Pilsner

Beer Recipes
21

I have been bittering with 3.9% Liberty lately.  I have only been targeting 17 IBU so the volumes in 3G batch have been reasonable.  Bumping to 25 IBU for a Festbier this weekend. I will try  50/50 Munich Liberty IBU split.

22

Magnum is excellent for clean bittering.  Also, Perle is another that is under-appreciated as a bittering hop.  I do not hesitate to use it to supplement the noble varietals, especially when the total IBUs is going to be low and the Magnum is quite high, causing you to start measuring out very small amounts (on the order of 1/8 oz or less). I feel more comfortable accurately measuring 1/2 oz of Perle than 3/32 oz of Magnum.

23

Good call on the Perle. Just used some for a 60 minute addition in my Helles Exportbier.

24

good advice so far. I like sterling and perle. I also use merkur for bittering charge, and then all flameout for noble and about 40ibu.

Also liked a blend of carahell and caramunich 1 for total 3%, and rest of grain bill pils.

Go get it!

25

Thanks Ken. I remember you brew a really good Pils. I probably won’t get to this one for a bit but will probably be my next lager.

26

I grow Sterling and I really enjoy their clean, herbal character.  This year’s crop was the best ever with lots of large, compact cones.  Usually they kind of struggle, but I think all the rain we got this year definitely helped them out, and I also added some homemade liquid fish fertilizer.

Anyway, I’ve brewed couple batches of what I called “Sterling Pilsner Ale” which I know is not really a pilsner.  It’s more of a hybrid ale, fermented very cool.  It uses all Sterling, and it’s a really nice clean beer.  It seems that my homegrown Sterlings are more bitter than average though, so I’ve had to cut back the amounts a bit.

Either way, all Sterling is not a bad way to go with that beer.  Also, if you ever tried New Belgium’s 2 Below, that featured Sterling along with some other nice hops, and it was a really good clean beer.

27

Interesting. I had 2 below years ago and like although I thought it was very similar to fat tire.

28

I use sterlings for Czech pilsner (with maybe a touch of saaz) and mittelfruh for German. They both turn out so well I’ve never wanted to try any other variety.

29

I still haven’t brewed this. It will be my first lager of the season once the weather cools down a bit more so I have two batches scheduled ahead of it

As is pretty standard for me, it is hard to settle on traditional styles. I think the problem is I can’t brew as much as I like so I start combining multiple ideas into one beer…

I am thinking about shifting this and throwing in some American hops. I still want it to be ‘pilsneresque’ but with some different hop attributes. I suppose it just becomes a generic hoppy lager. I have a couple of ounces of Ahtanum that I was thinking of throwing into the mix.

How does this look? I will get rid of the 20 min addition altogether and get most of my IBUs from the bittering addition. Is it a bad idea to dry hop?

~40 IBU
Magnum 60 min
1 oz Sterling/1 oz Ahtanum 5 min
1 oz Sterling/1 oz Ahtanum DH

I will either go the more traditional route or this direction depending on what I have on tap at the time.

30

Sounds good to me. I love the hoppy lager/IPL beers. I used the Pivo pils recipe from Matt Brynildson in BYO and it called for a small dry hop. Ahtanum is great dry hopped. I say go for it.

31

Thanks! I need to stop developing recipes too far in advance. It’s a problem I have…

32

I hear you, think I have 4-5 times as many recipes stored as I have brewed in the last 3+ years. Too many recipes, too little time

33

I’ve got a notebook full of recipes that I haven’t brewed yet. For me part of the fun is recipe formulation.

34

Definitely!

35

I think your Sterling/Ahtuanum combo will give you a really nice herbal combo.  The Sterling all on its own can be kind of one-dimensional (speaking from using homegrowns, not commercial).  It’s a really clean hop.  A buddy of mine down the road grows Saaz, so we might do two batches of pilsner - one with Sterling, one with Saaz.  If that happens, I’ll report back.  It might be a while though.

36

Finally getting around to this on Friday. I have gone back and forth a lot on what to do in regards to the hops. I have decided to use palisade at the end of the boil which to me has an earthy, grassy, and light stone fruit character that I think will work well here. The only remaining item is whether or not to use some noble hops as well. I think I have a bunch of really low alpha spalt.

At this point, I am going for something German Pils like with a slight American hop twist…

50% pilsner
50% weyermann pale

17g Magnum 60 min
1 oz spalt 20 min???
2 oz palisade @ flameout

1.051
38.7 IBU

37

I would go motueka vs spalt

38

Looks tasty. If you’re wanting a noble hop addition @ 20, Mittelfrueh or Hersbrucker is hard to beat in any German pils, or Saaz for a more Czech approach. Spalt would work fine though. What strain are you using?

39

Going with hops I have on hand

40

looks good