Will do. Like I said, I am cautiously optimistic about my most recent bo-pils. I also just brewed a german pils with Pearle and Tettnang - both with the same water, so essentially the hops will be the key flavor difference in the two beers. We will see where they go over the next month or two and I will check back.
I just kegged a boh pils yesterday, so I’ll see what that’s like in about 6 weeks or so. It was a 4 gallon batch with Best pils, a little carapils, and a little acid malt for pH adjustment. RO to about 50ppm calcium, around 60 or 70ppm sulfate, and around 50ppm calcium chloride. Bittered with perle, and finished with an ounce of Saaz at 10 and an ounce at 5. Samples tasted good. But it’ll taste different with carbonation and colder. I don’t think it’s a true bohpils though. It was fermented with Wy2206, OG 1.056, FG 1.015. So…I don’t know. Should be good though.
I’ll be keging my Bo-Pils on Sunday. Hopfully no issues. From everything I have read I should not be able to brew a pilsner with my well water. My pilsners are always good. My calcium is 19 however my Bicarbonate is 215. I do not treat my water with anything no matter what I brew.
Years ago before I learned about sanitation I was losing a lot of beers to sourness - not that I’m suggesting that is your problem - the point is I had several bad beers in a row. I brewed another beer and didn’t even bother to siphon it off the yeast because it seemed bad again. I didn’t dump it right away and tasted it over the next couple of days. After a while I realized the beer was actually just a fine, but green, beer and it was my hypersensitivity to flaws that was causing me to doubt it. Since it was a pale ale and supposed to be flat I just kept drinking it out of the “Keg” (fermenter). After a while it got low and I boiled up some more malt and hops and threw it in!
Have you checked your perception recently? Maybe you’re just shell-shocked and the beer is OK. You mentioned earlier that judges had tasted it, what do they say now? Maybe you just had a bad batch or two.
Well, I am declaring pilsner success once again. First pilsner of 2014, using new batch of 2013 hops. I brewed this on 4-26-14, so it is only 5 weeks old. 3 weeks fermenting, 10 days in fridge, and I put the gas on it at 12psi about 5 days ago. Poured a sample a little bit ago…and, well, this is sample #2. It really turned out well. None of the weird harshness I had been getting before. Hop bill was:
1oz. Pearle @60
1oz. Saaz @30
1oz. Saaz@20
2oz. Saaz@0
Mash Water= 5 gallons of 100% RO with 1 gram of Gypsum and 1 gram of CaCl.
Calcium, Sulfate and Chloride were all 27-30ppm … So, very low mineral content.
This beer is very good for 5 weeks old. I fear it may have trouble seeing 8 weeks old:)
The one critique I would give it, and I think it would get in competition, is that I think it could use a bit more hop presence. Maybe a bit more bittering (39 IBU’s calculated) and perhaps another .5 ounce at flame out and a bit of a hops stand maybe. Otherwise, it is really good. Nice to have a pilsner on tap again that does not suck. Think I will be making a starter with the saved yeast (Urquell) and putting this on the brew list again in the next 10 days.
So… what was the problem? I don’t know if I am any closer to identifying it now than before. But, whatever the issue is, it is not in this beer. No harshness. No weird grassy flavors. Pretty clean, moderately hopped with a rounded flavor, VERY drinkable. Was it the hops??? I can’t say for sure. It could have been my process. Could have been my water. Could have been who knows what… I am just glad to have a decent pils back on tap.
Hopefully I can find someplace to get some good feedback on it in the next month or so. Like I said, I think the main critique of this one is going to be to up the bitterness, hop presence a bit more.
Thanks for the input folks had provided. Hopefully I can rebrew it and bring out the hops a bit more.
I have a BoPils on tap with almost identical water chemistry that is a couple weeks older. I bittered with Magnum and used 3 oz Saaz at FO (as opposed to 2), but hop schedule is otherwise the same (40 IBU calculated on mine). It has great classic Saaz character - I’ve never had the issue you described. All things being equal, it definitely seems to be a hop issue on the ones you used before. Hopefully it’s just a blip on the radar - I’ve always found Saaz to be very consistent.
I recently brewed 10 gal of Czech Pils AKA Bo Pils, and while doing a bit of research listened to The Jamil Show episode on Bo Pils. I believe it was there that I heard the comment to avoid acidulated malt due to a harshness it can impart.
I use phosphoric acid to acidulate my brewing water, as they also recommended (or lactic acid) for Bo Pils.
Still, when I brewed basically the same beer a year ago, one of my two fermented buckets of beer tasted better at kegging and after lagering. Both last year and this year I used 2012 Czech saaz at 100% of the hops used, from Hops Direct.
I would not be surprised if as Lennie suggests, that part of the problem could have been due at least in part to oxygenation in the bucket. Maybe, maybe not.
Last year, at kegging, the worse tasting one also was noticeably darker in color than the really tasty one, so I conjectured that I carried over too much hop sludge and break material from the kettle into the darker one. So this year I brewed a slightly bigger batch so as to leave more “spooge” behind.
This year at kegging three days ago, although only one tastes great and what I’d hoped for, there is less difference in taste between the two than last year, and both have the same, correct yellow/gold (IIRC 6 SRM) color.
I used 50% RO water, very low in Total Dissolved Solids (< 3 ppm), and only calcium chloride to obtain 50 ppm calcium, with no sulfate (gypsum).