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First brewday in months! Hope I still remember what to do

Kölsch

Type: All Grain
Date: 14/08/2008
Batch Size: 12.00 gal
Brewer: Geoff
Boil Size: 14.45 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
10.00 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (3.9 EBC) Grain 100.00 %
20.00 gm Hallertauer, New Zealand [6.00 %] (60 min) Hops 6.0 IBU
100.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [2.40 %] (60 min) Hops 12.0 IBU
1 Pkgs Kolsch II Yeast (Wyeast Labs #2575) Yeast-Ale (Fermented at 16C)

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.048 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.009 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.08%
Bitterness: 18.0 IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 7.1 EBC

Mash Profile

Mash Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Step Add 25.00 L of water at 70.4 C 64.0 C

Nice simple recipe - are you going to be using a shovel for the Mittelfruh?

Having been prodded into thinking about yeast pitching rates, could I ask if that is a Propagator or an Activator Wyeast pack that you are using, and what size of starter have you done?

Yes, i was wondering about that. Even an Activator wouldn't be sufficient for a 12 gallon brew. I presume that's imperial gallons rather than US gallons.

looks good, no wheat malt?

Using the mittelfruh up because i've had a pack lying around for ages. Can't remember why I bought it. Normally I would just use the NZ Hallertau which is my standard bittering hop because I bought a tonne of it. Mittelfruh should be pretty tasty in this recipe though.

Yeast... 4L starter for the 10 (US gallons), from an Activator pack. The starter has fermented out and I chilled it overnight, i'll decant the starter 'beer' before I pitch the yeast. My home-made stir plate was having trouble with such a large starter, i'm not sure if I got any benefit from it.

Oblivious... i'm led to believe that wheat malt isn't common commercial practice in Kolsch brewing in Cologne. Just pils malt. I just noticed this morning the updated BJCP guidelines allude to this too. Plus I'll probably be filtering this, I dont want any stubborn wheat haze. Although, I used wheat in my last kolsch and I was happy with it.

Looking good Mysterio, have a good one.

Matt

another Kolsch lover -

I've just received H&G's last pack of mittelfruh, i'm stepping up some WLP029 and in a minute i'm going to go and collect my freshly drilled 50L kegs from 'big dave'.

I'm doing 2 cornies of the stuff the minute I get back from holiday (or possibly beforehand if my QD's magically arrive tomorrow.

I've used the same recipe as Matt, which includes wheat malt and munich malt. I'd be interested to know how you get along in their absence.

I noticed that the WLP029 that I use is rated by whitelabs as being 4/4 for really hoppy pale ales btw.

you mention filtering - how are you doing that?

mysterio wrote:Oblivious... i'm led to believe that wheat malt isn't common commercial practice in Kolsch brewing in Cologne. Just pils malt. I just noticed this morning the updated BJCP guidelines allude to this too. Plus I'll probably be filtering this, I dont want any stubborn wheat haze. Although, I used wheat in my last kolsch and I was happy with it.

Ah ok

Gurgeh, i've got a 10" filter housing and some 1 micron filters, it just goes inline between two cornies and pushed through slowly with some CO2 pressure. No need if you're patient... i'm not

so it's post fermentation then - straight after primary? how long are you doing your primary fermentation for?

is it good to go straight after filtering (i can appreciate it'll be bright immediately, but does that eliminate conditioning?

if you push it through chilled, with chill haze evident, will it reduce/remove chill haze?

does it make beer more stable over a period of time?

It doesnt really eliminate the need for conditioning, no, but it does get it to that 'last pint of the keg' sparkling bright phase faster. You could filter it straight from the primary, carbonate it and drink it within days but the beer won't be at it's best. Still need to allow time for the flavours to marry, polyphenols to drop out etc.

The filter will take out yeast and to a slightly lesser extent haze causing proteins. The filter I have is fairly rough though so I still have to be careful to use whirlfloc, leave the cold break in the kettle etc. Chill haze might take a couple of runs through the filter to completely eliminate, but I dont have a problem with it since using whirlfloc.

No idea about the stability. I've never kept my beer for long enough to find out. One advantage is you dont have a pile of yeast sitting at the bottom of the keg.

Incidently I rarely bother with filtering, usually just use Isinglass. For pale lagers/kolsch though it's nice to have a bit extra clarity.

Couple of quick piccies,

Wort:



Cold break... always a huge amount of gunk when using the continental pils malt.

Do you find the continental pilsner a lot different to the UK lager malt? I've got two sacks of it to play with. I'm thinking of doing a step mash with it (15 minutes at 50C) before stepping up to the sacc rest - any thoughts?

Just read a document about decoction mashing. Bah! Sounds like fun, but i don't have the power