I see many grain bills that use a 50/50 blend of Pils and Pale 2 row. Used in Saison, Pale ale and NEIPA recipes I see out there, what does blending the malts do for a beer?
For me it cuts down on the grassy flavors. In fact, I often blend Pale and Goldpils Vienna and forgo the Pils altogether.
There are a couple of tradeoffs that are inherent with Pils and Pale malts.
Pils malt is kilned the least and produces the palest color wort, but that minimal kilning means that Pils malt is more likely to have more SMS (DMS precursor) and the occurrence of DMS in the finished beer may be more prevalent and severe or require greater countermeasures. That low kilning also means that the flavor of the malt and wort produced from it have less ‘Maillard’ (kilned, toasted, baked, etc) flavors and the flavor tends reflect more of the barley.
Pale malt is kilned a few lovibond darker than Pils and that helps reduce the SMS content and the prevalence and occurrence of DMS in the final beer tends to be reduced. If a very pale beer color and a degree of graininess is not important for your beer, replacing Pils malt with Pale malt could be a good thing and can make brewing a quality beer easier.
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Go to your local brewery these days and with the outlying Imperial stout they have, many places color range has shifted very, very pale. The average consumer gets weirded out by beers with actual colors these days.
So - chasing that and chasing the idea that malt gets in the way of hop perception (and adds “heaviness”) - many modern IPAs are produced with a combination of Pils and Pale or just straight pilsner malt. That’s part of the point behind the development of things like IPA malt from Gambrinus (“Give us a paler pale ale malt!”)
So, We’re basically talking mostly about appearance? I was worried I was missing something when I just sub Pale for Pils, or sometimes vice versa, when recipes call for both. I have a local maltster that I only can buy full bags from, since most of my batches these days are 3g these days, it’s far more convienient to keep one or the other on hand.
It’s not just appearance - pils malt will have a lower flavor impact in terms of malt perception - a pale ale malt will carry a slightly stronger character.
I’d guess that for most purposes, unless you’re aiming for something that absolutely requires a delicate malt character (e.g. Helles, Pils, etc), you won’t notice the difference between using the two.
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The difference between the 2 is so slight that you’d be hard pressed to identify which is which. Pils is usually killed around1.7L, pale around 2L.
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I feel like 100% Pilsner malt makes a lighter crisper Pilsner than 100% 2-row pale malt. Maybe I am just expecting that so that is what I perceive.
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I think you summarized it very well. I have recently arrived at a recipe for NEIPA where I use a blend of 2 row and pilsener. The pilsner malt can lighten up the malt characteristics and let the hops come forward a bit more.
There’s more difference maltster-to-maltster in the same style than you are likely to find between the average “2 row pale” and “pilsner”
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This is the truth