We want to brew a German Pils, Category 5D. Something close to a Bitburger. Crisp, slightly dry, well attenuated, with moderate to high hop bitterness.
We have used both Ireks Pils Malt, and Weyermann floor malted Bohemian Pils Malt.
What malts are recommended for this classic style? What has your experience been? Do you have a favorite malt?
This will be a single malt grain bill. A very simple beer, but a very difficult one to do well.
Following. I too would love to know which brands are people’s favorites. I almost always use Weyermann… but I have not been able to successfully achieve “that German flavor” yet. It does come close, but not exactly what I want yet.
There are many German maltsters that we have never heard of. Only a few are imported. Weyerman isn’t in the top 10 by volume, but they make a high quality product and make most of the specialty malts in Germany.
As Denny says there are breweries that malt, but not all.
In response to the original question, I would use Avangard or Durst for a Northern German Pils.
Edit - Weyerman sells a lot locally in Frankonia to small breweries that show up in the small van or station wagon.
I had major problems with Avengard. I bought it in super sacks at Yellowhammer and maybe it was just bad luck but it was full of chaff and I didn’t;t feel like the beer turned out very good. I switched back to Best as soon as I was through it and was very thankful that period was over. I literally had to go through an entire tracker trailer load of Avengard super sacks (2000 lbs each).
I like Wyermann too. The floor malted Wyermann is good but you definitely need to boil for 90 minutes because I got a lot of DMS from that malt.
Been liking a 50/50 blend of Best Heidelberg and Best Pilsner malt lately.
That and Hop Heaven Mittelfruh. I can’t believe the difference in hop freshness with their hops. Even the noble hops are resin bombs compared to other hop sources.
I guess, yeah, if it was a sack I’d be forgiving. This was a tractor trailer full of 2000 lb super sacks. The samples I got were great, that’s why I switched.
I also thought our lagers took a flavor hit in the wrong direction.I was very, very glad when we got through those sacks. Went right back to Best.