German Pils recipe

[mysterio]

I'm tempted by the dry hops now... I'll see how the hops smell out of the bag. I've had to put off brewing this for a week unfortunately... The starter has fermented out and isn't going to be particularly fresh by the time I get to brew. This will be getting about 2 or 3 weeks lagering before the world cup starts

[steve_flack]

IThe starter has fermented out and isn't going to be particularly fresh by the time I get to brew.

Do a Flying Starter then. I do them with all my liquid yeast starters now.

[weiht]

No water treatment done. Its my first lager as all my other brews have been ales n porters.

Hmmm, beer in time for world cup? Celebratory or downing our sorrows? Well, its even more fitting that u've got a GERMAN pilsner brewed lol

[Barley Water]

Well, you guys have got me thinking about this whole deal and I think I may try to loosly clone a Bitburger with maybe just a little dry hopping, just 'cause I can. I am thinking the grist will be 100% German pils malt enough to yield an O.G. of 1.048. Maybe a two step mash with a short decoction at the end to boost the temperature up to mash out (yeah I know, but I just can't help myself when making the German stuff plus I have done it so many times that for me anyway it's really pretty easy). Let's say start at 120F for around 10 minutes, add enough boiling water to get things to 148F for 90 minutes then pull a decoction and boil that for only about 10 minutes then go into the normal recirclution then batch sparge. With any kind of luck, I should be able to get the beer to really dry out which should also help accentuate the hopping. I'm using Wyeast 2206 and for sure I am going to grow up a really big starter 'cause I want this stuff dry, dry dry. As my water has minerals, I will aim for an IBU of around 38 or so and I think I will use Perle as the bittering hop and Saaz for the rest of it. I have used this combination before in both an Alt and a CAP both of which I thought came off really well. Finally, I propose to dry hop with Saaz, maybe an ounce in a 5 gallon batch and I will limit contact to only 10 days (any more than that and you do risk the excessively grassy, vegetal effect). Any suggestions for improvement of course are always welcome.

[mysterio]

Sounds great although my personal choices for a German pils are always Hallertau and/or Tett, Saaz is nice too though.

What kind of starter size do you do? I've done a gallon (4 L) on a stir plate. I usually do that just for 5 gallons but mr malty says that's fine for 10.

Might join you doing a step mash.... I agree Bitburger is nice and dry. Not really confident doing one though.

[Barley Water]

Yup, that is exactly what I do when making up starters for lagers. My understanding is that the stir plates really increase the cell count. I expect to see a couple of inches of form forming at around 24 hours after pitching. The reason I like to make two or three lagers back to back is so that I don't have to bother with a starter after the first batch (and of course you save money as well). To tell you the truth, I am not sure how well I will do getting the beer to dry out either but I do know that the dryer, the better for this style.

[steve_flack]

You could errrrmmmm...use sugar to dry it out (runs. hides.)

[mysterio]

Heathen! Burn him!

[Aleman]

My first ever successful lager was an extract bitburger clone . . . and I really fancy a German Pils now I've read this. . . . got to say though dry hopping a pilnser . . . not sure about. A Czech brew master once handed me a big bucket (25L) of the stickiest greenest saaz hops you have ever seen to throw in at the end of the boil with the comment 'It's very important . . . for the aroma' so either late hops/steep hops or dry hopping, but try not to over do it with both.

Grahams recipe for Bit uses Northern Brewer as the bittering hop and tettnang for flavour (halfway through the boil) and tettnang for aroma . . . Aiming for 38IBU and 1.046.

I also agree with Mysti we have super soft water (more correctly water with low dissolved salt content) here and it is incredibly difficult to get a really nice crisp hop bitterness . . .even overdoing the bittering hops and gypsum doesn't seem to do it.

[mysterio]

Yeah I agree about the bitterness Aleman, never quite seem to nail it. Malty beers turn out well but I never brew a great IPA. Like you say even loading up on Gypsum doesn't seem to cut it, any tips?

It could just be that Tinseth is chronically underestimating, hopefully I'll get a nice bitter kick in this attempt.

[Aleman]

Yeah I agree about the bitterness Aleman, never quite seem to nail it. Malty beers turn out well but I never brew a great IPA. Like you say even loading up on Gypsum doesn't seem to cut it, any tips?

It could just be that Tinseth is chronically underestimating, hopefully I'll get a nice bitter kick in this attempt.

Tips, I wish Brewed a Summer ale recently and put in 45g of bittering hops (rather than the 28g estimated by Promash - set to Tinseth) and it still tastes under bittered . . . nicely malty though, but not the crisp clean bitterness I was after. My first thought was that Tinseth was way underestimating bitterness on my new rig but even the old rig didn't produce really hoppy zingy beers . . . some things change in the last 20 years as I know the beers I produced then were over bitter . . . Perhaps I was boiling harder I just don't know.

Next time I'm down south I'm going to nick some of their water and see what effect that has.

[steve_flack]

Next time I'm down south I'm going to nick some of their water and see what effect that has.

We've got loads - until it stops raining for a fortnight and we'll be on a hosepipe ban...

Personally, my system seems to be half way between Tinseth and Rager for bitterness but I have to really go mad to get hop aroma/flavour.

[bconnery]

I have a very simple recipe I use repeatedly for a german pilsner style beer.

90% pilsner malt
10% Munich (I know that the style calls more for 100% pils but I like the little malty edge a munich addition gives. Now that I have a sack of german pils malt as opposed to local I might try a 100%)

Bitter to 25-40 IBU with a combination of a 60 minute addition and then a 15 minute flavour addition of 1.23g per litre (rounded unless your scales are really really accurate)

I simply adjust the levels based on the hops.
I've used this for beers with noble hops and also NZ hops such as Nelson Sauvin and BSaaz (which is a great pilsner hop)

I mash low, around 63C to get the beer down.

I use dry yeast as I am lazy starter wise but the main trick, as someone said earlier, is plenty of yeast count and ferment nice and cool. I do usually do a diacetyl rest but more because it can't hurt than because it may be necessary.

[mysterio]

Yes, I'm with you on the yeast count, the most important part of any lager IMO.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm going to leave the Munich out of this one because i'm sick of it after my Vienna and Rauchbier.

Finally, I will get a chance to brew this on Friday, hopefully my starter hasn't gone sour.

[bosium]

Hmm, I'm not usually in this forum much but sure is plenty here.

55 IBU? Yikes!! That's mouth puckeringly bitter. I'm surprised that you have so much trouble getting sharp bitterness, although I have no problem although my water here is a fair bit harder. (76 Cl-, 99 SO4-, 135 CaCO3). I always thought it was a bit of a curse, really. I did find though, that my 35 IBU Boston Lager made with tap water was considerably more bitter than my 41 IBU Bo Pils made with soft, bottled water, so there definitely must be something in that. I thought some gypsum would have fixed the issue.. I'd not worry about it too much to be honest, soft water with lots of hops will be nicer IMO. If you don't want to drop out a whole lot of IBUs, maybe skip the gelatine this time?

Dry hops in a pilsner? Hmm, not sure that's very much to style but would be interesting to see how it turns out - the original Sam Adams is dry hopped heavily with Mittelfruh so don't think you need to worry about the grassy notes. The biggest things that put me off dry hopping my clone was the thought of hop haze, and also somehow fitting it into the fermentation schedule - guess you could add them at the D-rest. Anyway, hardly like you need them with that 0-minute addition, that's crazy!!

Nothing in there for head? Handful of white wheat or some flaked barley maybe? Although most german pils' I've had have had pretty much no head on them anyway. Personally always preferred the fullness of a Bo Pils to the dryness of a German but I'm sure this will be lovely.

I thought you'd give the 833 Ayinger strain a go on this one, but I'm interested to hear how this one performs in comparison to the Czech yeasts.