Pilsner Recipe question

The other week I was out in Montana and I tried the Pilsner from Bayern Brewing Company. It was medium bodied and a good balance between bitterness and maltyness for a pils, it also had a slightly sweet maltyness to it that I really liked.
I was working on designing a pils recipe and I was wondering what would be the best way to go about getting that little bit of sweet malty flavor.Two ways that I thought about would be either to just mash at a higher temp, problably around 156 F, or I thought about including some Crystal malts or Dextrine or Carapils. If anyone would want to give me some input about this I'd appreciate it.

I like a pilsner to be all pilsner malt- no crystal or other grains in there! The malty sweetness comes from the malt, with enough bittering hops and flavor hops to make it hoppy. I don't have my mash schedule in front of me (I'm on vacation at the moment) but I wouldn't mash any higher than 154, no matter what. My preference is actually lower- You don't want it cloyingly sweet or underattenuated- you want it malty for any sweet flavor that is in there.

DuffMan77 said:

The other week I was out in Montana and I tried the Pilsner from Bayern Brewing Company. It was medium bodied and a good balance between bitterness and maltyness for a pils, it also had a slightly sweet maltyness to it that I really liked.
I was working on designing a pils recipe and I was wondering what would be the best way to go about getting that little bit of sweet malty flavor.Two ways that I thought about would be either to just mash at a higher temp, problably around 156 F, or I thought about including some Crystal malts or Dextrine or Carapils. If anyone would want to give me some input about this I'd appreciate it.

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For good malty flavor you need good malt. Choose a quality German pils malt. Mashing high doesn't make it sweet it makes it less fermentable. I would mash a pils in the 150F range and if you want a hint of sweetness use a small amount of light crystal (10L).

I guess i worded my question wrong, I really was wondering about about things I could do to have a little bit of sweetness in my beer after fermentation. Usually when I mash i mash at lower temps to get a somewhat drier beer so i was wondering if i decided to mash a little higher and get a less fermentable beer would that leave me with the residual sweetness I was looking for. And if that wouldn't work I was thinking of adding about 5% crystal malt to the recipe. Also I've heard of people addin Lactose to add sweetness but I wasn't really sure about adding that to a pilsner. Thanks for the replies I though, I guess 156 would be a bit unncessesary for mashing.

You could always back off on your bittering hops by ~5 IBUs and keeping the same flavor/aroma additions. It'll let the residual sweetness really shine through without raising the FG too much and making it thicker or cloying. Lactose would probably be a bad idea.

Here is a simple recipe based off the clone brews books:
95% pilsner malt, 2.5% Carahell(10L) and 2.5% German Munich (6-8L)
That should be similar to a Pilsner Urquell, which is maltier than most German Pils. I have not had the Bayern in a while but I do not remember it being that malty.
If you like the 95% / 5%, then you are done, if it is too malty then drop the Carahell and go with just a bit of Munich on your next batch.

For the final of my 3 pils of winter 2010/2011 I am going to go with 97.5% pilsner and 2.5% Munich for something closer to a Bitburger.

I would keep the mashing below 154 or you may end up with something more like a Scottish export.

Sounds like your looking at doing a Bohemian Pils. It's a little sweeter/finishes a littler higher than a German Pils. Traditionally that doesn't mean you add crystal malt, it's about adjusting your mash.

If I was doing a single infusion I would start at 154 degrees. Your looking for around a 70% ADF. If it finishes too high then drop the temp next time. If it's too low raise the temp. It's hard to give an accurate temp without prior data.

BigEd said:

For good malty flavor you need good malt. Choose a quality German pils malt. Mashing high doesn't make it sweet it makes it less fermentable. I would mash a pils in the 150F range and if you want a hint of sweetness use a small amount of light crystal (10L).

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Just a question....If the Mash is less fermentable, doesn't that mean the all the available sugars won't ferment out (because some are un-fermentable)and thus leave more sweetness?

RukusDM said:

Just a question....If the Mash is less fermentable, doesn't that mean the all the available sugars won't ferment out (because some are un-fermentable)and thus leave more sweetness?

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Not really sweet, but a bit "thicker" in the mouthfeel too. It might finish higher, so have a bit of residual sweetness but sometimes it's a noticeable "thickness" to me, more of a fuller body rather than actual sweet taste. What happens with a higher mash temp is that there are more long-chained sugars (less fermentable) which contribute to the body.

I think a little Munich would help achieve what you're looking for. I've done some Pilsner recipes that included some Munich and they had a nice maltiness to them. Your choice of yeast may help accentuate the malt as well.

Yooper said:

Not really sweet, but a bit "thicker" in the mouthfeel too. It might finish higher, so have a bit of residual sweetness but sometimes it's a noticeable "thickness" to me, more of a fuller body rather than actual sweet taste. What happens with a higher mash temp is that there are more long-chained sugars (less fermentable) which contribute to the body.

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Thanks Yoop for helping me understand. This actually brings up another question but I'll start a new thread later