I bottled my Pilsner last night

[passive]

Finally bottled the Pilsner last night (Festa Brew kit). I ended up not having enough clean bottles, so I had a few glasses of it to drink.

Certainly it will be better when it has carbonated and left to mature a bit longer, but I'm really excited by the state it is in now. My palette isn't refined enough to say whether it's a proper Pils, but it definitely reminds me of a lot of what I drank when I was last in Germany.

I have an unusual headache this morning though, is that likely an affect of drinking the beer in it's current state?

Despite not using a secondary, it was very clear, with less trub cake than I have had from previous brews. This is my first one that didn't use Cooper's yeast, and what I had been calling "the homebrew taste" is gone.

Now I need to start my next batch...

 

[osagedr]

Sounds like a good experience (except for the headache) so far. What yeast did you use and how did you ferment it? IIRC Festas come with proper yeast so I'm guessing it came with s-23, but probably only one package which wouldn't be enough if you fermented it around 50.

Always liked the Festa Brew kits.

 

[jbsg02]

I'm really looking forward to brewing a pilsner here soon once I get my fridge/kegerator to ferment lagers in. They are probably my favorite summer style. I want to do something similar to Sierra Nevada's Summerfest

 

[imrook]

How long did you ferment for? What was your actual and target F.G? It seems possible that your headache was caused by high levels of acetaldehyde. This would indicate that fermentation is not complete. This also fits with a smaller amount of trub in the primary (i.e. yeast is still fermenting, so hasn't dropped out yet.) I would make sure the bottles are carbing someplace safe in case you get some bottle bombs. Of course, I'm still pretty new to brewing, so if a more experienced member has a different opinion, listen to them instead.

 

[passive]

imrook, I was concerned about that too. I didn't do the gravity measurements, so it's definitely possible that it's still fermenting (though my internal alcholometer said that this was fairly potent). The kit recommends 15 days I think, and it was in there for 32, but I know that's not a definitive indicator. The yeast that came with the kit needed to be put in water first, which I hadn't done before, so my guess was that I had screwed that process up and killed some of the yeast.
I'll keep an eye on the bottles.