Bosium
Well-Known Member
- Recipe Type
- All Grain
- Yeast
- Wyeast 2001 Urquell
- Yeast Starter
- Massive! Grew up 3x.
- Batch Size (Gallons)
- 6
- Original Gravity
- 1.054
- Final Gravity
- 1.012
- Boiling Time (Minutes)
- 90
- IBU
- 41
- Color
- 4.5
- Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
- 28 days at 10C (50F)
- Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
- None
- Tasting Notes
- Delicious! Soft and gentle bitterness, clean malt flavour with no off-flavours.
82% Weyermann Extra Pale Pilsener Malt
7.3% Munich Malt
6.7% CaraPils
2% Melanoidin Malt
2% Flaked Barley
18 IBU - Czech Saaz - 100Mins First Wort Hopped
6.6 IBU - Czech Saaz - 70Mins
5.5 IBU - East Kent Goldings* - 65 Mins
7.0 IBU - Czech Saaz - 30 Mins
4.5 IBU - Czech Saaz - 15 Mins
0 IBU - Czech Saaz - 30g added at flame-out (3.3% AA)
Mash for 70 minutes at 154 deg F, mash-out by means of kettle denaturing.
Whirlfloc tabled added at 10 mins left of boil.
This is my crack at a Pilsner, a recipe I've been working on for some time. I started by reading the section on pilseners in Designing Great Beers, Radical Brewing and Brewing Classic Styles, and listening to the Jamil podcast on Bohemian Pilseners. I decided to forgo the decoction mash and have instead boosted the maltiness by additions of Melanoidin and Munich. Foam retention is boosted by CaraPils, and a 2% addition of flaked barley. In future, I'll drop the cara pils and just mash hotter, the flaked barley sorts out the head retention perfectly on its own.
I actually ended up with 84% efficiency on this one, single infusion, single batch sparge. I always seem to get unprecedented high efficiencies when I use Weyermann extra pale pilsener malt. I usually get about 78% efficiency on my system.
I had two different strength packets of Saaz hops, one that has been in the freezer for some months at 5.1% AA originally, and some fresher 3.3% stuff. *I had such unexpectedly high efficiency that I had to use 10g of 6.8% AA EKGs as well just to get the bitterness back up to where I wanted it, as I ended up with more beer than I had anticipated.Next time I'll use all Saaz as originally intended and skip this addition, but it has had no discernable effect on flavour. I ended up with 26L of wort post-boil. 22L in my fermenter, 1L in my fast-ferment test, 2x 1L bottles frozen for making starters with and 1L lost to trub.
I used the Pilsener Urquell strain - Wyeast 2001. I made a 2L starter, then stepped it up by another 2L a few days later, then decanted the spent beer and added a new 4L of fresh wort a fews days after that. There was quite a bit of slurry, although I didn't measure it, but it must have been several hundred ml's. I held a small amount back to use for a fast-ferment test, so that I can get some sort of idea of my limit of attenuation. I pitched cold at 6 degrees C, set the fermentation temp to 7degC, and 12 hours later, stepped it up to 8C. I increment the temperature by a degree every 12 hours until it reached 10degrees C (50F), and then held it there until fermentation completed. I did not do a diacetyl rest with this beer, there was none to very little thanks to the cold pitching technique, and a small amount is actually present in Pilsener Urquell anyway.
For water, I used store-bought Tesco Ashbeck Mountain Spring water, as it is nice and soft. I have had problems before with high mash pH's due to pale malts and alkaline water and I was taking no chances this time. Also, I wanted the softer water profile as it is typical of a Czech Pils. Again, with a bit of research, prompted by my previous problems, I made some salt additions to change the profile slightly - to boost Calcium levels and to reduce Residual Alkalinity. I used Calcium Chloride mainly, with a very small Gypsum addition to try and keep the Sulphate / Chloride ratio slightly more balanced. I used Palmer's mash spreadsheet to work out the figures. I managed to get around pH 5.3 in the mash.
Ashbeck Water:
Bicarbonate (Alkalinity) - 25ppm
Calcium - 10ppm
Magnesium - 2.5ppm
Sodium - 9ppm
Chloride - 12ppm
Sulphate - 10ppm
After additions:
Bicarbonate (Alkalinity) - 16.4ppm
Calcium - 76ppm
Magnesium - 2.5ppm
Sodium - 9ppm
Chloride - 109ppm
Sulphate - 38ppm
7.3% Munich Malt
6.7% CaraPils
2% Melanoidin Malt
2% Flaked Barley
18 IBU - Czech Saaz - 100Mins First Wort Hopped
6.6 IBU - Czech Saaz - 70Mins
5.5 IBU - East Kent Goldings* - 65 Mins
7.0 IBU - Czech Saaz - 30 Mins
4.5 IBU - Czech Saaz - 15 Mins
0 IBU - Czech Saaz - 30g added at flame-out (3.3% AA)
Mash for 70 minutes at 154 deg F, mash-out by means of kettle denaturing.
Whirlfloc tabled added at 10 mins left of boil.
This is my crack at a Pilsner, a recipe I've been working on for some time. I started by reading the section on pilseners in Designing Great Beers, Radical Brewing and Brewing Classic Styles, and listening to the Jamil podcast on Bohemian Pilseners. I decided to forgo the decoction mash and have instead boosted the maltiness by additions of Melanoidin and Munich. Foam retention is boosted by CaraPils, and a 2% addition of flaked barley. In future, I'll drop the cara pils and just mash hotter, the flaked barley sorts out the head retention perfectly on its own.
I actually ended up with 84% efficiency on this one, single infusion, single batch sparge. I always seem to get unprecedented high efficiencies when I use Weyermann extra pale pilsener malt. I usually get about 78% efficiency on my system.
I had two different strength packets of Saaz hops, one that has been in the freezer for some months at 5.1% AA originally, and some fresher 3.3% stuff. *I had such unexpectedly high efficiency that I had to use 10g of 6.8% AA EKGs as well just to get the bitterness back up to where I wanted it, as I ended up with more beer than I had anticipated.Next time I'll use all Saaz as originally intended and skip this addition, but it has had no discernable effect on flavour. I ended up with 26L of wort post-boil. 22L in my fermenter, 1L in my fast-ferment test, 2x 1L bottles frozen for making starters with and 1L lost to trub.
I used the Pilsener Urquell strain - Wyeast 2001. I made a 2L starter, then stepped it up by another 2L a few days later, then decanted the spent beer and added a new 4L of fresh wort a fews days after that. There was quite a bit of slurry, although I didn't measure it, but it must have been several hundred ml's. I held a small amount back to use for a fast-ferment test, so that I can get some sort of idea of my limit of attenuation. I pitched cold at 6 degrees C, set the fermentation temp to 7degC, and 12 hours later, stepped it up to 8C. I increment the temperature by a degree every 12 hours until it reached 10degrees C (50F), and then held it there until fermentation completed. I did not do a diacetyl rest with this beer, there was none to very little thanks to the cold pitching technique, and a small amount is actually present in Pilsener Urquell anyway.
For water, I used store-bought Tesco Ashbeck Mountain Spring water, as it is nice and soft. I have had problems before with high mash pH's due to pale malts and alkaline water and I was taking no chances this time. Also, I wanted the softer water profile as it is typical of a Czech Pils. Again, with a bit of research, prompted by my previous problems, I made some salt additions to change the profile slightly - to boost Calcium levels and to reduce Residual Alkalinity. I used Calcium Chloride mainly, with a very small Gypsum addition to try and keep the Sulphate / Chloride ratio slightly more balanced. I used Palmer's mash spreadsheet to work out the figures. I managed to get around pH 5.3 in the mash.
Ashbeck Water:
Bicarbonate (Alkalinity) - 25ppm
Calcium - 10ppm
Magnesium - 2.5ppm
Sodium - 9ppm
Chloride - 12ppm
Sulphate - 10ppm
After additions:
Bicarbonate (Alkalinity) - 16.4ppm
Calcium - 76ppm
Magnesium - 2.5ppm
Sodium - 9ppm
Chloride - 109ppm
Sulphate - 38ppm