Bohemian Pilsner - what to do? High OG

[RodeBrewingCo]

Made a bohemian Pilsner. All grain. Used too much grain, 12lbs grain / 8 Gal water. Over shot the OG it ended up at 1.071. WLP802 yeast. It’s going to be on the hot side, too much alcohol. Only used 2 oz hops. Saaz, Hallertau.

Suggestions: Add more hops?

What should I do?

I can see the hot taste coming on this. Not what I want.

 

[Yooper]

Made a bohemian Pilsner. All grain. Used too much grain, 12lbs grain / 8 Gal water. Over shot the OG it ended up at 1.071. WLP802 yeast. It’s going to be on the hot side, too much alcohol. Only used 2 oz hops. Saaz, Hallertau.

Suggestions: Add more hops?

What should I do?

I can see the hot taste coming on this. Not what I want.

You can add distilled water to get your OG right where it should have been, and that should be fine, assuming that your SG/IBU ratio was balanced with your projected OG.

 

[RodeBrewingCo]

You can add distilled water to get your OG right where it should have been, and that should be fine, assuming that your SG/IBU ratio was balanced with your projected OG.

My apologies. I should have said this. It’s in a bucket. fermenting right now. I ended up with 5.5 Gal wort. I thought about topping it off but did not have enough bucket space. I am going to get a larger bucket (or carboy) in case this happens again. so I can top off/dilute. I think I am in the "new" taste or come up with something mode here.....it will be hot....

 

[Grannyknot]

You got 5.5 gallons of 1.071 wort using 12lbs of grain?

 

[Rivenin]

i'd get around 1.075 - my eff% is 87 though.

 

[beersk]

You got 5.5 gallons of 1.071 wort using 12lbs of grain?

Yes, it seems high. Unless he did a triple decoction... It's 85% efficiency. Which, I guess is do able especially if decocting and fly sparging.

I can only suggest diluting with DI water post fermentation.

 

[solbes]

I wouldn't dilute after the fermentation starts. I guess I'd roll with the 1.071 beer and lager longer. Should be tasty assuming you pitched a crap load of yeast.

If you have a 6.5 gallon bucket, you could add another 2/3 gallon once the krausen subsides (if there is any). Make that really dilute with DME, say 1.020 with an additional 1/2 - 1 oz of hops boiled for 20-30 minutes. That will bring down your gravity into the Bock range @ 1.066 and you should not get a "diluted beer" taste either.

 

[Grannyknot]

Yes, it seems high. Unless he did a triple decoction... It's 85% efficiency. Which, I guess is do able especially if decocting and fly sparging.

I can only suggest diluting with DI water post fermentation.

I guess it isn't unthinkable if you dump everything from your boil kettle into the fermenter to make up the 5.5 gallons. I just assumed everyone had kettle losses of a half gallon, if not a little more, in the form of hot break and hop matter.

If you assume kettle losses of a half gallon, making the final volume 6 gallons, that is 96% efficiency, which is why I raised the question.

 

[RodeBrewingCo]

You got 5.5 gallons of 1.071 wort using 12lbs of grain?

Dear all: thank you for the suggestions. For the sake of clarity and accuracy let me recap. I could have been more accurate in my original post.

I made this recipe as a scaled up version of a Bo Pils I did in the winter. The first one came out great. I realize this may not be a way to reproduce an exact Bo Pils, but it works for me and I like it. So I repeated my last process…… somewhat.

I simply used to much grain. I should have used 10 LBS total and boil for 90 min. My boil pot only holds 7 gal (to fill line on pot) 8 gal to top of pot. From my calculations I usually get 80-85% efficiency. In this case I did not think the Pils grain would produce that amount of sugar.

I use two different pots. I mash in the first one (5 gal pot). Batch sparge in the second (7 gal pot) combine liquids into 7 Gal pot. Then boil

METHOD: BIAB:

GRAIN BILL:

10.0 LBS Bohemian Pilsner
2.0 LBS Light Munich
0.5 LBS Briess Carpilis

GRIND: very fine. I use a conical burr grinder (aka very expensive coffee grinder)

WATER

Total water: 7.5 Gal.

Estimated water profile: Rochester, NY Shoremont estimate
Ca+2 26 Mg+2 6 Na+ 19 Cl- 33 SO4-2 15 Alkalinity pH101 (HCO3) 7.6

Adjustment to (water):
Added distilled water to cut salts in water. See below.
Added PH stabilizer to mash and batch water
Added trace amounts of sodium metabisulphite for chlorine/chloramine.

Mash In:

4.0 Gal. (2 gal distilled water +2 gal filtered water) - Mash temp varied from 154 to 156. Stayed mostly at 154. 90 Min mash.

Batch Sparge
3.5 Gal water (2.0 Gal distilled water + 1.5 Gal filtered water) at 155 F to obtain a 153 F temp for 30 min

Yes I squeezed the bag……

Boil Time: 120 min (approx) – to reduce from 7.0 gal to 5.75-6.0 Gal.

Hop schedule:
0.25 Oz galena at 60 min
1.0 Saaz at wort temp of 140
1.0 Hallertau at wort temp of 140

Total Yield (5.75 - 6.0) Gal there is probably .75 gal trub as well.

Semi No Chill – placed boil pot in a sink with cold water. Etc to cool.

Pitched: Yeast: WLP802 (Starter: 700ML)

OG 1.071
FG - TBD

Fermenting in bucket with blow off tube now.

Depending on what yeast does this could get very alcoholic tasting (HOT). if the yeast does not make it past 1.015 maybe it will be about 7.35% ABV (78% attenuation). very high for a Pils. but maybe not so bad with more Hops....

Having said all that….. I may just make a nice HOP tea and hop this thing up. But making another batch and blending with this one has come to mind.

Any other suggestions are welcomed.