Help on a German Pils

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Bitterdrinker

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In my time in the Air Force, I have had the opportunity to travel to Germany a couple of times and the absolute best Pilsner I have tasted is called Lohrer Urtyp 1878. This beer has a very crisp, slightly bitter taste but I dont think the company can export it. I am very new at the homebrew hobbie, drinking only my second batch, 1 ESB and now a Hefe but I would like to make a clone of 1878. Does anybody have a recipe that would be similar? I have a copy of the Brewmasters bible which has several recipes but I am so new to this that I am not sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bitter
 
First, are you an all-grain brewer and do you have the ability to do lagers in your brewery?
 
I'd recommend reading Palmer's how to brew, which is available online - How to Brew - By John Palmer - Introduction

Brewing lagers can be more challenging than ales, as lagers need more yeast, need to be colder (for fermenting & lagering), and they take longer.

As for the beer itself, this site says it is a Munich Helles -
Beer Me! — Lohrer Bier — Lohr am Main, Bayern, Germany
and you can read about that style here - BJCP 2008 Style Guidelines - Category 01

As it happens, I have a German friend who lives in Lohr. I'd be happy to ask him about it for you if you'd like.
 
So far I am a partial mash person, just steeping the specialty grains. Thanks gxm for that info and I do have that book by Palmer. I will se what he has to say on the deal. Thanks for the link as well.
 
Don't know anything about that beer but if it is a Munich Helles you could give this a try. This is my favorite style of beer, I could drink liters of Munich Helles all day and all night long... :D

Munich Helles (PM)
==============
OG 1.050, FG 1.013, 4.8% ABV, 18 IBU

3.5# Extra Light DME or Pilsner DME (if you can find it)
2# German Pilsner
8oz Munich
8oz Vienna
8oz Flaked Wheat
1oz Tettnang, Tradition, or Hallertau (4-5% AA)

Combine crushed grains in a grain bag and drop into 1 gallon of filtered tap water or bottled spring water (not softened water!) heated to 166*F. Temp should stabilize around 154*F. Remove pot from burner and wrap in a blanket. Let mash for 60 minutes. Then bring 1 additional filtered gallon of water to 175*F in a second pot. Remove grain bag and drop into second pot. Let soak for 5 minutes, drain, and discard grains. Move contents of second pot to first pot and top up to 2.5 gallons. Add the hops, bring to a boil, and boil for 75 minutes. Carefully add extract to avoid scorching and add one Whirlfloc tablet. Continue boil for 15 additional minutes. Chill quickly in a water bath or using an immersion chiller. Fast chilling is important for this style to ensure you do not have chill haze. Since this is a light brew it is also a good idea to use a strainer to strain out hops and break material to keep them out of the fermenter. Top up to 5 gallons in the fermenter with bottled water of your choice.

As far as fermentation you have a couple of choices. You can lager with a lager yeast like WLP830, or you can use a lot of clean ale yeast and ferment it cool. Two packages of US-05 at 64*F will yield a very clean beer. Or you can use a 2L starter of WY1007 German Ale yeast at 62*F. Or you can do what I'm going to do next time and pitch a package of German Ale yeast plus a package of US-05 dry ale yeast making a yeast blend. Temperature control during the first few days of fermentation will be key to getting this beer to come out to style. I use a water bath for my ales and change the ice 2x daily. I have found that 3# of ice twice a day will keep the temps 60-64*F which is ideal for a squeaky clean ale.

EDIT: added recipe to my drop down.
 
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