I've been meaning to try another pilsner for some time. Strange that what seems to be the most simple basic beer from a taste point of view, is actually the most difficult to make for the homebrewer. The yeasts are bottom fermenting cool temperature types, long cool maturing period (lagering) is needed, and the light flavour reveals all off-flavours - a thorough diacetyl rest is needed after fermentation has finished. Unless you have some serious refrigeration equipment, the best time to make lagers is when you can make use of low temperature weather.
The one we're attempting here should be around 6.5-7%ABV when done. The main ingredients are dried pale malt, cara-pils crushed malt, Saaz hops and Hallertau hops which I believe are the classic pilsner hop types. Also I've got the Bohemian 2124 yeast strain commonly used for commercial pilsners.
Into the dragon pan then, we added 26 litres of water.
A couple of teaspoons of gypsum
10 oz cara-pils malt were put into a grain bag and added to the pan and the heat turned up
When the temperature reached 77˚C the bag was pulled out and drained for 1 minute.
When the wort was on a rolling boil, four kgs of dried malt were added. Last time we tried it with syrup stuff from a tin which was really not good - never again.
The malt was boiled for 15 minutes
In total we made three additions of Saaz hops after 10 mins, 50 mins and 60 mins, 2.5oz in total.
In the last 10 minutes a teaspoon of Irish Moss was added to clarify the beer and an oz of Hallertau hops in two doses, the last one added as the heat was turned off.
After 10 minutes to settle, as quickly as possible, the wort was transferred by a 2 litre jug to the fermentation bucket through a nylon bag.
As the temperature outside was around 0˚C we fitted an airlock in the lid and took the bucked out immediately into the snow. It's important to cool the wort as quickly as possible to decrease the chance of spoilage and improve the flavour.
The yeast was one of those slap packs that you have to smack to activate. I always like to get a yeast starter going first, generally it's better to overpitch yeast than underpitch, particularly with higher gravity beers
The starter wasn't really bubbling when we added it to the main wort but I was worried about getting the fermentation going in the main wort to prevent unwanted bacteria, and the starter must have allowed more yeast to grow than if the slap pack had just been tipped into the main bucket. I should have got the slap pack going a few hours earlier really. The bottom up-lager yeasts seem to take a longer time to get going than ale yeasts, once it's going I'll move it to the garage where the yeast fermentation temperature should be ideal at around 12˚C. Last time we used a lager yeast, fermentation didn't become vigorous for around 3-4 days.
