They are really nice together, but if you want to learn how each of them taste it might be nice to brew a German pils with all HM, then a Czech pils with all saaz.
One classic hopping schedule for a German pils that I saw Kai post a while back (and supposedly came from a German brewing textbook) was to add 50% of the total alpha acids at 60, 25% at 30, and 25% at 10. If you’re only using one type of hop, then this simply corresponds to adding 50% of the hops at 60, 25% at 30, and 25% at 10. You can then scale the absolute amount of hops to hit whatever IBU level you’re looking for - I prefer about 35, but there’s a wide range of bitterness levels that would be considered to style. Using that as a baseline, you can then bump up the later additions if you’re looking for more flavor or aroma, or even add a flameout addition to see what you like. The 50%/25%/25% schedule will give you something pretty close to most modern commercial pilsners, which has a firm, smooth bitterness but is pretty light on the hop aroma.
IBU calculators can only give you a rough estimate of what the actual, perceived bitterness is going to be, and the hop utilization on your system might be different than on my system. Keeping notes about how I liked the hop bitterness, flavor, and aroma in a particular batch allows me to adjust future batches accordingly. Bottom line, I do find that getting the hopping just right in a pils takes some trial and error.
As far as German pils grain bills go, I recently made one with 93% Avangard pils, 5% Avangard light crystal 8L, and 2% acid malt. It was my first time using the Avangard light crystal, but I really like how it came out! It didn’t end up adding much sweetness at all (OG was 1.050 and FG 1.012), and the beer has just a really nice maltiness that’s a little different than the kind you get using 5% Munich malt. I imagine that this malt is the equivalent of carahell as sold by BM or Weyermann.
I remember reading a while back that Leos from Lazy Monk mentioned it’s common nowadays for pilsners made in the Czech Republic to use 2-4% caramunich, and the rest pilsner malt with a little acid malt. That’s supposedly how a lot of them get the deep golden color and little bit of extra maltiness. I also believe that Czech pilsner malt is made with a slightly different process than German pilsner malt, but I’m not 100% sure on the details. I think it is a hair darker, though.
WY2124/WLP830 is a great yeast for a German pils, but believe it or not I like WY2308/WLP838 quite a bit for that style, too.
Oh, one last thing…I find that a lower boil pH tends to give a smoother hop bitterness. 5.1 to 5.3 is a good range. If you’re using low alkalinity water, and acidifying your sparge water, you shouldn’t notice a big difference between your mash and boil pH. For my pilsners I usually hit about 5.3 for both the mash and boil.
