New Year, New Brew! It’s the last of my NHC beers. I’m getting a bit nervous since I’m not sure I have 3-4 really solid beers. Hopefully this one will turn out well! I did my normal research – Brewing Classic Styles, old NHC winners and reread the Bohemian Pilsner section in the Classic Style series. In the end I remembered an old Annie Johnson interview on The Brewing Network where she talked about winning a Pilsner Urquell clone competition so I thought that would be a good start. Her recipe (scroll down to “this budvar’s for you” ) is a decoction so I basically took her recipe but added some Munich Dark to get a bit of a decoction character and to darken it up to get it from straw to gold (hopefully). Since I’m repitching German Lager (White Labs 830) rather than a Czech strain I added a bit of Carapils to round it out. I wanted to use all Czech Saaz but my homebrew shop only had 4 oz so I used Warrior for bittering. This is my last brew on the old propane setup before starting on my new Electric BIAB so it was a little sad. I’m sure I’ll use the old rig again but probably not nearly as often. Brew day was pretty standard. I actually hit all my numbers which is pretty much unheard of. No adjustments necessary. Maybe that’s bad 🙂
Bohemian Pils 2
2-B Bohemian Pilsener
Size: 7.5 gal
Efficiency: 95.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Original Gravity: 1.052 (1.044 – 1.056)
Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.013 – 1.017)
Color: 3.39 (3.5 – 6.0)
Alcohol: 5.13% (4.2% – 5.4%)
Bitterness: 41.7 (35.0 – 45.0)
Ingredients:
10.25 lb (87.2%) Best Malz Pilsen Malt – added during mash
.75 lb (6.4%) Best Malz Munich Malt Dark – added during mash
.5 lb (4.3%) Briess Cara-Pils® Malt – added during mash
4 oz (2.1%) Weyerman Acidulated Malt – added during mash
.60 oz (13.0%) Warrior® (15.7%) – added during boil, boiled 60 m
1 oz (21.7%) Czech Saaz (3.6%) – added during boil, boiled 30 m
1 tsp Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 15 m
1.5 oz (32.6%) Czech Saaz (3.6%) – added during boil, boiled 10 m
.75 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
1.5 oz (32.6%) Czech Saaz (3.6%) – added during boil
500 mL White Labs WLP830 German Lager
Notes
mash salts:
2.2g Gypsum
2.2g CC
sparge salts:
5g Gypsum
5g CC
acidify sparge to below 5.8 (~10ml of 10% phosphoric in 10G of water)
should give mash pH of 5.4 -> was 5.2
11.75 lb of grain
1.5 qt/lb = 17.625 quarts = 4.4 gallons
mash @ 154
mash in water temp 165.5 but have been hitting low so going 14F over at 168 to see how that goes. -> did 169 and hit 153 and dropped over an hour to 150
pitch @ 48 (actually pitched at 49) and ramp to 50 over 2 days then hold to day 14 -> ramp 5 degrees a day to 60 and hold till day 21 -> rack to keg and drop 2 degrees a day to 38 and lager for one month. rack to clean keg and force carb to 2.5 volumes.
1/5/15 brew day. pitched @ 1 pm ~500ml of thick slurry at 49F
1/6/15 @8am no activity
@2pm no activity but a little kreusen forming. leak?
@10pm no activity but definitely a kreusen forming.
1/7/15 @ 7am no activity but 1/2″ kreusen so definitely a leak. took apart carboy cap and retightened and started to bubble.
1/9/15 @ 8am still 1/2″ kreusen and strong bubbling
1/10/15 @ 4pm same but seems to have slowed a bit
1/11/15 still steady bubbling w/ kreusen but slowed a bit more
1/12/15 kreusen started to drop
1/13/15 slowed a bit more. yeast seems to have started to drop
1/14/15 kreusen dropped. bubbling ~ every 5 secs
1/17/15 no activity dropped fairly clear
1/26/15 transferred to keg
FG – 1.014 pH – 4.37 ( a bit low but not bad)
aroma – herbal / spicy hops. low grainy malt. a hint of sulfur
apperance – a yeasty sample from bottom so hazy. gold in color?
flavor – bitter but not overwhelming. similar to aroma but yeasty. clean. no off flavors other than a bit of sulfur that should lager out.