This weekend I decided to tackle an old favorite, the pilsner.  Only this time, I wanted to really do one that I wanted, not just one that I thought would fit a style.  This is meant to be a hoppy pilsner, inspired by Mammoth Brewing Company’s Golden Trout Pilsner.  A friend brought me a bomber of this from Cali and I really enjoyed it.  It was a hoppy interpretation of the pilsner style that is listed as a German Pilsner, but I would call it a modern-American Pilsner.  While it didn’t receive a lot of “BA love”, I thought it was a great brew.  They listed it as being made up pilsner and vienna malt with all Noble hops.  Not a lot of really useful information.  So I used the ingredients and went forward.

My brew came out something like this:

• 18.5lbs UK 2-row pilsner
• 3lbs Vienna
• 60 min – 3oz Saaz
• 30min – 1oz Hallertauer, 1oz Tettnag, 1oz Pearle
• Cool down – 2oz Saaz
• Dry hopped – 2oz Saaz whole-leaf

For the actual brew, I decided on a protein rest and a double decoction.  The second decoction was for getting the mash-tun up to mash out temps.  The protein rest was 122f for 35 min followed by a 20min decoction consisting of 4.5 gallons.  When the decoction mash was added back to the mashtun the temp was 155f where it rested for 45mim.  The second decoction was only for 13min and consisted of 2.5 gallons, but still brought the temp up to the desired 168f mash out.

I sparged for about a half hour and at the end, I was a little light in my volume so I topped off with two gallons of water before the boil.  After the boil, I was a little low in my volume, but I was high on the gravity so I topped off with some water to get to my desired 1.044 OG.

The idea here is a simple pilsner with a great hop profile, some tradition with a more modern smack.  Hopefully it comes out.  It might not be in any styles, but it’s going to be cooling me down this summer.

Cheers

As for the brew day, there was room for improvement.  Don’t get me wrong, I think that our pilsner will be a fine beer, but for the second week in a row, there were brew volume issues.  Allow me to explain.

The recipe was pretty simple, 42.75lbs pilsner malt, 2lbs cara pils dex.  With a total malt bill weight of nearly 45lbs, I planned a total brew volume of 29.5gallons.  The idea was to have a 24.5 gallon pre-boil volume, thus giving us 5 gallons of absortion on the mash.  This was split up as a 14gallon strike at 135f with a 126f step for the protein rest, a 6 gallon addition at 188f to raise the temp to 158f, and a 4.5 gallon dection to get the mash up to 168 for mashout.  I was going to sparge with 9.5 gallons of water at 175f to add up to my total volume desired of 29.5 gallons.

There were a few temps that we missed on and I had to add an extra rest to ensure that all our conversions happened, but in the end, all that was fine.  When the time came to run off into our fermentors, we were each a gallon short of our desired 10 gallons.  Now the gravity wound up at 1.054, well above the target 1.048, so we were extracting the proper gravity, we just did not get the volume we needed.  The solution is easy enough, but the more important question is; why are we short on volume?

Last night I took some time and reviewed Ray Daniels book Designing Great Beers to try and get some insight on where I might be going wrong on my water volume calculations and it didn’t take long to figure the problem out.  According to Ray, my volume calculations should have been as follows:

45lbs grain weight x .2= 9 gal of water lost in absorption

I took and adjusted everything else in my system through my other calculations and it all worked out.  This appears to be the problem area.  I use Beer Smith so I’ll have to figure out if there is something in the settings that is causing the problems.

In other news, I found a great little corner of my basement that is a nice steady 54f, prefect primary lagering temp, to keep my babbies bubbling in.  Excellent!

Cheers.

This brew is a German pils with a Czech pils yeast.  Why the Czech yeast?  Why not.  Bryan is a fan of the lighter brews so he and I are going to hit up a 20 gallon batch of this hoss.  This is mostly pilsner malt so we are going to be doing a multi step decoction as a way to make sure the grains are modified properly.

Anyway, this is the recipe:

Recipe Specifications
————————–
Batch Size: 20.50 gal     
Boil Size: 24.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.048 SG
Estimated Color: 4.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 34.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amount         Item                               Type             % or IBU      
42.25 lb       Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM)      Grain            95.48 %       
2.00 lb        Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)       Grain            4.52 %        
3.00 oz        Northern Brewer [8.50 %]  (60 min) Hops             23.0 IBU      
1.00 oz        Northern Brewer [8.50 %]  (30 min) Hops             5.9 IBU       
2.00 oz        Northern Brewer [8.50 %]  (10 min) Hops             5.6 IBU       
1 Pkgs         Czech Pilsner Lager (Wyeast Labs #2Yeast-Lager                    

The mash schedule is as follows:

Mash Schedule: Decoction Mash, Double
Total Grain Weight: 44.25 lb
—————————-
Decoction Mash, Double
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp    
35 min        Protein Rest           Add 22.13 gal of water at 126.6 F   122.0 F      
20 min        Saccharification   Decoct 7.11 gal of mash and boil it 147.0 F      
20 min        Saccharification   Decoct 4.33 gal of mash and boil it 158.0 F      
10 min        Mash Out                 Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min         168.0 F 

It’s supposed to be a cool weekend, so we’ll have to buundle up.

Cheers.

So tonight I moved my Schlitz from the garage to the keg and into my stomach. This is my first Lager and next winter I am going to try and get more into these lagers because they are a nice break from the complex flavors of a lot of the Ales that I make. I let this hoss lager for 2 months (new record for me for allowing time to pass without drinking my beer).

Anyway, one of the most gratifying things about this beer is that the first taste rushed me back to my days at the frat house pounding cheep brews out of funnels. The smell was woven into my senses as the first thing I caught a whiff of in the morning. Feet sticking to the floor, digging my books out of a pile of empty beer cups, the great wall of empty kegs…those were the days.

Now I am sure you are reading this wondering “why the hell would you brew something that reminds you of college beer?” and I too asked myself the same question. To be honest, I am not sure, but it’s really rewarding to know I can make decent schwag beer.

So here is the official review:

Aroma: This has a sweet malt smell with a distinct maze nose that was the part of the beer smell that reminds me of Natty Light.

Color: I don’t have a SRM chart, but I would say it’s in the 20-30 SRM range. Its a light gold color that should be more clear than it is (I forgot the Irish Moss).

Taste: Well it’s an American Pilsner, what more can I say? This is a distinct corn/maze flavor with sweet malt overtone. There is little to no hop bitterness that jumps out at you, but there is a dry finish that I think is the hops that was in it.

Mouth feel: Light for this style, but I think my kegerator needs to get it’s self back on track!

Drinkability: Well it’s an American Pils, at about 5% ABV and very light body there is not much to worry about here.

OVERALL: Meh, it’s still better than Bud!

90 min at 150F (65C)
4.0 lbs (1,800g) 2 row pale malt
2lbs 10oz (1,200 g) 6 row pale malt
2lbs (907g) flaked maze

.55oz (15g) Czech Saaz 3.8% alpha (60min)
1.1oz (31g) Fuggles (60min)

Wyeast 2035 (American Lager)

OG- 1.030
FG- 1.005

I used about 7 gallons of water, 2 gallons for the wart and another 5 for the sparge. After the boil down, I had the right amount. This was my first time using a starter and I think it helped out, though I am not sure about the smell I am getting from the fermenter. There is a sulfur smell coming out that I get a little bit of, so if there is anyone out there that know anything about that, please feel free to add some input. I am a little afraid that I may have my first infected batch (knock on wood), but I am going to wait and see if it’s not something with the lager yeast that I may not know about.

Otherwise the whole process went well.