German Pilsner vs. Bohemian Pilsner

Fight!

Here's the product .pdfs of Weyermann German Pilsner Malt and Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner Malt. No big differences although the friability of the Bohemian is higher (84% vs. 78%). Noonan says no less than 80% friability for infusion brews.

Any noticable differences to a homebrewer? If you have a preference, which do you prefer and why? It's only $2 more for a 55 lb. bag of the Bohemian so almost negligible price difference.

Differences as to.......?

I have used both malts and IMO both are excellent products. The basic German pils is my standard pils malt as my LHBS always keeps in stock with the Bohemian being special order. The Bohemian is made from Czech barley and has to me a cleaner, sweeter flavor than the German malt. German pils malt to me always have a very faint grapey flavor. It's certainly not something objectionable but to me it is there. I use a single decoction mash with the German and a double with the Bohemian. For general purpose pils malt the Weyermann is very good stuff. I have only used the Bohemian for Czech pils and will probably use it again for that style only because of my perception of its' cleaner and more "authentic" flavor.

Thanks BigEd. I just finished a bag of the German Pils and need another so I was just curious what the differences were. Now that I look at those product .pdfs again it looks like the Bohemian has slightly tighter specs.

I was just reading an article on Belgian malts and it mentioned that among other differences, the Belgian Pils malt had less SMM than German. I wonder if there is an SMM difference between the German/Bohemian?

Just looking at the pdf's, it's really tough to say without the lot-specific malt analysis... and of course it depends on what mash-style you want to use. Those protein parameters are too wide to determine which mash type is more/less suitable for each. Also, the data are from the 2006 harvest. Whatever you purchase now is likely to be from the 2008 harvest.

I'd go with what BigEd says, since he's used both. For either, I would be careful on protein-related rest temps. I'd stay over 140°F unless you kept it very short.

Fairly recent analysis sheets I found online:
2008 Weyermann German Pilsner malt
2007 Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner malt