Replicating Troegs beers and experimenting

[cwheel]

I love almost all Troegs beers, and noticed recently that they are one of the breweries that uses Pilsner as their base malt. In fact, I don't think I could find American 2-row as an ingredient in any of their beers. To that end, I am going to try a 2-gallon batch and split into two 1 gallon batches so that I can test two different yeasts at the same time (Wyeast 1968 and WLP001).

I use a tiny bit of acid malt to get my pH down. Do you guys have any comments on the following? Most of the Troegs brews use Vienna and/or Munich. Do I need the flaked barley? Any other recommendations?

My goal is to try and get a nice malty beer - a lot of my sub 1.060 SG beers seem watered down, and I'd like to try and get something with some malt bite to it. In fact, I'd be OK if it was unbalanced in that direction. I know its hard to get a maltier beer without adding more malt (!) but would love peoples thoughts.

Its also going to be my first temperature step mash to handle the Pilsner!

2 gallon - Pale Ale #1
American Pale Ale
Type: All Grain Date: 8/19/2011
Batch Size (fermenter): 2.00 gal Brewer: James
Boil Size: 3.36 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Pot ( 5 Gal/19 L) - Mini-BIAB
End of Boil Volume 2.61 gal Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 1.78 gal Est Mash Efficiency 81.6 %
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
2 lbs 12.0 oz Pilsner (2 Row) UK (1.0 SRM) Grain 1 56.7 %
1 lbs Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 2 20.6 %
8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 3 10.3 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.2 %
4.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 5 5.2 %
1.6 oz Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 6 2.1 %

0.25 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 28.4 IBUs
0.20 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 8 5.4 IBUs
0.20 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 9 1.8 IBUs

0.5 pkg London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) [124.21 ml] Yeast 10 -

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.056 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.018 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.9 %
Bitterness: 35.6 IBUs Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 7.5 SRM
Mash Profile

Mash Name: Temperature Mash, 2 Step, Full Body Total Grain Weight: 4 lbs 13.6 oz
Sparge Water: 2.43 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Protein Rest Add 6.06 qt of water at 129.3 F 122.0 F 30 min
Saccharification Heat to 156.0 F over 15 min 156.0 F 30 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F 10 min

Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 2.43 gal water at 168.0 F

 

[jfowler1]

The bros were on the BN about a month ago and talked in a bit of detail about their recipe formation process. You are correct in saying that Pils is the base of almost all of their beers. They said they chose pils because they can always darken a grain bill up, but can't make it lighter. Interestingly, Victory (a bit down the road from Troegs) also seems to use all German Malts.

I am personally beginnning to experiment with a base blend of Pils and Munich for all of my beers. The jury is still out on that decision.

Check out the free download on itunes. It might clue you in on some more stuff specific to their process.

 

[cwheel]

Thanks! Listening to it right now. Any personal thoughts on the recipe?

 

[cwheel]

By the way, just got to the part in the podcast where they talk about Nugget Nectar. They say they use 80% Vienna! This goes against all of the other recipes floating around HBT and the web. Interesting...

 

[jfowler1]

I took a shot at revisiting the NN recipe here

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/trogner-bros-talk-nugget-nectar-bn-257110/

for that exact reason, but the thread died quickly and I moved on. Give it a read and let me know your thoughts.

 

[cwheel]

Cool, I'll post there with any success I have. I'm actually switching my recipe to be closer to NN. Not so much with the hops, but trying out the following grain bill (multiply by 2.5 to get the 5 gallon equivalent - this is for 2 gallons):

4 lbs Vienna
1 lb Pilsner
8 oz Munich
8 oz Crystal 60L

Not an exact match to what they have listed on their website, but thought I would give it a go to at least see what type of beer a primarly Vienna malt makes!