German Pilsener Recipe

[Somerville]

Got all the ingredients. The external temp controller. Let me know what you think:

6lb German Pils LME (morebeer.com)

60min: 1.5oz Hallertauer @ 4%
20min: 1.5oz Hallertauer @ 4%
2min: 0.5oz Tettnanger @ 3.5%

Other: 2 oz MaltoDextrin (just cuz' I have it)
Water: Distilled Bottled
Irish Moss
Servomyces

Details: 2.5gal boil, total batch size: 5 gal. Pellet hops.

This is based off of Papazian's Crabalocker German Pils, yet, with diff. aroma on my part. What are people's experience with these hops? Am I capturing a true German Pils here?

 

[homebrewer_99]

Distilled water?

In general it's not recommended for brewing, but I have seen recipes saying to use it.

The recipe looks OK. The Warsteiner recipe in Clone Brews uses Tets for bittering and Hallertaus for aroma though. Your's should be OK.

 

[Somerville]

Distilled water?

In general it's not recommended for brewing, but I have seen recipes saying to use it.

The recipe looks OK. The Warsteiner recipe in Clone Brews uses Tets for bittering and Hallertaus for aroma though. Your's should be OK.

I thought Distilled water would be the softest water I could find. What should I use to achieve lager soft water?

Does tettnanger have a good aroma for a german pils?

You say it will be OK, but in your opinion, what would you do to make it great while staying true to the German style?

 

[Kaiser]

I thought Distilled water would be the softest water I could find. What should I use to achieve lager soft water?

Distilled water is the softest water around, but you will need some minerals. Try using spring water from the store or build your own water by adding salts. The latter is more complicated but fairly easy to do if you have BeerSmith or ProMash.

Kai

 

[Somerville]

Thanks for the help

 

[homebrewer_99]

The hops should be OK since they are both German.

 

[Somerville]

Ok well I just finished brewing it. Has a misty golden color but I'm sure the mist will subside after awhile. I put about a pound of ice in to my bottling bucket and poured the wort on that after an ice bath. The ice was still there so I successfully brought the wort down to near lager temp. I then transferred it over to a carboy via spigot&tube. Enough splashing to capture oxygen. I poured the yeast in (fortunately the WL tube didn't pop it's top). I think by this time it was at about 60degrees. I put it in the fridge and set the analog temp controller to ~48degrees. Its been about 20 min and it seems the carboy is sitting at 57degrees...I put my fridge to its highest level...the temp. tube is sitting on a shelf (tip isnt touching anything). Any ideas why the carboy is kinda just sittin there?

 

[Walker]

distilled water is fine for brewing with extract. any minerals needed will be provided by the extract.

I brewed for many years with LME + distilled water and had no issues.

-walker

 

[Somerville]

Thanks for the help. I ended up using Mountain Spring Water from Albertson. I posted a pic of it below. That trub on the bottom formulated only a couple hours after putting the wort in the PF. Because of this, it can't be yeast. No way would it be that fast. What is all that stuff? I never remember my ales having so much hazy stuff in it that settled to the bottom. As a reference, my recipe is above in the first post.

 

[Shambolic]

It's just cold break material - coagulated protein and the like. Nothing to stress about.

 

[Somerville]

It's just cold break material - coagulated protein and the like. Nothing to stress about.

Really good to know, thanks!

 

[Somerville]

In terms of this cold break and coagulated protein at the bottom--do I need to stir it back into the beer before I rack it to the secondary or do I want to leave it behind?

 

[stevied916]

You want to leave it behind. This is why I usually put 5.5gal in my 6.5 carboy. When I transfer to my secondary I still end up with 5 gallons even after transfering and leaving all that behind.
And the carboy is probabally sitting at 57 because it takes a long time to cool 5 gallons of liquid by having the outside air only 10 degrees cooler and not having the liquid moving around inside. Just wait...it will get there in a day or 2 as long as the fridge is actually 45

 

[Somerville]

Sounds good

 

[homebrewer_99]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you say you placed the carboy directly in the fridge after pitching the yeast?

Pils is a lager. Lager yeast needs to be active before cooling it down.

If I am correct then you need to remove it from the fridge to warm up to 65-70F to get the yeast going first then return it to the fridge.

As for the ice, that's not a good thing. There's all kinds of freezer impurities in ice.

As for wanting a light colored brew you need to stop using LME and switch to DME which is lighter, but still darker than doing all grain.

 

[Somerville]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you say you placed the carboy directly in the fridge after pitching the yeast?

Pils is a lager. Lager yeast needs to be active before cooling it down.

If I am correct then you need to remove it from the fridge to warm up to 65-70F to get the yeast going first then return it to the fridge.

As for the ice, that's not a good thing. There's all kinds of freezer impurities in ice.

As for wanting a light colored brew you need to stop using LME and switch to DME which is lighter, but still darker than doing all grain.

Yeah I figured that out and took the fermenter out of the fridge. After warming up, it began to bubble. I then placed it back in at ~52 degrees. Its been bubblin' nicely ever since.

The ice bath method does nothing for me in terms of cooling down my wort (I have yet to get a chiller!). Pouring cold water in cools it down but not that fast. I thought that the fastest and best way was to pour it over ice. At first I thought that the ice was a bad idea because of bacteria but then decided to risk it because it was store bought ice. Store bought ice in a bag can't be that bad...can it? At least I know the yeast is still alive. Perhaps I shouldn't risk it next time.

You know, I thought I was buying DME for some reason...turned out I bought LME One reason why this happened was because Morebeer.com has a special extract called German Pilsner. I was making a German Pilsner so why not buy extract called German Pilsner? It turned out to be LME though...oh well.

 

[Somerville]

I opened up the first bottle of my German Pilsener after 10 days carbonating and I have to say, I'm let down. I thought this beer was going to be my best yet. Though, it was my first lager. For reference, here is the recipe again from the first post:

6lb German Pils LME (morebeer.com)

60min: 1.5oz Hallertauer @ 4%
20min: 1.5oz Hallertauer @ 4%
2min: 0.5oz Tettnanger @ 3.5%

Other: 2 oz MaltoDextrin (just cuz' I have it)
Water: Distilled Bottled
Irish Moss
Servomyces

Details: 2.5gal boil, total batch size: 5 gal. Pellet hops.

This beer starts out with a good bitterness but then quickly lets loose this sweet taste that almost reminds me of white wine and a hint of bubble gum Basically, I suppose, the beer was too sweet for the amount of hops I used. I plan on making the same beer yet with more hops...anyone have any opinions?

Thank you!