Alternative Sugar Beer Brown Sugar Bopils - PM

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FatsSchindee

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This is one of the first recipes I came up with myself. I only did it as a one gallon batch, in case it didn't turn out that well... Now I wish I would have made more - it's excellent! It's not a Pilsner Urquell clone, but as the epitome of the style, we did a side-by-side comparison after it was ready. See the picture below - the color is almost identical (I actually wanted to use light brown sugar so it wasn't quite as dark, but on brew day I realized I only had dark brown sugar in the pantry... Whatever works!). It's not as bitter as PU, and the few people that tried it liked mine better because of that (but that is their personal taste - I'm not trying to say my beer is better than PU!). It shows 32 IBU in my new iBrewMaster2 software (that the recipe below is from), which is lower than the 35-45 BJCP guidelines - but showed 41 in the brewersfriend online software I used when I brewed it. I think it has a decent amount of bitterness, in balance with the malt and hop flavor.

It is smooth drinking and has a great flavor of the pilsner malt and the Saaz hops. I used the Southern German Lager yeast (as opposed to a Czech lager yeast) because I had a big starter of it already for the Oktoberfest I made at the same time, so it was easy just to measure out some of the slurry for pitching (I made this primarily just to have a extra beer to ferment and lager at the same time as my O'fest, as it was going to occupy my ferm chamber for so long!).

I used Deathbrewer's stickied BIAB partial mash and dunk sparge method, with a 45 min mash. I'd probably do the partial mash a bit lower (150-152?) next time to dry it out some more, but I did it that high because I knew the brown sugar would dry it out some. I just used RO water, not any water treatment to try to match the typical Czech water. I did a 90 min boil to avoid any DMS from the Pilsener malt. I didn't detect any diacetyl, but did the D rest anyway (left it for seven days only due to my schedule; otherwise would have only done 2-3).

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!


Brown Sugar BoPils 1 Gal

Style: Bohemian Pilsener OG: 1.051
Type: Partial Mash FG: 1.014
Rating: 0.0 ABV: 4.79 %
Calories: 166.64 IBU's: 32.33
Efficiency: 78.00 % Boil Size: 1.90 Gals
Color: 6.8 SRM Batch Size: 1.00 Gals
Preboil OG: 1.030 Boil Time: 90 minutes

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
8.00 ozs 32.00 % Pilsner (2 Row) Ger 45 mins 1.037
2.00 ozs 8.00 % Cara-Pils/Dextrine 45 mins 1.033
1.00 ozs 4.00 % Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L 45 mins 1.035
4.00 ozs 16.00 % Briess DME Pilsen 90 mins 1.043
8.00 ozs 32.00 % Briess DME Pilsen 0 mins 1.043
2.00 ozs 8.00 % Brown Sugar, Dark 0 mins 1.046

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
0.25 ozs 16.52 Saaz 60 mins 3.20
0.25 ozs 12.70 Saaz 30 mins 3.20
0.13 ozs 3.12 Saaz 10 mins 3.20
0.13 ozs 0.00 Saaz 0 mins 3.20

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
75 B cells Southern German Lager White Labs 0838

Additions
Amount Name Time Stage
0.25 each Whirlfloc Tablet 150 mins Boil

Mash Profile
Profile Name: Partial Mash

Grain Temp: 78.00 °F Mash Tun Vol Loss: 0.00 Gals
Grain Absorption: 0.13 Gals/lb Tun Temp Loss: 4.00 °F
Cooling Shrinkage: 4.00 % Kettle Trub Loss: 0.13 Gals
Hourly Boiloff: 0.50 Gals/hr

Mash Steps:
Mash (BIAB) 45 [email protected]°F
Add 0.80 qts water @ 172.2°F
Dunk Sparge 10 [email protected]°F
Add 0.50 qts water @ 170.0°F
(null)
Sparge 6.66 qts water @ 0.00 °F

Water Profile
(none)

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp
Primary 20 days @ 50.0°F
Primary 7 days @ 64.0°F
Lager 46 days @ 34.0°F

Carbonation
Bottle Carbonation
Desired Vol of CO2: 2.30 Vols
Beer Temperature: 75.00 °F
Residual CO2 in Beer: 0.78
Corn Sugar Required: 0.61 ozs

Notes
(none)
www.iBrewMaster.com Version: 1.0.9

image-673324473.jpg
 
Cyclman said:
Did it retain a molasses flavor? Beautiful head.

Not really noticeable... Only 8% brown sugar and 4% Crystal10, so not too much to contribute flavor from those, I'd guess.
 
I just had the second bottle of this (my one gallon batch only yielded 8 beers, so I'm kind of rationing them), and this time I did notice (was looking for it, since you mentioned it) a slight caramel sweetness to it. Not like molasses, but just a bit of caramel beneath the grainy Pilsener malt flavor. Taste great...
 
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