Czech Premium Pale Lager Bohemian Pilsner (Silver Medalist)

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nathan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2008
Messages
945
Reaction score
10
Location
NC
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
SafLager 2-23
Yeast Starter
no
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.056
Final Gravity
1.013
Boiling Time (Minutes)
90
IBU
42.6
Color
4.0 (beersmith)
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
14 @ 50F
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
7 @ 62F
Additional Fermentation
lager 4 weeks @ 32F in keg
Tasting Notes
a tad hoppier than I think the style normally would have, but it\'s good
scored 43.5

my grains, hops, and yeast came from AustinHomeBrew
Recipe started a while back based on the brewing classic styles

My water is 2:1 distilled to well water (I live in the country) which creates close to the pilsen profile.

11# german 2-row pilsner
about 12 ounces of dextrine malt (or whatever you like for head retention, cara-foam, cara-pils, etc.)

I did a double decoction:
infuse 4.41 gal at 157.2 to get first step of 148F for 60 minutes
with 30 minutes left, pull decoction 1, heat decoction 1 to 158F, let it rest for 10 minutes, then heat to a boil for remaining 15 minutes of Mash rest.
return decoction 1 slowly to main mash, until you get to 158F in main mash. Any remainder should be cooled to 158 then added in.
Immediately pull decoction 2 and bring it to boil during this 30 minute 158F mash rest.
return decoction 2, whole thing. You want 168F or higher ideally.

I batch sparged.

90 minute boil,
.75 saaz 5.8% @ 60min
1.5 saaz 5.8% @ 30min
1.0 saaz 5.8% @ 10min
1.0 saaz 5.8% @ 0min

chill, whirlpool, siphon to carboy, aerate with aquarium pump through hepa filter off and on until reached 30 minutes of pumping time (letting foam subside as necessary and counting time to a total). Pitch dry yeast directly into fermenter, fermenter at about 68F by this time, and in lager freezer set to 50F with 1 degree differential, so it quickly is taken to 50F.

after 2 weeks or so, ramp up 1 degree every 12 hours to 62F and finish out a week.

Rack to keg, chill to 32F, store for 1 month, then enjoy.

I used the BierMuncher Bottle Filler to fill bottles from keg to send to competition.
 
Good to see that BMs beer gun method will hold carbonation long enough to ship to competition.
 
43.5 is fantastic, great job. Would you decrease the hopping next time or leave it as is? Was that a comment on your score sheets?
 
wierd thing was that one judge asked for MORE hops... which is definitely out of style by comparison to commercial examples. I think I might like to do it again with a little less of the late hop addition and try to get it and one done like this again into some same competitions and compare scoring.

It might be just the american tendency to prefer hops, so it depends then if my goal is higher scores or closer to traditional style...
 
Hey Nathan. I'm gonna try this recipe, or close to it, for my Abominable Snow Pilz. I use locally harvested snow from my front yard for naturally soft water. last year it turned out tasty, this year, with this recipe I think it'll be a bit more hoppy which is what I was gonna go for this year! I'll let you know how it turns out.

Cheers,
 
So, I brewed this with a decoction almost exactly as you did. I hit my numbers perfect. Now, I'm going to brew the exact same recipe with a Single infusion mash at 149-154 degrees. I'm wondering, what would be the best temperature to brew this to try and replicate it exactly. I want to be able to taste them side by side, and in the end decide whether the decoction is worth it. It's not that difficult for me to do...but I just like experimenting. Here are my options....
1. Do a Single infusion at 149-or-150 to get a highly fermentable wort.
2. Do a step infusion at 148 and another at 158 just like the decoction. This will also get my a highly fermentable wort and may be the best option for a true experiment with the only variable being, decoction vs. infusion.

Please let me know your opinions as I'm gonna brew this in two days.

Cheers,
Nick
 
I went with the Double step Infusion. I'll update the Decoction vs. Infusion tasting when they are ready in a couple months.
 
Nick,
I'm interested in your decoction versus infusion test. Keep us posted!
Jonathan
 
Yeah man I will. Decoction is lagering. Infusion is in Diacytl rest right now and will get transfered to secondary in the next week or so and start lagering as well. I'll probably lager them for a couple month and then keg them both and finally do a blind tasting with some "beer nerd" friends that have better palate's then myself. I'll definitely be updating my blog as this goes on, and I'll make sure to post the results here.

Cheers!

Nick
 
I kegged them both this weekend, and the decoction definitely came out a darker color. There are a lot of hops in this recipe so it's tough to tell if the decoction came out more malty....that is undecided at this point. I'll be bottling it soon and will have some BJCP certified judges do a blind tasting on them and see what they say about them. It's a great hoppy pilsner though.... that much is for sure! Both versions decoction, and infusion came out really tasty!
 
mmmmm pilsner.
I just did a version of this (now at 15G) where I used magnum in smaller quantity to bitter at 60 minutes, and with the vigorous boil only did a 60 min boil. I used saaz in the last 15 for the saaz aroma and flavors without the cost of bittering entirely with saaz. We'll see how it comes out. I kegged last night, so it will lager at least 4 weeks.
 
Brewing this next week looks like a great recipe. I'm curious if anyone every tries to dry hop Saaz in a Bohemia Pils.

Sent from my zt180 using Home Brew Talk
 
Hey Nathan. I'm gonna try this recipe, or close to it, for my Abominable Snow Pilz. I use locally harvested snow from my front yard for naturally soft water.

I'm gonna do that too, next time there's snow on the yard. ;)

Regarding a dryhopped bo pils, i dunno, doesn't sound right. Maybe on a german pilsner, but bo pils is supposed to be softer and more malt forward. I've got 4 different bo pils batches in kegs right now! I get some nice saaz spiceyness in a couple of them, but that is in the swallow, not in the nose.
 
Would like to know how decoction vs infusion turned out as well if anyone updates it when they are done! Thanks!
 
Would like to know how decoction vs infusion turned out as well if anyone updates it when they are done! Thanks!

I wish I had better news but I totally messed up the decoction mash. I must have pulled too thick of a mash out decoction and denatured some enzymes because I had some off flavors. Also it was very hazy. Oh well.

The infusion version turned out fantastic though!
 
I am trying my first Bohemian Pilsener tomorrow night. Have a 1.8 liter starter of White Labs Pilsner on the stir plate for 48 hours....question is how hard is the decoction to accomplish in a cooler mash tun without a temp guage....I've done step infusions for Belgians and that's worked. If you use a protein rest can you leave out the dextrin? My original plan was all German Pilsener malt, 1.5 oz saaz at 60, 1 oz saaz at 30, 1 oz saaz at 15. I was going to do a protein rest and then sacharification at 150...pitch it at 47 and raise it one degree per day to 51 hold until almost done and then ramp to 60 for 24 hours before transferring to lagering vessel...now I'm not sure if I should add dextrin and do a decoction mash?
 
I've done 100% pils malt beers and the head retention was amazing. I wouldn't worry too much about it either way. Just don't do too long of a protein rest, more then 25 minutes and your head retention will go down.

it's not that hard doing a decoction with your set up, just make sure that your first decoctions you are boiling the absolute thickest portion of the mash (when you pull out the grains, dump most of the liquid back into the main mash).

Also, make sure you get Czech Saaz. It makes a huge difference in my experience.
 
I am trying my first Bohemian Pilsener tomorrow night. Have a 1.8 liter starter of White Labs Pilsner on the stir plate for 48 hours....question is how hard is the decoction to accomplish in a cooler mash tun without a temp guage....

Not super hard. I have a 2G pot. I scooped a bunch of mash from my rubbermaid mash tun, put it in in the 2G pot, boiled it and then dumped it back into the mash and stirred it up. I didn't hit my temp exactly, but it was close enough for me.
 
Brewed a 5gallon batch of this in July. Just had my first taste from the keg last night - WOW it is tasty. I don't brew many beers that require laggering due to fermentation chamber conflicts, but I'll be brewing this again. It's sad I couldn't get it on tap a few weeks ago as it is starting to feel like fall around these parts, but this beer is going to get sucked down quick, nonetheless.

Thank you for the recipe.
 
nathan said:
scored 43.5

my grains, hops, and yeast came from AustinHomeBrew
Recipe started a while back based on the brewing classic styles

My water is 2:1 distilled to well water (I live in the country) which creates close to the pilsen profile.

11# german 2-row pilsner
about 12 ounces of dextrine malt (or whatever you like for head retention, cara-foam, cara-pils, etc.)

I did a double decoction:
infuse 4.41 gal at 157.2 to get first step of 148F for 60 minutes
with 30 minutes left, pull decoction 1, heat decoction 1 to 158F, let it rest for 10 minutes, then heat to a boil for remaining 15 minutes of Mash rest.
return decoction 1 slowly to main mash, until you get to 158F in main mash. Any remainder should be cooled to 158 then added in.
Immediately pull decoction 2 and bring it to boil during this 30 minute 158F mash rest.
return decoction 2, whole thing. You want 168F or higher ideally.

I batch sparged.

90 minute boil,
.75 saaz 5.8% @ 60min
1.5 saaz 5.8% @ 30min
1.0 saaz 5.8% @ 10min
1.0 saaz 5.8% @ 0min

chill, whirlpool, siphon to carboy, aerate with aquarium pump through hepa filter off and on until reached 30 minutes of pumping time (letting foam subside as necessary and counting time to a total). Pitch dry yeast directly into fermenter, fermenter at about 68F by this time, and in lager freezer set to 50F with 1 degree differential, so it quickly is taken to 50F.

after 2 weeks or so, ramp up 1 degree every 12 hours to 62F and finish out a week.

Rack to keg, chill to 32F, store for 1 month, then enjoy.

I used the BierMuncher Bottle Filler to fill bottles from keg to send to competition.

What was your starting.gravity? I'm guessing it was somewhere in yhe ballpark of 1.061. Isn't that a little high? I'm looking to do this recipe, but scaling back to 9 lbs of German pils. I don't want a beer that's 6.5% abv. I've got a ton of czech saaz.left and will repitch wl 830.

Any thoughts?
 
I used 9# German pils, 3/4# of carapils. Starting gravity was 1.052. Fermented for 10 days at 50 degrees. Ramped up to 66 degrees over 3 days. Diacytyl rest for 2 days. Racked to secondary. Gravity was 1.003.
Anyone else have a pils go this dry after this short of fermentation?
 
I brewed a similar Bo pils today also based on Pope Jamil's recipe. I upped the challenge a bit by doing a short glucan rest, a protein rest, and a sacc rest. Reached each step with a thick decoction added back to the cooler mash tun. Was a little low on the main rest coming in at 150 instead of the planned 154. During the 90 min. boil the hot break was so clumpy it looked like bits of carpet padding floating around. Never seen a protein break that chunky before. Used Santiam for bittering and Saaz at 10 and KO. Calc'd at 40 IBUs. Pitched a slurry from a 1.8L starter of S-23. Wishing I had a temp controlled fridge but thankfully it is a stead 52 in the cellar this time of year.
 
Looks good will be doing this soon and subbing saaz for Riwaka. (It's a saaz variety) how many dry packs should be pitched at 50 and how many at 62??
 
Just put a 5 gallon batch into the fermenter. I missed my mash temps slightly on the decoctions, but hopefully it will be close enough to still be good (this was my first attempt at decoction mashing). I ended up with an OG of 1.060 after adding top up water, I lost quite a bit of volume on the 90min boil. I'll post the results when it's ready.
 
hunter_la5 said:
Just put a 5 gallon batch into the fermenter. I missed my mash temps slightly on the decoctions, but hopefully it will be close enough to still be good (this was my first attempt at decoction mashing). I ended up with an OG of 1.060 after adding top up water, I lost quite a bit of volume on the 90min boil. I'll post the results when it's ready.

Just kegged it. My fermentation stalled out a bit higher than I wanted at 1.020, but that's still around 5.25%abv so I guess that's not horrible attenuation, it will just be a bit more full-bodied than I was going for. I wonder if thats from my mash temps being a tad high or if I botched the decoction a bit.

Anyway, the sample I took tasted pretty good and was nice and clear, so I still have high hopes for this beer. I'll report back with a picture in six weeks or so after lagering is complete.
 
nathan said:
scored 43.5

my grains, hops, and yeast came from AustinHomeBrew
Recipe started a while back based on the brewing classic styles

My water is 2:1 distilled to well water (I live in the country) which creates close to the pilsen profile.

11# german 2-row pilsner
about 12 ounces of dextrine malt (or whatever you like for head retention, cara-foam, cara-pils, etc.)

I did a double decoction:
infuse 4.41 gal at 157.2 to get first step of 148F for 60 minutes
with 30 minutes left, pull decoction 1, heat decoction 1 to 158F, let it rest for 10 minutes, then heat to a boil for remaining 15 minutes of Mash rest.
return decoction 1 slowly to main mash, until you get to 158F in main mash. Any remainder should be cooled to 158 then added in.
Immediately pull decoction 2 and bring it to boil during this 30 minute 158F mash rest.
return decoction 2, whole thing. You want 168F or higher ideally.

I batch sparged.

90 minute boil,
.75 saaz 5.8% @ 60min
1.5 saaz 5.8% @ 30min
1.0 saaz 5.8% @ 10min
1.0 saaz 5.8% @ 0min

chill, whirlpool, siphon to carboy, aerate with aquarium pump through hepa filter off and on until reached 30 minutes of pumping time (letting foam subside as necessary and counting time to a total). Pitch dry yeast directly into fermenter, fermenter at about 68F by this time, and in lager freezer set to 50F with 1 degree differential, so it quickly is taken to 50F.

after 2 weeks or so, ramp up 1 degree every 12 hours to 62F and finish out a week.

Rack to keg, chill to 32F, store for 1 month, then enjoy.

I used the BierMuncher Bottle Filler to fill bottles from keg to send to competition.

Solid recipe. I lagered for six months. My buddies and I rifled.through the keg in one night. One of my best beers to date. I'll definitely be doing this again. I used wl 830 for the yeast. Great yeast strand.
 
crusader1612 said:
Looks good will be doing this soon and subbing saaz for Riwaka. (It's a saaz variety) how many dry packs should be pitched at 50 and how many at 62??

Pitch two dry packs for the 50 and one for the 62. I would recommend doing a yeast starter though.
 
Just did an 11 gallon batch. Hit my numbers at 1.056. Fermentin at 50 degrees right now. This is an excellent recipe. I used Czech Saaz throughout, but the AA% were 3.0%.
 
Brewed a 6 gallon batch this past weekend. Hit 1.060 by accident lol. Looking forward to trying this one in a few months.
Thanks for sharing the recipe!

:D
 
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