Pilsner Recipe

Here's the recipe I plan to brew this evening:

6 Gallons

Malt:

6 pounds Breiss Pilsen Light DME 1L
1 pound Coopers Light LME
8oz CaraPils 1.5L - for body/head retention
8oz CaraHell 12L - for sweetness

OG should be 1.057 according to ProMash. Color should be 3-4 SRM

Hops (ALL Saaz 3.3%):

2oz - 60min
1oz - 30min
1oz - 15min
1oz - 5min

This should give 37.2 IBUs (Urquell is 40 IBUs)

I plan to steep the grains at 155 for an hour, and add the DME & LME in the last 10 minutes of the boil. I also plan to add Whirlfloc and Yeast Nutrient during the boil. I will bring down to 70 with my chiller and pitch my Czech Budejovice Lager Yeast (WLP802) yeast with which I made a half gallon starter 2 days ago. I will be decanting the starter wort and pitching the yeast slurry only.

If you have comments on my recipe, please post them soon. I am slightly concerned about using CaraHell since it is slightly darker than I want to go. I have some Vienna and German Munch malts that I could potentially add at 4L and 6.5L respectively, but don't know if their taste would be appropriate. Thanks for your opinions and feel free to copy this for yourself!!! I will post back to report on the outcome.

Hey brew bitches!!! I know my recipe is not perfect, or is it? Must be since no one is responding. You have a few hours to comment since I did not get to brew last night as expected.

skip the 8oz CaraHell 12L and use your munich malt or some Crystal instead.
OG of 1.057 is kinda high, I'd shoot for 1.048-1.054 for this beer.

Eliminate the late addtion hops add them to the middle addtion. Dry hop it with .5 oz of Saaz. Add the whirlfloc in the last fifteen minute of the boil.

Good luck and don't forget the Diacetyl rest prior to lagering it!

BrewmanBeing said:

Hey brew bitches!!! I know my recipe is not perfect, or is it? Must be since no one is responding. You have a few hours to comment since I did not get to brew last night as expected.

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Don't feel bad---I consistently get no responses on my recipe critique threads. But calling people bitches seems like a surefire way to make sure fewer people reply...

Thanks for the suggestions, man. Can you possibly describe the flavor differences between the carahell and munich malts??? I don't have any super light crystal.

glibbidy said:

skip the 8oz CaraHell 12L and use your munich malt or some Crystal instead.
OG of 1.057 is kinda high, I'd shoot for 1.048-1.054 for this beer.

Eliminate the late addtion hops add them to the middle addtion. Dry hop it with .5 oz of Saaz. Add the whirlfloc in the last fifteen minute of the boil.

Good luck and don't forget the Diacetyl rest prior to lagering it!

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I think it all looks good, escept for the carahell, that is not nessasary. I would instead give it a shot of crystal 20 and maybe drop some of the LME. you want it to be around 1.045 for OG.

Definately add the whirflock in the last 15.

As far as hops, it is my contention with the saaz that if you add the flavoring at 30 you lose a bunch of the goodness, i add them at 25 min left. i Know 5 min may not seem like alot but i think you will be happy with that bit of advice.

Otherwise it all looks good. I love a good Czech Pilsner.

Will you be lagering?

What is it that everyone despises about the CaraHell? I had read that it would do the same thing as crystal but with a lighter color. Everywhere I look online says CaraHell is synonymous with light crystal. I don't have any crystal lighter than 30L.

Thanks for the suggestion on the Saaz. I don't know about dry hopping but I will shift the hops a little later cuz i love hop aroma and flavor.

My fermentation plan is to start it in the garage close to the inside door, rack it to a secondary when the bubbling first starts to decelerate, bring it in from the garage for 2 days for a diacetyl rest at that point and then put it back in a colder spot in the garage for a few weeks before bottling.

Oh and multiple people are telling me to lower the starting gravity. One of my favorite aspects of brewing is that I can make stronger beers than are commercially available. Would it really compromise the flavor? Some individuals swear by adding honey to their brew for this purpose. I wonder how that would taste.

BrewmanBeing said:

Oh and multiple people are telling me to lower the starting gravity. One of my favorite aspects of brewing is that I can make stronger beers than are commercially available. Would it really compromise the flavor? Some individuals swear by adding honey to their brew for this purpose. I wonder how that would taste.

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Higher gravity= more IBU's to maintain a balanced beer. You could use the Carahelles, but IMHO it is superfluous. The Carahelles isn't neccesarily going to lend complexity to this beer, it will just keep it light in color. The Munich malt on the other hand will add another dimension to the overall taste.

Reverend JC said:

Definately add the whirflock in the last 15.

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actually add it the last 5 minutes

With a starting gravity of what you are trying to achieve your 38 IBUs will not be enough, that was my only point. and yes you are right, brewing a bigger beer is one of the many great things about this hobby.

reverend

So, with a pilsner whose SG is 1.057, how many IBUs would I need? Is there a formula? Does every style of beer have an ideal SG/IBU ratio?

BrewmanBeing said:

Thanks for the suggestions, man. Can you possibly describe the flavor differences between the carahell and munich malts??? I don't have any super light crystal.

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Another prime example of why someone shouldn't try to brew according to a recipe if they don't have all the right ingredients.

Could be grounds to call someone an idiot, but I won't...

homebrewer_99 said:

Another prime example of why someone shouldn't try to brew according to a recipe if they don't have all the right ingredients.

Could be grounds to call someone an idiot, but I won't...

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Or you could just say "Go to the store and get some super light crystal, cuz that is essential to a pilsner" or "CaraHell is super light crystal, so use that. Brew away."

OK, here's how it went down:

Pilsner

Malt:

6 pounds Breiss Pilsen Light DME 1L
1 pound Coopers Light LME
8oz CaraPils 1.5L - for body/head retention
8oz CaraHell 12L - for sweetness

OG should be 1.057 according to ProMash. Color should be 3-4 SRM

Hops (ALL Saaz 3.3%):

2oz - 60min
1oz - 30min
1oz - 20min
1oz - 15min
1oz - 10min
1oz - 5min

This should give 44 IBUs (Urquell is 40 IBUs)

Steep grains in 4.25 gallons of 158 degree water

after 30 minutes, mash cooled to 148

heated for 5 minutes to 158.

mash length 1hr

boil start: 7:25pm

boil end 8:25

left hop bag in kettle while chilling

wort chilled down to 60 by 8:55

forgot to add extracts

Brought 1.75 gallons to a boil

added extracts

boiled extracts for 15 minutes with additional half whirlfloc tab

blended oxygenated (used an entire bottle of O2) and pitched both together by 9:35.

6 gallons of water used in total. OG was 1.052 @ 60.

oh man... lots o trub!!!!



This is about an hour after pitching the yeast, hopefully this layer will settle down.

I attribute all the trub to the fact that I mixed it all up after it was chilled and immediately began siphoning.

I know I screwed up by forgetting to add the extracts to the main boil. But, I think I made the best possible decision in boiling additional fresh water and adding the extract to that and then chilling that to add to the chilled mash/hops portion.

questions:

1. how can I reduce the amount of break material that ends up in my primary next time (assuming I do it right).

2. In ProMash, my OG was supposed to be 1.057 with a 6 gallon volume. I ended up with 1.052 and only used 6 gallons total of water. I assume some water boiled off in the hour long boil. How come my gravity figure was so far off?

#1- when you chill the wort, take your sanitized spoon and make the wort swirl in one direction, cover and walk away for about 15 min. when you come back you should have a nice cone of crap in the middle of the kettle. Trub.

#2- if the exact amount of water was off even by a small margine your gravity will be off.

Reverend JC said:

#2- if the exact amount of water was off even by a small margine your gravity will be off.

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Seems like if I used less water, my gravity would be higher, would it not???

The "cold break" layer settled and now the Pilsner is in full fermentation at 52 degrees:



We're calling this beer Rainmaker Pilsner since it was brewed outside on my deck in the rain.

Yes, if you have less water it should be higher in gravity, but i just entered in 6 gallons of water and your malt bill and came up with 1.052 in promash. looks like you are right on the mark.

On the 4th day after fermentation started, I am now at a 1.018 gravity and bubbling has decreased drastically. Time for the diacetyl rest?? Please advise.

If you're going to do a diacetyl rest, I think now would be a good time to do it (until primary fermentation is over). Then slowly lower to lager temps.

Keep us posted...I'm really interested in this recipe and how your beer comes out!

Is there any reason not to do one? Is the diacetyl only produced by yeast reproducing and not once they are fermenting? I was shocked that it fermented so quickly, I had read other threads suggesting that even 10 days after pitching was too soon to do a rest, but I guess it all depends on the gravity really.

I would think there is a very slight risk of some esters forming at the elevated fermentation temp (but I really don't know). If the yeast isn't known for producing diacetyl I think I would skip the rest...only do it if the notes on your yeast recommend it.

You can skip the rest alltogether if you maintain primary fermentation temps for a longer period of time. Warming it up speeds the process, but the yeast will clean it up without it, it just takes longer.

The Baron speaks the truth. But if in doubt just do it. We can not evaluate your beer and determine if it needs a rest or not. So why not give it a rest and then you won't have to worry. It is a hobby and so why push things? Just my thoughts. In my experience it does all depend on the yeast, and the process, and the stage of the moon and if I am wearing my lucky brewers hat and...

Humm, I was ging to brew a steam beer next, but maybe a lager is in order.

Hey, it is a moderator fest! Too bad nobody else visits this site!

OK, I tasted the beer and it tastes good. Didn't notice any butter. I am doing the rest anyway. It will be kept up here at 67 degrees in the house for a couple of days, then racked off into a secondary and put back in the garage. After a few days there, hopefully I will have a fridge to cold store the bastard.

How about lagering in the bottle? Can I just prime and bottle it and store the bottles cold or do I have to put the whole fermenter in there? Oh wait, do I need to warm it back up after bottling for a couple of weeks to get carbonation???

I haven't bottle carb'ed a lager, so I can't say. They would definitely carb if they were in the 50F range, though.

I would recommend lagering in a secondary or keg. This way you get the bulk aging/lagering effect before splitting it off into bottles.