Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Had a good one? Tell us about it here - and don't forget - we like pictures!
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Gricey
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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by Gricey » Fri Apr 29, 2011 5:53 pm

Looks great, well done. Any photos of it finished and fined? Pondering whether to fine mine but the person I'm doing it for is a veggie so maybe not!
Bad Panda Brewery
Fermenting: FV1: AG#18 English IPA FV2: AG#19 Summer Dunkelweizen
Conditioning: AG#16 Chimay Reddish, AG#17 Amarillo Brillo
Maturing: AG#05 B.O.R.I.S.: Bricksh*tter Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout - ready 01/10/11, AG#07 Monkey Shot! IAPA - ready 16/06/11 maybe
Drinking: AG#11, AG#14, AG#15
Planning: AG#20 Summer Hefeweisen, AG#21 Saison Brettre, AG#22 Simcoe Poisoning Red IPA, AG#23 Oatmeal Stout

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bosium
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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by bosium » Mon May 02, 2011 11:40 pm

Thanks Gricey, I must remember to take a picture. Btw, you don't need to use animal-derived finings. For a lager, I usually use PolyClar (PVPP) and sometimes silicated auxilliary finings, neither to my knowledge are animal-derived. They are useful for getting your beer crystal clear and chill-proof in quick order, and they work particularly well together.

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Gricey
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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by Gricey » Thu May 05, 2011 1:57 am

How would you bottle prime if you fine? I assume if you fine the finished beer pre bottle, then youll drag out a lot of the yeast needed for bottle conditioning. I know you can 're seed' but wiith what, how much, how long?
Bad Panda Brewery
Fermenting: FV1: AG#18 English IPA FV2: AG#19 Summer Dunkelweizen
Conditioning: AG#16 Chimay Reddish, AG#17 Amarillo Brillo
Maturing: AG#05 B.O.R.I.S.: Bricksh*tter Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout - ready 01/10/11, AG#07 Monkey Shot! IAPA - ready 16/06/11 maybe
Drinking: AG#11, AG#14, AG#15
Planning: AG#20 Summer Hefeweisen, AG#21 Saison Brettre, AG#22 Simcoe Poisoning Red IPA, AG#23 Oatmeal Stout

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bosium
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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by bosium » Thu May 05, 2011 8:05 am

Well, the two finings I mentioned work primarily on polyphenols (tannins) and proteins, but I guess it's conceivable that they will pull some yeast out of solution too - as will extended lagering (if you lager the beer before bottling).

I've never tried bottle conditioning lager before, but I don't see why you couldn't re-yeast with some rehydrated nottingham yeast at bottling time, then bottle-condition at ale temps with some sugar.But if you're bottling before lagering the beer, there should still be plenty of yeast. I don't know if I'd bother fining if I was bottling, tbh.

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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by Gricey » Thu May 05, 2011 10:18 am

bosium wrote:I don't know if I'd bother fining if I was bottling, tbh.
That'll do for me, I'll not bother :mrgreen:
Bad Panda Brewery
Fermenting: FV1: AG#18 English IPA FV2: AG#19 Summer Dunkelweizen
Conditioning: AG#16 Chimay Reddish, AG#17 Amarillo Brillo
Maturing: AG#05 B.O.R.I.S.: Bricksh*tter Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout - ready 01/10/11, AG#07 Monkey Shot! IAPA - ready 16/06/11 maybe
Drinking: AG#11, AG#14, AG#15
Planning: AG#20 Summer Hefeweisen, AG#21 Saison Brettre, AG#22 Simcoe Poisoning Red IPA, AG#23 Oatmeal Stout

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bosium
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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by bosium » Thu May 19, 2011 2:44 pm

Well this actually took 2nd place in the Continental Lager category at the THBF Spring Thing competition last weekend! I had to water the beer down ever so slightly with boiled water (microbe-free and de-oxygenated) at bottling to make the entrance OG requirement. This had the effect of lowering the carbonation a bit, but on the flip side it increased its drinkability some - I think I may make my next pils a bit lower OG to start with.

I've not yet received my scoresheet as unfortunately I was unable to make the competition in person. PokerSwazi kindly offered to bring it, as well as the certificate and rosette back down South for me, so I should have it soon enough. The beer, when bottled, was crystal clear / brilliant with a strong herbal hoppy nose, and mountains of hop flavour (probably too much methinks), although perhaps lacking a little in carbonation for the style. I wouldn't be surprised if the comments on the scoresheet echo my sentiments.

My criticism would be that the Tettnang totally overpowers the other hops in terms of flavour. When designing the beer, I thought I'd FWH it with Tett to try and gently integrate the Tett with the other noble hops, but this seems to have backfired. I've just received Gordon Strong's new book, and his chapter on First Wort Hopping says that he figures a FWH charge is equal in hop flavour to a 20-minute charge 1.5 times the size! My experience would certainly bear this out, I wonder how it would have tasted if I'd adjusted this down a bit.

Anyways, I have 1.5 kegs of this to kill over summer, one way or another. Being so bitter and hoppy, this lager should age well. It's been lagering for almost two months and is only just starting to mellow out and taste good to my palette.

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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by Barley Water » Thu May 19, 2011 5:13 pm

Good job there, that is a hard style to do well. This weekend I will be doing what I think I'll call a "Slutty Pils" as versus your Noble Pils. We have a small contest over here for lower gravity beers which I plan to enter this in. It's basicly a Mexican light lager with a fair amount of corn and featuring Mexican lager yeast. I use grits and do a cereal mash, noble hops and hopped only to about 20IBUs or so. This stuff should come out tasting like Modello Especial or Corona minus the skunk, I hope. Because I have moderatly hard water, I think I'll cut my mash and sparge water roughly 50% with distilled water otherwise I am afraid the minerals will screw things up. It should be interesting to see if I have my act together enough to make a beer like this taste half decent, it's really a very good test of my technique if nothing else. I also have a CAP which is currently in the diacetyl rest stage so at least I have a real Pils to drink if this stuff is just too boring. I may try feeding this beer to my wife, may even buy a few limes and look the other way while she drinks it. :D

After messing about with this, I am going to enter by British brewing phase yet again, I am lusting after a decent bitter and maybe an English brown ale as well.
Drinking:Saison (in bottles), Belgian Dubbel (in bottles), Oud Bruin (in bottles), Olde Ale (in bottles),
Abbey Triple (in bottles), Munich Helles, Best Bitter (TT Landlord clone), English IPA
Conditioning: Traditional bock bier, CAP
Fermenting: Munich Dunkel
Next up: Bitter (London Pride like), ESB
So many beers to make, so little time (and cold storage space)

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bosium
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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by bosium » Fri May 20, 2011 11:41 am

Lol BW, I don't mean to sound like a d*ck but that sounds terrible!! I HATE Corona, probably more than just about any other beer. No doubt very hard to brew though, from a technical aspect... :p

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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by De-Geert » Fri May 20, 2011 12:23 pm

Your wort looks very clear, do you have a picture of your hop strainer? Or can you say where it comes from?
And what's your method, first cool with an immersion chiller and than circulate? Or something else?

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Barley Water
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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by Barley Water » Fri May 20, 2011 1:46 pm

Well, I hope it won't be horrible but I suspect it will not be the most stimulating beer I ever made. Mainly, I want to see if my techniqe is good enough to do a proper job of it. Also, I want to see what happens if I cut my normal brewing water with distilled water. If that works out, I will likely make a noble pils similar to what you have made at some point. Here in Texas, it gets hotter than hell itself in the summer and a really light beer is not out of order in conditions like that. Surely I can make a really light lager that does not suck as bad as the big boys make. If indeed I am mistaken and it "blows chunks", I will poison my unsuspecting friends and spouse with the stuff, I bet it won't last long. :D
Drinking:Saison (in bottles), Belgian Dubbel (in bottles), Oud Bruin (in bottles), Olde Ale (in bottles),
Abbey Triple (in bottles), Munich Helles, Best Bitter (TT Landlord clone), English IPA
Conditioning: Traditional bock bier, CAP
Fermenting: Munich Dunkel
Next up: Bitter (London Pride like), ESB
So many beers to make, so little time (and cold storage space)

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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by bosium » Fri May 20, 2011 3:30 pm

@De Geert - You are correct, I use a large, home-made immersion chiller to chill my wort. Sometimes I switch over to recirculating ice water through the coils, but I haven't had to do that since last summer as in winter the ground water is cold enough. I do, however, recirculate the wort through the hop strainer and back into the kettle the whole time whilst chilling, using a pump. This creates a bed of hop flowers around the strainer, and with whirlfloc / protofloc, it traps most all of the protein break. The trick is to not turn the pump on full-blast at first, or else it clogs up before it has time to set a filter bed. The strainer I use is this one from the malt miller.

@BW - I totally agree, I think any light lager is extremely challenging to make well. I also originally come from a hot country so I know there definitely is a place for a cold, crisp lager on a hot day! Best of luck with it, let us know how it turns out?

De-Geert

Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by De-Geert » Sat May 21, 2011 7:37 am

Thanks very much Bosium.

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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by bosium » Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:22 pm

Image
Image

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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by WishboneBrewery » Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:16 am

Nice work.

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Re: Noble Pils - Brewday 05.March.2011

Post by TheMumbler » Thu Jun 23, 2011 10:12 am

Always nice to have an update on how the beer turned out from a brewday. You must be getting quite the collection of rossettes :)

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