Thursday, November 29, 2007

Brew #55: German Pilsener

This is a straightforward simple pilsener with hopefully quite a bit of hop flavour and aroma. I just realize that I forgot to add the sulphates required to enhance the hop crispness. Not sure how much it'll matter as I'm sure it'll be fine anyway.

I added a little specialty malts to increase the malt complexity somewhat.

The plan is to brew a doppelbock in about two weeks that I then rack on top of the yeast cake from the pilsener. The Bavarian lager yeast is supposed to be very well suited for rich and malty lagers. Pitching on top of the yeast cake from another batch is a nice way to make sure that one has enough yeast for a healthy fermentation. That is important for strong lagers like doppelbocks.

The batch was brewed 2007-11-29.

Style:
German Pilsener
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
11 EBC (Golden)
Bitterness:
32 IBU
Malts:
5800g Pilsener malt
150g Carapils
150g Aroma malt
Mash:
64C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
66% efficiency
Hops:
20g Warrior pellets, 13.8%, 60 min
40g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh whole, 3.8%, 10 min
60g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh whole, 3.8%, 1 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, 2 packs, production date 2007-04-30, 2.5 liter starter on stir plate
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
In the fridge at 9.0 to 10.5 C.

OG: 1.048 FG: 1.011 abv: 4.8%

7 comments:

Travis said...

What aroma malt did you use?

It's funny you did this brew, I think we are going to do German Pils in a few weeks. I love a good pils.

Cheers!

Adam said...

Nothing like racking onto a fresh yeast cake! No worries of infection...just instant fermentation gratification!

grove said...

The aroma[tic] malt is from Castle Malting in Belgium. I saw an interview with Charlie Papazian once and he said that he used about 3-4 percent of aroma malt to get the same malty character that one would get from a traditional decoction mash. I decided to do the same in this one. We'll see how much there is to it. :)

grove said...

Racking onto a fresh yeast cake is convenient. It's much less work. I've only done it once before. There are of course worries of infection as the previous beer could be infected, so better taste it before reusing...

Right now I'm trying to decide whether to do a traditional doppelbock or a baltic porter. Tough.

Cheers!

Adam said...

Baltic Porter...like Perkuno's Hammer! It is being reborn by the way as Baltic Thunder at Victory brewing. Mmmmm...

Knut Albert said...

You gave me a bottle with 55 on the cork. It is certainly not a pils!

It is most likely the dobbelbock. Liquorice, forest fire, sweetness, alocohol warming. Nice.

A gusher, though, but I luckily opened this in the kitcen!

grove said...

Knut Albert, I think that must have been brew #56, which is the doppelbock. Only two of the bottles have turned out to be gushers. I'm sure sure why. I can have it from tap the next time you're visiting. :)