it up a bit. It is to fruity and not malty enough to be a good Helles IMO. It is however, a rather good blonde lager.

Bummer. There's always next time and it's still good beer.

I think the BJCP guidelines are a bit off on the color of a Helles. The 3-5 SRM range is slightly high. Maybe 2-4 or 2-5 SRM would be better. If one brews a Helles with just German Pilsener malt (which I've seen with a °L as low as 1.8) and Cara-pils, you can definitely get under 3 SRM in the final beer even with a 90 min. boil... and it's still a Helles.

Bob · 09-23-2009, 12:56 PM

How's the foam retention? I was worried you'd lack that because of the extended rest at 140F. (I don't advise "protein rests" longer than 15 minutes, 20 tops; more than that, in my experience, degrades too much protein and negatively impacts foam.)

Bob

Boerderij_Kabouter · 09-23-2009, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NQ3X

How's the foam retention? I was worried you'd lack that because of the extended rest at 140F. (I don't advise "protein rests" longer than 15 minutes, 20 tops; more than that, in my experience, degrades too much protein and negatively impacts foam.)

Bob

I'll take some pictures tonight. I was under the impression that the elevated protein/sacc rest avoided many of the problems of the extended 120 protein rest???

I used an enhanced decoction on a recent beer and really liked that profile. Basically I took a huge decoction while the main mash was in the acid rest range, added a small amount of the decoction back to get a protein rest at 120. Let it rest for 10 minutes, then added more decoction back in to reach my sacc rest temp. It worked awesome and was really easy to control.

Bob · 09-23-2009, 03:28 PM

Perhaps the elevated rest does have that function. I've never used your method, personally. It's interesting to get first-hand accounts of any possible impact.

Bob