German pilsner

Hi,

I want to tackle an Extract w Grain Pilsner this weekend. I know a real Pilsner should be all-grain, but I'm not quite built for that yet.

I found this recipe:
http://www.thbs.intas.net/PV%20German%20Pils.htm

Thoughts?

I also read in Palmer's book that water is a KEY element to a good Pilsner.

Any advice appreciated

Thanks,
J

There is NO wheat in a pilsner of any type and NO saaz hops in a German pils. I'm not saying that it will be a bad beer (quite the contrary) but it's no where near a German Pils.

The water style will be the least of your problems and not really that relevant in an extract beer anyway as the minerals required are already present in the extract.

I'd definitely leave out the wheat extract and use Hallertauer for all of the hops.

Maybe something more like:
4.5 lbs. pale malt extract
2.5 lbs. pilsner malt
1 lb. vienna malt
1/2 lb. carapils

3/4 oz. hallertauer (60)
1/2 oz. hallertauer (20)
1 oz. hallertauer (5)

Maybe throw in some Irish Moss or something.

That bill calls for a partial mash, which would be a good practice step if you are thinking of going AG in time. Mash the grains around 152F for an hour then put the grain bag in a collander or sieve above the pot and "sparge" (with a ladel or something) the grain bag with 170F water, enough to bring you up to boil volume. then boil 'er, put the flame off and add the extract, boil again and on to the hop boils.

This should get you something along the pilsner lines, if you use a lager yeast and you cold-ferment and condition the beer. Do you have lagering capabilites?

In addition to the no wheat malt, Mikey is also right that water profiles mean less for an extract brew. Again though, if you want to dabble in tweaking water profiles (which you will NEED to do with an AG pils) then find you local water report and compare it to a German style, Munich or Dortmund or something. You can pretty much boil down (no pun intended, HA!) any additives to Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3), Calcium sulfate (Gypsum, CaSO4*@H2O), Calcium Chloride (CaCl2*2H2O), Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salts, MgSO4*7H2O) and Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda, NaHCO3).

I've not finished checking my #'s, but right now I am looking at the following minerals to get distilled water to something similar to Dortmund (I've got some work to do on the Bicarbonates):
1.7g Calcium Carbonate
.7g Calcium Chloride
1.5g Epsom Salts
1.15g Baking Soda

By my calcs, this gets me: (dortmund in parenthesis)
Ca 228.9 (225)
Mg 39 (40)
Na 86.25 (60)
Cl 88.9 (60)
SO4 154.5 (120)
Bicarbonate 219.65 (220)
Carbonate 268.8 (not sure, going to cut down on the bi's to balance this off....more research needed)

If you really don't want to do a partial mash you can order this Pilsner Malt from Morebeer.com. I just did a pilny with that and it's actually really good. It's a little pricier than regular extract though...

Fiery brought up the key point - this needs to be fermented cold, then cold-conditioned in secondary. If you can't do that, I'd look for another recipe. Pilsners are considered to be one of the more difficult brews to make.

Thanks for the tips. I CAN supply the cold storage for now, and have yet to brew a Lager-style beer (iIwant to take advantage of the our cold Ontario winter).

Could you maybe suggest somthign a little easier to start with, if not a Pilsner? I'm looking for something flavourful, and not not "Canadian Lager" sold at the Beer Store.

Cheers

Sounds cool - howsaboot this thread -

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=20578

<Background chants.....do the partial mash. do the partial mash. do the partial mash! do the partial mash!!!!!>

My first lager was a partial mash Pilsner Urquell 'clone' and it was excellent. If you can do an extract batch, then you pretty much have all the equipment you need to do a partial mash. Pick a good lager yeast - I like White Labs Czech Budejovice lager yeast - ferment cool, lager cold, and the rest is peanuts.

Fiery Sword said:

<Background chants.....do the partial mash. do the partial mash. do the partial mash! do the partial mash!!!!!>

Click to expand...

Wow, I almost feel bad for suggesting an extract only alternative! I must say it is fun do to PMs, which is pretty much all I do now.... So nevermind about the extract thing... do the Partial Mash!!

mysterio said:

My first lager was a partial mash Pilsner Urquell 'clone' and it was excellent. If you can do an extract batch, then you pretty much have all the equipment you need to do a partial mash. Pick a good lager yeast - I like White Labs Czech Budejovice lager yeast - ferment cool, lager cold, and the rest is peanuts.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not certain I AM ready for Partial Mash. My intent is to investin a good 5 g Igloo cooler for Mashing. As of right now, I use a 4 gallon Pot for boiling, my buckets, and my carboys.
If I go Partial Mash, what then do I need to add to, or do with, what I have already?

jaymack said:

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not certain I AM ready for Partial Mash. My intent is to investin a good 5 g Igloo cooler for Mashing. As of right now, I use a 4 gallon Pot for boiling, my buckets, and my carboys.
If I go Partial Mash, what then do I need to add to, or do with, what I have already?

Click to expand...

It can be as simple as a grain bag and a collander. Efficiency won't be all that good, but it'll work. The key is temperature control, so unless you have a cooler, you'll need to watch it real carefully on the stove. The mash gets too hot, the enzymes get denatured, game over. But, shoot for 154, and you've got some leeway on either side.

Sounds like you can use exactly wehat you have - I switched from Extract to PM without the addition of any equipment.

You can "mash" right in your boil pot - the only difference from doing the extract thing is that you need to keep better track of temperatures. I used an instant-read digital probe for this. Simply bring your water (maybe 3.5 gallons in that pot) to about 160ish (once you add the grains the temp will drop), add the cracked grains and move them around like a teabag. I would poke at them with a big spoon - the goal is to get the inner parts of the grain bag the same temp as the water. Monitor the temp and try to keep it in the low 150's (closer to 150 = more fermentable sugars = "lighter" body and more ABV, god for a pilsner......closer to 160 would result in less fermentable sugars, "bigger" body and less ABV). If you need to add heat, pick the grain bag out of the pot and let it drain out the liquid while putting the stove flame on. Once you are back to 152 put the grains back in and work them around.

Do this process for about an hour, and you mini-mash is done!!! Remove the grain bag and sit it in a sieve in a bowl, every once in a while dump the liquid that gathers in this bowl back into the boil pot. Now you just proceed as usual.....biol the wort, add the extract, boil, then hop boils.

Seriosuly, Partial Mashes are more similar to Extract brewing the total AG. Don't be scared away by the idea of complex mashes. If you do the above recipe with the above technique you have made a big step towards AG understanding!!!!

<chants continue......>

Thanks so much for all the info. I'll give 'er a shot.

Good to have such smart and helpful people around here

No problem, to be honest I wish someone pushed me into PM's earlier than I did. I bought extract kits from my LHBS for years - they offer no partial mash kits and little info. It took ordering some online places to even be introduced to the PM process. I'll be honest, I could tast the results! I've since deternimed the kits at my LHBS sucked and 'held be back'. Now, I'm not trying to be all anti-extract and preachy, but these were my honest observations! The PM's are what inspired me to make the AG jump. now there's no going back!!!

One mini side-note - After you crack the grains and put them in a bag (i assume you are going to use one of those throw-away muslin/cheesecloth bags) tie the knot such that the grains aren't too tight and also so that there is an extra "tail" of leftover material above the knot. When you place the grains into the pot, keep this "tail" dry and hanging over the edge (not too far, don't want to start a fire!). use this tail to pick up the bag when adding heat and draining out the liquid. You can also use it to control the bag then you are moving it around and massaging it with the spoon. I've let this tail get hot and wet before and it makes the whole process more aggrivating than it should be.

Keep us posted, and ask any questions you might have.

And by the way, I somehow didn't address the PM "sparge" - damn work distracting me from HBT.

After the 1 hour mash, when you pull out the grain bag and put it into the sieve/colander you've got to sparge. I used to cut the top of the muslin bag off and fold it outward to expose the grain ball. Ladle 170F water through this grain ball, carefully to avoid creating large flows of water through the grains. You want to be slow and consistent. Sparge up to what your boil kettle can handle, a gallow or two.

THEN set the colander in a bowl and continue with the boils.

....and I swear thats it! no more surprises!

Fiery Sword said:

I've let this tail get hot and wet before and it makes the whole process more aggrivating than it should be.

Click to expand...

So let me get this straight - a 'hot and wet' tail is a bad thing?

muuhahahaha. OK I'll revise:

In the event that you encounter hot, wet tail, make sure you don't stop mashing prematurely. To discourage this, think of old, spent grains or you might achieve protien rest before intended. :fro:

What kind of efficiency can you expect from doing it this way?

Fiery Sword said:

muuhahahaha. OK I'll revise:

In the event that you encounter hot, wet tail, make sure you don't stop mashing prematurely. To discourage this, think of old, spent grains or you might achieve protien rest before intended. :fro:

Click to expand...

Well turned!

Mk010101 said:

What kind of efficiency can you expect from doing it this way?

Click to expand...

I don't have my PM-era notebook here at work (getting paid to browse HBT....yea baby:rockin: ) but from a conceptual level I'd say that the efficiency doesn't matter too much. I always viewed PMing as a way to understand the concept of mashing and temperature control while having the padding of extract to make up for a lower-than-ideal efficiency. I'm sure the numbers are lower than a nice fly sparge but I always thought of it as more of an all-grain primer than anything else. Seriosly though, I am 99% sure I could pick a PM over an all-extract in any style blind taste test.

I'll look up the #'s later though, to correctly answer the question. Peace, mon!