Pilsner brewing

Brewing Processes
1

With spring hopefully on its way, the brewing mind turns to Pilsners. As is probably the case with many homebrewers, I’ve never been able to achieve that great crispness of even run-of-the mill Bohemian Pilsners that are a dime a dozen over in Germany, never mind something stellar like Pilsner Urquell.  One might ask, why bother to even try to match them; they’ve had almost 2 centuries of head start, and I’ve only done 3 or 4 batches of German and Bohemian Pils. But I’d like to give it a shot and get better beer.

Last summer my Pilsner attempts were consistently too “sweet” and “bready”.  I might also be tasting diacetyl, but I did do diacetyl rests on these beers, and anyways I don’t really know what diacetyl really tastes like, when it comes down to it….  (is there some commercial beer that has diacetyl issues…. I’d buy some just to learn what it tastes like !)  I’ve narrowed it down to 3 things to improve on, and would love some suggestions…

  1. Malt. I brewed both JZ’s “Myburger” (1.054 to 1.009) and BoPils (1.057 to 1.014) recipes last year with Crisp Euro Pils as the base malt, because that is what I can get cheap from my local brewpub.  Would paying almost twice as much for something like Weyermann make a huge difference?  I’ve done other lagers (Maibock and Helles come to mind) using this Pils malt as the base and got good results, and even placed in some competitions (the Helles took a gold, and the Maibock a silver, at New York State Fair last summer)…. The breadiness is not so out of place in those styles.

  2. Yeast. I brewed both these Pilsners with S-189 dry Swiss lager yeast which has good recommendations from people like Denny…  I would love to keep using dry yeast – would W-34/70 be better?  I’ve heard nothing good about S-23 though.  Unless you all tell me that I will NEVER make a decent Pils without a liquid yeast and a monster starter…. I started brewing that way but just kind of slipped over to the quick and easy “pitch dry yeast into the fermenter and hit it with the mix-stir” method (with encouragement from folks like MullerBrau) and never looked back

  3. Water. This is the  one I don’t really want to deal with, but will if I have to. I’ve never modded my water, and get good ales, stouts, as well as good amber and dark lagers. So I guess I may be on to something, I just don’t know how to fix it.  Here’s my water profile: pH 7.4.  Na 14ppm, K 1ppm, Ca 54ppm, Mg 9ppm, Total Hardness  173ppm, Chloride 25ppm, Carbonates <1ppm, Bicarbonates 166ppm, Total Alkalinity 136ppm.  From my limited research it seems this is not good Pilsner water… what can I do to fix it?

I know this is a pretty involved query, but if anyone has ideas on even part of my question, I’d appreciate it. Or if you need more info, let me know.

-red

2

  1. Grain bill should be simple. 100% pils malt. Anything more than that is most likely unecessary (with the exception of acidulated malt and perhaps cara-pils) . I like Best German Pils but Rahr makes an exceptional substitution.

  2. The S-189 is a decent lager strain. I prefer the liquid lager strains though. Regardless, in either case, are you pitching enough yeast? You need (at least) 2xs the amount of yeast for a lager as for an ale. See the pitching calc at www.mrmalty.com. You need to aerate longer as well. Are you cooling to pithcing temps before pitching? Pitching warm and starting fermentation off, then cooling, is not an ideal way to make a lager.

  3. Water is going to be essential. As is pH. You must have soft water and you must check pH. In the case of your water I would start with RO water and add some calcium back in. You will want about 50ppms of calcium in your brewing liquor.

Pilsners, Helles’, and Kolsches are very difficult to brew. But it you dot all your t’s and cross your i’s you can do it. Errrr… I mean the other way around. ;D

3

S-189 is a great dry lager yeast, but probably not the best choice for pils (although not terrible either).  34/70 would be better if you want to stay with dry yeast.  I’m using WY2124 this lager season and I think it’s really a great pils yeast.

4

I just brewed a N. German Pils last weekend. I used 99% German pils and 1% melanoidin. Any problem with that grainbill?

5

Doubtful there’s anything wrong with that!  Most of the time I go all pils, but every once in a while I’ll throw in about 5-10% Munich.

6

I used nearly this same grain bill (2% mel) on my first lager in my new ferm chamber.  It didn’t come out great, a bit sweet and slightly bready like red complained of.  Maybe its a touch of diacetyl (I too did a good long d-rest), I know what diacetyl tastes like but its hard to tell in this brew.  Maybe it just needs more lagering, maybe I didn’t use enough yeast, but my second try is sans melanoidin.  Its in the lager fridge, I’ll report in a few weeks.

7

Do you ever do a step mash for pils?  If you’re only doing a single infusion, at what temp are you mashing and for how long?

tomsawyer, I get that bready flavor in my Helles. I’ve always attributed it to the small amount of Munich and melanoidin I use in that grain bill (I actually enjoy that flavor in my Helles). But I don’t think it’s as appropriate in a N. German Pils, from what I understand. So, I may try a 100% pils recipe in the future. It depends on how my most recent pils turns out.

8

Yeah, I do sometimes.  I have doubts about how much difference a step mash makes, so I go back and forth doing and not doing them to try to decide what I think.  If I step, it’s 146 for 60 and around 158-160 for 30.  For a single infusion I do 147-148 for 90.

9

I’ve been very happy with the W34/70 dry yeast for German lagers.  I’ve also been shooting for lower mash temps (148) to keep the beer as dry as possible.  It’s working out pretty well both in my Dortmunder Export and my N. German Pils. 
I usually use 100% Wyerman Pils malt.  I tried a couple bags of Briess Malteurop, but the efficiency dropped pretty significantly and I didn’t get the breadiness of the German pils malt.

10

What I should have said is that anything more than 100% pils isn’t really necessary. Same with a beer like “kolsch”, and yet  find myself putting munich in my grain bill from time to time, and I always add wheat.

IMO for a Bo Pils cara-pils is important for the mouth feel, but I know a lot of people disagree with that.

11

I made a German pils and a Bo pils recently. The German pils was all Castle Pils, the Bo pils had 5% Best caramel pils. The German pils was with my water and the Bo pils I cut my water with RO 50%. My water is softer than yours is. Both were made with double decotions.

I used one pack S-34/70 in the German pils and pitch slurry in the Bo pils.I think I hit the spot with both of them. With the German pils the  bitterness lingered into the dry finish. It didn’t with the Bo pils even with more hops.

12

You say that, but you haven’t tried mine made with 105% pils. :wink:

13

Start doing a fast ferment test for your lagers. The test itself won’t fix anything but it gives you one vital piece of information → the fermentability of your wort. If your beer seems too sweet, chances are that there are too many residual fermentable sugars left. I know from experience that getting the yeast to ferment those last sugars can take a while but you won’t get a crisp tasting beer if the yeast doesn’t go all the way.

I like Weyermann a lot,m but many of my recent beers have been brewed with Best Malz Pilsner and they are fine too. I don’t have any direct comparison though.

Is key. I have little experience with dry yeast. Judging by the name, 34/70 is the German brewing yeast. However, when I used the s34/70 strain the results were too sulfury for my taste. I have good success with WLP830, which I think is the W34/70 strain that is so widely used in German brewing. You’ll need a large amount of healthy and young yeast. Anything not healthy enough and you’ll have problems getting those last fermentable sugars (Maltotriose in most cases) fermented. In its last step I raise my yeast with constant aeration and try to brew within 2-3 days of the last propagation step being complete.

You want to be able to ferment the beer at 46-50 F. How long does your primary fermentation take now?

That water needs fixing when using mostly pilsner malt. I’d start with a 50/50 dilution with reverse osmosis or distilled water and  3% acid malt to the grist. Also add about 0.4g gypsum to each gallon of water and use a mash thickness of 2 qt/lb.

There are ways to reduce the bicarbonate in your water even further. One of them is to use all RO water and add salts and another one is to treat the water with slaked lime. But that may take you too far at this point.

Getting a Pilsner or Helles that matches up with German beers is one of the driving forces in my brewing. I can tell you it is not easy at all, but maybe those tips will get you a big step closer. In particular the fermentation is key. There don’t seem to be enough differences between step mashing (145 to 160F for example) over a single infusion mash that you should not worry about that at this point.

Kai

14

Anybody got a review for Global pils (and any other Global malts)?

I’ve personally wondered if there aren’t custom made malts being used by the established German breweries.  And I worry that freshness of malt is contributing to my inability to replicate these things, but I doubt that.

15

Now thats something I have to try!  8)

16

You might even get 115% efficiency.

17

I have been on a quest to get something remotely close to Pilsner Urquell for the last several years.  On my most recent attempt, I feel like I absolutely nailed it.  My next goal is to see if I can recreate it with something less than the 12 hour brew day it took to get this truly excellent result.

Here is what I did.

Recipe (off the top of my head)
91.3.% Weyermann Floor Malted Bohemian Pilsner Malt
8.7% Carapils/Dextrine

Double Decoction (modified Hochkurz schedule). Mashed in at 143 for an hour, pulled a decoction, held at 158, boiled for about 12-15 minutes, raised to 158 for another hour. Pulled another decoction and boiled for 12-15 minutes to reach mash out. Batch Sparged.

120 min. boil. 3 hop charges, each 3.5 oz of Saaz at 4.0% AA. FWH (IBU calculated as 30 minute addition), 80 min. 30 min. Total IBU was estimated at about 41.

WLP800 Pilsner Lager yeast pitched at 39 F and let rise to 45 F. Let it rise to 50 F toward the end. About 3 weeks in the primary and a week in a bright tank with gelatin.  Then to the keg.

For best results, age for at least 8–10 weeks This is the real trick, I’m convinced.  I was happy with the beer at 3 weeks on draught.  I was overwhelmed with how great it was at 9 weeks.  Huge difference.

Water.  My water is pretty soft.  Cutting it with distilled (50%) gets everything into single digits.  I adjusted the mash with lactic per Palmer’s spreadsheet (yes, I know there are plenty who thinks this spreadsheet goes to far at this end of the SRM spectrum).  I adjusted my water in the boil so that the final product would have 50 ppm Ca and 50 ppm SO4 with everything else in single digits.  I know that is counterintuitive for this heavily hopped, yet malty beer, but I’ve tried it with heavy chlorides and it just doesn’t taste right to me.  I took some advice from a guy over at the NB forum on this one.  He claimed that this is what the folks at PU were doing to their water, which we all know is extremely soft.  As far as I’m concerned, this advice was very good and I will use this water profile going forward.

For next time, I may try to do either a single infusion mash at 154 with all other variables the same or a step mash between 143 and 158.  I may still do a single decoction to see if it makes a difference.  In the end, if I can get this same beer without decoction, I’ll be glad to shorten the brew day.  But, if future batches don’t bear this out, I’ll just have to set aside time for the long brew day because the product is worth the trouble to get the results I got.

18

Can you clarify this, please? 
I understand you to mean mash in at 143 F x 1 hr, pull a decoction, hold [the decoction?] at 158F [for unknown period of time?], boiled the decoction x 12-15 minutes, raised [the mash?] to 158 F x 1 more hour. Pulled another decoction and boiled for 12-15 minutes [then added it back to the mash] to reach mash out.

[quote]WLP800 Pilsner Lager yeast pitched at 39 F and let rise to 45 F. Let it rise to 50 F toward the end. About 3 weeks in the primary and a week in a bright tank with gelatin.  Then to the keg.
[/quote]

What is the Wyeast equivalent? Wyeast 2278 Czech Pils?  Wyeast 2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast?

[quote]For next time, I may try to do either a single infusion mash at 154 with all other variables the same or a step mash between 143 and 158.  I may still do a single decoction to see if it makes a difference.  In the end, if I can get this same beer without decoction, I’ll be glad to shorten the brew day.  But, if future batches don’t bear this out, I’ll just have to set aside time for the long brew day because the product is worth the trouble to get the results I got.

[/quote]
  For a single infusion mash, I’d think the temp should be lower, like 150-151 F max given the desire to get it more crisp and dry.  You’ve got plenty of residual sugars with your 8.7% carapils/dextrine.  Not doubting your results, but your 2+ hour mash essentially gave the enzymes more time to work on your sugars before the sugar profile was fixed at mashout.

19

I’d start with the yeast and mash temp issues.

First, Even using a 4L stirplate starter, I have NEVER made a lager off the stirplate that tastes as good as directly re-pitching from a batch moved to a keg the same day as the brew session.

Second, err on the side of low mash temps.  When updating some of the items in my system, I did a mash that was all screwed up… mashed in at 142, raised to 148, fell back to about 138 (Stuck Sparge and RIMS system dont work well together), I steam-infused up to 153 for 20 minutes just to ensure that I completed conversion.  The beer turned out great, and went from 52pts to 10pts.

As for your actual pils malts.  Wyermann is great, can get those authentic cracker/whitebread flavors, the final product tastes a lot like chewing on the kernels do.  Rahr however always tastes sweeter and simpler to me, so it is great for things like BGSA or Tripels where you want some underlying sweetness (even when they finish at 6pts or so).  Castle is nice too if it is any cheaper for you, a lot like Wyermann, but just has less overall ‘graininess’ as opposed to Wyermann… never tried Best, Durst or Dingemanns

20

What is the Wyeast equivalent? Wyeast 2278 Czech Pils?  Wyeast 2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast?

[/quote]

Hochkurz is explained here on Kai’s site.  Did one last week for a German Pils.  It translates to “High brief”, as you mash in high compared to a tripple decoction and it saves time.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Decoction_Mashing#Hochkurz_Double_Decoction

Wyeast 2001 is the PU H-strain, and the 2278 is the PU D-strain.
Those are on the stirplate now.  Will do 5 gallons of each, then blend back together after fermentation.