Czech Tool Pilsner - Brew Day Diary

[TristanL]

Howdy! I hope this thread will serve as a diary of my latest brew.

Executive Summary: Brew day went better than expected. I was a little nervous about performing my first double decoction. I ended up obtaining a higher efficiency than calculated of 84% and overshot both preboil and OG. Ended up at 1.060. This is going to be a bigger beer! Hopefully it will turn out as a great beer for winter quaffing and enjoyment! :rockin: Cooled down the wort in my keezer along with the 4L starter and pitched this morning. Airlock activity observed this evening.

Overly verbose details:

A little background on this beer. I've been researching for this beer for weeks. Listening to hours of Brew Strong (all four episodes on Water Chemistry, Yeast Starters, Decoctions, Lagering). I also listened to Jamil's Bohemian Pilsner podcast.

I had some very informative e-mail correspondence with John Palmer and Jamil Z regarding water adjustments and decoction procedure. I decided to tackle the Hochurz Double Decoction. I've only done one decoction (on a dopplebock earlier this year) so I wanted to consult a higher power. BrauKaiser and Denny Conn were kind enough to patiently answer my questions via PM regarding temps and times for the procedure. Thanks a lot gentlemen!

I brewed my Bastage Czech Tool Pilsner yesterday,..... proudly named after that trusty pipe tool that pipe smokers far and wide know and love. Here is a run down of how it went, but first I will rewind to where it all begins, the yeast starter:

Wyeast Urquell 2001 starter made on 10/5 with 2L of wort. Decanted and pitched slurry into 4L starter on 10/7.

Brew Day Notes:

Crushed 10.5 pounds of Weyerman Bohemian pilsner in barley crusher set to 30 with feeler gauges for a good crush.

Heated 8 gallons of distilled and 2 gallons of tap to 162. Added 3 grams of gypsum and calcium chloride to the water.

Preheated cooler with 2 gallons of water.
Mashed in and obtained temperature reading of 142 degrees. Added on more gallon of water to get water to 145.
Pulled decoction at 15 minutes into mash and heated to 160 ish in 12L stock pot.
Tested for conversion at 22 minutes into mash, no iodine reaction, heat back on
Started boiling at 42 minutes into mash
Returned in steps to mash tun at 52 minutes
Temp is 148 degrees at 55 minutes
brought one gallon of water to boil and added in phases to mash
Temperature is 153 degrees at 1:06. That's the best I can get.
2nd decoction, 8 quarts pulled between scooping with pyrex and manifold at 1:30.
Heated to 160, rested a few minutes and tested iodine negative, applied heat and brought to boil at 1:51
2:01 - returned decoction to main mash in steps
2:03 - 162 degrees!
2:23 - first runnings, then batch sparged two rounds
2:50 - ~7.25 gallons of water collected,..... heat applied to boil kettle

Pre-Boil Gravity measured at 1.045. Must have gotten better efficiency, calculated 78% for recipe, seems I obtained 84% after using feeler gauges to recalibrate my barley crusher

3:20 - boil achieved, timer started

90 Minute boil, Hops = Czech Saaz baby Saaz! 60 minute (1.75 oz), 30 minute (1.50 oz), 15 minute (1.30 oz) and flame out hops (1 oz) added to jelly strainer (nylon bag). Also added Whirfloc tablet and copper wort chiller into wort 15 minutes prior to flame out.

Flame out! Wort cooled for 25 minutes with 50 ft 1/2" OD copper immersion chiller to 65 degrees. Wort transferred via 1/2" tube to PBW washed and Star San sanitized 6.5 gallon carboy. Looks like over 5 gallons with the naked eye.

Wort aerated for 5 minutes by hand. Wort and starter placed in keezer. Fastened the probe of the johnson temp controller to the carboy via carboy hauler strap. Controller set up 42 degrees.

10/10 - Decanted all but .5L of starter wort and commingled with yeast slurry. Pitched slurry at 11AM. Adjusted temperature controller to 48 degrees.

Evidence of airlock activity observed around 9PM. Very slow bubbling. Will check tomorrow to see if activity is increasing.

 

[Marius]

Wow, interesting diary.

 

[TristanL]

Still sluggish activity yesterday. I took the carboy out of the keezer yesterday morning and it appeared the yeast needed to be a little better distributed. I swirled the wort around a bit.

This morning airlock activity has increased to bubbling every 7 seconds. A nice krausen is starting to build. According to my digital thermometer min air temp was 51F and max air temp was 53F degrees. I adjusted the temp down 1 degree. Trying to achieve fermentation temps of 49 degrees. I'm relieved this is starting to pick up!

 

[TristanL]

As of this morning activity continues to increase. Airlock is bubbling every 3 seconds and the krausen is thicker. :rockin:

 

[TristanL]

As of today, krausen is starting to recede slightly. Airlock activity has diminished. James, if you're reading this, I'm counting the bubbles just for you buddy!

I plan on taking a gravity tomorrow afternoon. If I'm around 80% of terminal gravity (1.023-1.026) I will pull the carboy out and let it free rise to room temp for a diacetyl rest. My guess is fermentation will take a few more days to get to that point.

 

[TristanL]

Wow, today I took a gravity reading and it's at at 1.014. I took the carboy out of the keezer for a diacetyl rest. I also tried to get some of the yeast back in suspension by swirling the liquid around inside the carboy. Hopefully it's not too late to get a good diacetyl rest out of this. Either way, can't hurt!

I'll let this sit out for a few days, potentially as long as a week, in the low 60's. The beer smelled great. I couldn't taste it because I had to go back to work. Didn't want to be showing up to work with beer on my breath.

 

[TristanL]

Just got home and tasted the refrigerated sample. I'm so pumped! I can't taste any off flavors and the hops came through perfectly! I think if all goes as planned I'll be drinking a very wonderful beer in 6-7 weeks!

 

[TristanL]

Still venting lots of CO2. I think I will leave the beer in the low 60s until activity has diminished and then siphon to the keg.

 

[TristanL]

Hovering around 1.012-1.013 and airlock activity is starting to slow. Beer tastes good, hops seem to be more in the forefront. Rough around the edges, but that's to be expected. Lagering should smooth this out!

 

[TristanL]

Airlock activity had totally stopped on Saturday and all the krausen had fallen. I gave it another day and racked to the keg on Sunday. I secured the probe of the temp controller to the keg in the keezer using tape. I set it to 52.

The gravity of the sample was around 1.010-1.011. The chilled sample tasted good. There were lots of hops coming through. There is some alcohol noticable and this beer is still rough around the edges. Totally drinkable with no significant flavor issues. Lagering should hopefully smooth this out quite a bit!

I rinsed the yeast with a gallon of boiled/cooled water, swirled the keg, and waited 10 minutes for the trub to drop. The cloudy liquid was racked to a 1 gallon wine jug and crash cooled. I decanted the liquid from the compact yeast layer. I mixed a small amount of the liquid with the yeast. I was able to collect roughly 12 oz of yeast slurry! Makes me want to brew another Pilsner this weekend to pitch the yeast in

Lowered the temp to around 45 today. Going to lower it to around 37 tomorrow afternoon before leaving on vacation! With a 4 degree differential I hope to attain an average of 39 degrees for my lagering temp and lager for 4-6 weeks.

 

[TristanL]

Update: The beer is almost fully carbed and is nice and clear after drawing off a few initial pints. This beer turned out spectacular! Super malty, soft, round, hoppy. Super long finish and I love the flavors from the Saaz. I will definitely be brewing this recipe again and shooting for the same temperatures in the initial mashing schedule! Next time I will adjust my strike water a bit higher and increase my decoction volumes! :rockin:

 

[TristanL]

Brewing this pilsner again today! Started getting things ready around 8AM and mashed in at 9AM. Things are going well! I'm surprised but I've actually achieved the temp rests I wanted to in the mash. My pH has been right on both times I check it!

I started out with 7 gallons of RO water and 4 gallons of my water treated to remove chloramine. Salt additions were 3 grams Calcium Chloride and 3 grams of Gypsum. Here is the blow by blow:

1) Preheated cooler.

2) Doughed in and hit 151 - 152 degrees

3) (MASH 00:15) 15 minutes in, pulled first decoction, 6 qts (50% more than last time) Main mash is at 148 after taking decoction.

4) pH reading of this part of the mash is around 5.2. Heat to 160 and then rest for 10 minutes. I could see the wort clear on top, NICE!

5) Heat to boil and boil for 10 minutes

6) (MASH 00:52) Return to Main Mash. Temp around 158-160 degrees.

7) (MASH 01:15) Pulled 2nd thin decoction for mash out.

8) (MASH 1:50) Returned decoction to mash. Temp is 168!

9) (TIME 02:30) Sparged 7.5 gallons (corrected for temperature). Gravity is 1.051! That's 86% efficiency into the kettle!

10) (TIME 02:40/ BOIL: 0) The boil begins! Threw a few drops of fermcap S in to the kettle. Magic!

11) (Time 03:10/BOIL: 30) 1st Hop Addition

12) (Time 03:40/BOIL: 60) 2nd Hop Addition

13) (Time 03:55/BOIL: 75) Wort chiller are placed into boiling wort. Whirfloc tablet inserted into wort 5 minutes prior to flame out.

14) (Time 04:00/BOIL: 80) 3rd Hop Addition

15) (Time 04:10/BOIL: 90) Flame Out Hop Addition.

16) (Time 04:10/BOIL: 90) Chiller is turned on

17) (Time 04:14/Chill: 4) Wort is 136 degrees. Lid is placed on boil kettle.

18) (Time 04:35/Chill 25) Chiller is turned off. Wort is 54 degrees.

19) Transfered wort to boil kettle. Volume is 5.75 gallons. Gravity is 1.061. 82.9% Brew House Efficiency

I will post again as I have time.

 

[TristanL]

One of the pieces of constructive critism I received is the Saaz didn't assault the palatte quite enough on initial tasting of my first pilsner. Other than that, it was a near perfect ferment and one of my favorite home brews ever!

So, due to that advice, I've increased the IBUs of this beer slightly. Therefore, this beer shall be named:

Czech Tool Pilsner: Episode II - Attack of the Saaz

I revived 10 oz of yeast harvested from the previous batch on 10/26/2009 in a 1500ML starter yesterday and cold crashed the whole business. I will be oxygenating the wort pitching the yeasties tonight. I'll post as updates become available.

 

[TristanL]

Low krausen begun yesterday afternoon. I'm very relieved. This yeast took 72 hours the first time I brewed this beer despite making a huge starter. I figured since I was pitching harvested yeast form the last batch, at a much higher quantity, I wouldn't have as much lag. That's not the case. Despite waking them up in a 1L starter, I think many of the yeast were not viable after several months in the fridge.

Next time, I am going to use 100 - 200ML of slurry and do a big starter if the yeast have been stored more than a few weeks. Greg Noonan, in his book, talks about the reasons for a long lag time. He mentions a few potential fixes, adjusting wort composition and pitching rates. I feel maybe I need to increase pitch rates of the healthiest yeast I can get my hands on for future batches of this Pilsner.

I'm just hoping that pitching that huge quantity of yeast, some of which was not in the best condition, won't have any deleterious effects on the flavor of the finished beer. I'm hoping the starter got them in good enough shape to do the job!

 

[TristanL]

I'm super pumped. I just found out tonight that this beer won a silver medal in the Pilsner category at Upper Mississippi Mash Out tonight!

The second batch is almost ready to go into lager mode. I brought this beer up to about 58 degrees earlier this week for a diacetyl rest and at that point it was at 1.020. I'll be checking the gravity this week sometime and transferring to a keg for lagering!

 

[TristanL]

I just kegged this beer earlier in the week after a 7 day diacetyl rest. The gravity is 1.016 prior to lagering. Tasted this cold on Friday, no carbonation, it's wonderful. No flaws that I can detect. I like it better than the first batch!