Pilsner Malt Recipes

[Will_the-new-brewer]

So...I bought a bit of grain from a homebrewer a few months back. It included a lot of pale and pilsner malt (obviously). The catch is that I barely brew anything with the pilsner malt. I am still fairly new to homebrewing and wondering what I can brew to get rid of all this pilsner malt. I have almost depleted the pale malt and want it to last a bit longer. Here are some of my on-hand ingredients (I don't mind ordering more...liquid yeast is a problem though).

The guy I bought it from brewed a lot of NEIPA, but I am not a huge fan.

Grain:
Pilsner Malt (random varieties) - 80 lbs
Vienna - 8 lbs
Caravienne - 8 lbs
Wheat - 5 lbs
Munich - 3 lbs
Melanoiden - 1.7 lbs
Honey malt - 2.8 lbs
350/450 Chocolate - almost 1 lb each
Crystal 60, 77 (crisp), and 120L - 1 to 3.5 lbs each
Carapils - 4.5 lbs
Acid malt - 2.0 lbs

Hops on hand
Cascade
Centennial
CTZ
EKG
Hallertau Magnum
Horizon
Magnum
Nelson Sauvin
NB
Perle
Simcoe
Styrian

Yeast
34/70
BE256
S33
T58
WLP029, 530, 565
Wyeast 1318, 1084, 1968
US05

Also, if there are sources out there that can help me with this, I'd like to have those as well for next time.

Thanks!

 

[thehaze]

Pilsner malt works well in a lot of styles: Pale Ales, IPAs, NEIPAs, Belgian style beer, Lagers, Golden and Blonde Ales and even as base malt for dark beers. I use Pilsner malt intensively and works as well as darker kilned malts. I usually boil 90 minutes just to be sure no DMS sneaks up in my beer, but definitely not needed, as modern malts are highly modified, thus the need for boiling longer than 60 minutes is not really there. Just make sure to boil vigorously and without the lid on.

You can use the following grain bill for a lot of styles, like Belgians, Pale Ales, IPAs, etc.:

80-85% Pilsner
15-20% Vienna/Wheat
and / OR
2-3% Honey malt

Cheers.

 

[Dgallo]

Make some single hop pales or blonde ales. I love Pilsner just make sure you give it a vigorous boil or a 90 minute boil so you drive off any dms

 

[Dland]

I've made quite drinkable lagers and blonde ales with 100% pilsner. Mainly did this to test a brand of malt or a yeast, but the beer was fine. Did not go too heavy with hops, usually in the 30's IBU.

Adding 5-20% of most of the other malts (in combination) on list to to any given recipe will richen it up and add interest. Just be careful with the acid malt, and only use in small quantities if you need to lower pH. I've made a lot of beers with pilsner and 10-15% Vienna or Munich. 5%-10% wheat will add flavor and head retention.

Don't be afraid to make up your own recipes.

I usually do 60 min vigorous boils and have no problems with DMS and pilsner malt. Cooling wort down to around 170F quickly after boil more of a factor there, in my opinion.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

85.5% Pilsner
7.5% Vienna or light Munich
5% Caravienne
2% Melanoidin

18 IBU's Magnum, 60 min boil
7 IBU's Styrian, 15-20 minute boil

W-34/70 Yeast

 

[Jayjay1976]

If you really aren't a fan of pilsner malt in general, brew some higher-gravity styles to use it up faster. As others have said it works really well as a base malt in stouts and if you brew a couple of russian imperial stouts you'll run out before you know it. Pilsner used to be my base malt until I realized the flavors were just kinda grassy with little malt flavor and it wasn't delivering the flavor I was after so now I use a lot of vienna and pale ale malt. If you want to add something to compensate for what pilsner malt lacks, try adding a pound of maris otter, biscuit or honey malt, or even some 10L crystal to your recipes. I also like a small bit of special B or cara ruby even in lighter colored beers just to add some dimension and depth.

 

[brewbama]

About any German beer will include Pilsner malt. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it as a base malt or in combination with other base malts in any style but for sure Helles, Pils, Dunkel, Altbier, Kölsch, Schwarzbier, the Bock biers, etc.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Make some single hop pales or blonde ales. I love Pilsner just make sure you give it a vigorous boil or a 90 minute boil so you drive off any dms

fwiw this doesn't really seem to be necessary with modern malts. Or at least I've never noticed it with shorter boils (lid off).

Brulosophy have done plenty of short & shoddies w/ 20-30 minute boils and pilsner-based grainbills without any apparent DMS.

 

[Dgallo]

fwiw this doesn't really seem to be necessary with modern malts. Or at least I've never noticed it with shorter boils (lid off).

Brulosophy have done plenty of short & shoddies w/ 20-30 minute boils and pilsner-based grainbills without any apparent DMS.

I’ve read that too but unfortunately I experienced last year in a blonde ale I did. I didn’t have a 60 minute addition so I did a 30 min boil and the beer had a distinctive corn flavor

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

S-33 yeast is purported to be genetically right close to Windsor yeast.

 

[kingmatt]

Brew a NZ Pilsner:

OG: 1.055
100% Pilsner (add acid malt to adjust your pH if necessary)
30 IBU Magnum (60 min)
10 IBU Nelson (15 min)
10 IBU Nelson (1 min)
1 or 2 oz Nelson dry hop
34/70 yeast

yum.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

You've got all the ingredients needed for kolsch, German Pils/festbier/Helles, saison, Belgian pale/blonde/tripel/Golden Strong, and no doubt several other styles. All of those typically use pils malt as the base.

 

[Will_the-new-brewer]

Thanks all! I will try these out...I am sure I can find something that I like, lol.

 

[Vale71]

fwiw this doesn't really seem to be necessary with modern malts. Or at least I've never noticed it with shorter boils (lid off).

Brulosophy have done plenty of short & shoddies w/ 20-30 minute boils and pilsner-based grainbills without any apparent DMS.

DMS precursor level can an do vary in barley depending on crop year and region of cultivation. You could be lucky with one lot of malt and have terrible DMS with the next batch of the same malt from the same maltster. Very large breweries contractually set limits for DMS precursors (it's easier to do if your contracts are worth millions a pop) since they can't vary the boil parameters. Guess who then gets the batches of malt with higher than average DMS-p levels that can't be sold to the big customers?
This is something that the Brülosophy guys clearly completely ignore, as they do about everything else that they could possibly be ignorant about. And even if they didn't, they certainly cannot test for DMS-p as part of the experimental protocol (it's a very expensive analysis) so their results are just completely worthless as usual.