ben 10 Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Bottled mine today at 1° and the first three bottles were cloudy but after that they were as clear as anything I have seen. Tasted great too. I also bottled the Julebryg which was clear too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Nice! Look forward to seeing the results whenever you crack one open to try it. I'm debating on the next batch, which will actually have the proper amount of Brewbrite added to it, whether to simply leave it at that and see how it turns out or still add the Polyclar during CCing. After seeing how well it worked I'm not too keen on going back to hazy beer even if it is only one batch. Maybe I'll try it on a pale ale or something in a few months time rather than these pilsners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hairy Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Sorry "Baddy Two Shoes" Lusty but Otto's beer looks pretty good for a clone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Now I need to get one of those glasses... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 12, 2015 Author Share Posted June 12, 2015 Quick update, Threw the second gen Urquell yeast into a 4 litre starter last night before going to bed, woke up this morning and it had already started fermenting it. Another 5-6 hours later and there's a decent layer of foam on top of it and heaps of bubbling, so this generation has definitely taken off a lot faster than the lot out of the smack pack did, which is excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headmaster Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 I'm taking notes Kelsey.. as you may know this is my fav beer. You've gone to a lot of trouble to get it right, using distilled water and salts, hope it works out great. The one I brewed a while back using extracts and steeped grains to he urquell recipe antiphile posted, just blew me away, it was inspirational. The words were balance, intense yet delicate. I know you have mentioned that urquell has no late additions, or dry hop but that recipe I used did call for a small Saaz dry hop of 14g, and late additions of Saaz, 28g at 15 mins and 28g at 3 mins. http://selma.phile.com.au/beer/UrquellPilsner.pdf Whatever the case, I can guarantee that this recipe turned out a bloody outstanding beer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Divey Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Your beer looks sensational. For what it's worth.... I used to use Weyermanns Bohemian Malt, however, I am using Best Heidelberg Malt at the moment. I can't find too much difference within these two malts other than the fact the the Heidelberg malt is slightly more pale. I make German Pilsener using 100% NZ Motueka Hop Cones. I do a single infusion mash and make sure that the mash temperature is spot on 66°C and mash for 90 minutes. If you go 1° either side of the 66°C you WILL be able to tell the difference, 67°C will impart a slightly sweeter flavour and a 65°C is too dry for my liking. If you use the single infusion mash it will save you a fair bit of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 12, 2015 Author Share Posted June 12, 2015 Urquell itself is up there with my favourite beers too, although I'm not really trying to make a clone of it in this case, simply using it as a sort of guide to making up my own recipe. As I said on a recent post, I do have some plans to experiment with moving that 20 minute addition around, trying it at 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and just a straight cube hop. Obviously will have to adjust the other additions to maintain the bitterness levels as well. I'll then decide where I like it the best and keep it there from then on. The first incarnation which is the brew pictured was not brewed to my desired recipe due to not having enough of the required ingredients at the time. It was an excuse to use up the 50g Saaz I had sitting in the freezer though. And it's not a bad beer either really, overall. Cheers mate. I'll let the Polyclar take credit for the clarity, although I must say I absolutely love the golden colour of it. Fair enough re the difference in malts. I'm happy to keep with the Wey Bo Pils, that's what Craftbrewer stock, where I get all my grains, finings, liquid yeast etc. from, so it's not like I'm going out of my way to get it. Mashing is one area I'm continuing experimentation with. I've tried and given up on full step mashes, so now on to Hochkurz mashing, which is a step mash but only the higher end temps. Time is no problem for me, I dedicate full days to brewing, which admittedly is pretty easy being single with no kids. I have used single infusion mashes successfully with the German pils malt when I brewed some Munich Helles based recipes, so I'm not ruling out doing it with these Bo Pils batches either, though I am enjoying playing around with different mash techniques at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 19, 2015 Author Share Posted June 19, 2015 Well, the second incarnation of this beer went into the FV about half an hour ago. This time I had all the ingredients on hand to brew the recipe I actually wanted to brew. 95% pils malt, 5% Munich II, and a few grams of black patent. All Saaz hopping over three additions - FWH, 80 minutes and 20 minutes to 40 IBU. This was the second attempt and fail at a step mash - in this case I got out my old stock pot and continually drained "wort" into it and took it up to the stove to boil it, before returning it to the urn, stirring, and repeating. I started this pretty much as soon as I began the ramp up from 35C as the urn was just not doing shit all. I got it to about 66 over 3 or 4 pot boils, where I left it for an hour, before doing a couple of pot boils again to bring it up to 78 for mash out. What a PITA! Anyway, after that it all went pretty well, no issues with the boil or anything, and much less crud in the cube as well. So today I decided to do something different to normal, though I have done it before a couple of times. Before I left for work this morning I took the yeast starter out of the brew fridge (as I usually would), but then replaced it with the cube of wort destined for the FV later on. Anyway, dumped the cube in, pitched the yeast, set it up in the fridge with the probe etc. and once it stabilised to the conditions it was reading around about 11.5C, which was only 1.5C off my target fermentation temp of 10C. It came down to 10C in about 20 minutes, although I'm not entirely convinced it only took that long, but either way, I reckon I'll be doing that from now on with all batches. Not that there has been any problem not doing it, but it's just so simple and gets the wort down closer to my intended ferment temp to pitch into. I'll be leaving it at 10C until it gets down to somewhere around 1023ish, which will probably be about 5-7 days time, then raising to 19C until it hits FG where I'll leave it another 3-4 days before crashing to 0C for a couple of weeks. In the end I got 23 litres into the FV but this time without all the trub and crap that the last batch had. Still waiting for the SG sample to come up to room temp to take an accurate reading but I'm guessing it's about mid 1040s. Cheers Kelsey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antiphile Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 You are coming over to the dark side -- and you're almost in decoction territory. Next time, with the first decoction, get a little wort and a lot of grain in to the pot to boil it. With the second, half and half. With the 3rd temp rise, mainly wort and very little grain. I knew you'd see the light eventually! Welcome to 3V. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 19, 2015 Author Share Posted June 19, 2015 I only did that out of necessity, not any desire to actually bother with all that faffing about. Running up and down stairs with a pot of hot or boiling contents isn't something I'm keen to repeat any time soon, so the step mashes are out the window at this point. Edit: I didn't actually bother with the step mash at all once I realised the urn was doing SFA. I just repeatedly boiled pots of wort to bring the temp up ASAP to around 66-67, because it was obvious the urn was never gonna get it there, and just did practically a single infusion from then on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben 10 Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Bit early yet... but promising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antiphile Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Looks fantastic! And what an amazing colour for a bohemian. Great job. Now if only I could get one of those gravity defying lager glasses, my drinking problem would be solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 19, 2015 Author Share Posted June 19, 2015 I second that, looks great mate! How's it tasting, despite it being rather early? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben 10 Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Not as crisp as I'd like but was well early. I may throw another on in the fridge today. I tasted my Julebryg - a Vienna lager - clear, great colour and tasting very nice. I have two more lager type beers ready to chill soon. The Imperial Pilsner tastes so freaking bitter, only 50 IBU but I guess the delicate malt profile does not cover it up like with an IPA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 Yeah, some more conditioning time will probably see it improve. Sounds like overall though it's turned out quite well. I guess yeah, the malt profile is different for pilsners compared to IPAs so it would have some effect on the perceived bitterness. My recipe is 40IBUs in a standard strength beer, but it doesn't taste particularly bitter when drinking it. Finally some signs of action in the FV two days after pitching the yeast into this second batch. I have dropped the fermentation temp from 12 to 10 though, and also chilled the cube for a few hours before tipping into the FV, so it probably contributed to the lag time. Interesting though since the yeast starter itself took off way faster than the first one did with the original smack pack, but pitching into the batch itself, the lag time was about the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben 10 Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 What a difference two days can make. Oh my what a beer. the issue now is I'd like to share it but I want to drink it all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerlust Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Hi Kelsey. The yeast you pitched into this brew, was it from portioned off yeast off of a previous starter? The reason I ask is given that portion was pitched into a starter that produced good activity, tell me you aren't a little surprised with the lag time before seeing noticeable signs of fermentation post pitching into the main brew wort? The reason I'm interested here is because my only experiences with 24hr+ lag times have all turned out to be 'tippers'. To be fair though, I haven't brewed a lot of genuine lager beers. Cheers, Lusty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Chop Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Looks fantastic! And what an amazing colour for a bohemian. Great job. Now if only I could get one of those gravity defying lager glasses' date=' my drinking problem would be solved.[/quote'] Yes looks amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerlust Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Hey, the colour looks great, the flavour sounds great, but the carbonation looks heavy. The picture(s) however due to the pixelation look like something taken off of an Etch-A-Sketch! Lusty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 Hi Lusty, Sort of yeah. I did harvest a portion of the first starter into a jar, and kept it in the fridge. Then when I made up the starter wort for this batch, I pitched that yeast into it, and then harvested a portion again after it had finished and pitched the rest of the yeast into the batch. I was a little surprised that it took so long to show any signs of activity in the main batch though, yeah, considering how quickly it took off in the starter. However, the starter was pitched and fermented at room temp, rather than 10 degrees. I'm putting it down to the low pitching temp, as well as a lower fermentation temp. I'm pretty confident it will be ok though, the last batch took about 36 hours to show any signs of activity after pitching and it turned out fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerlust Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 I'm pretty confident it will be ok though' date=' the last batch took about 36 hours to show any signs of activity after pitching and it turned out fine. [/quote']I've adopted your harvest method, so am sort of following what you are doing from brew to brew more so than perhaps others to see how the harvest method progresses from brew to brew. My main concerns with harvesting yeast from starters is whether I've harvested enough yeast when portioning off. When harvesting & rinsing from fully fermented brews there is ample yeast available, though it needs to be rinsed, so I don't have the same concerns. I've noticed in the advice given from a number of the DIY lager recipes it suggests pitching higher & reducing down. Given the unknowns of how much I've harvested from the previous starter, I personally like this method of pitching, particularly when brewing lagers as I'm less likely to lose yeast cells to yeast temperature shock. My view & interest in lag time before noticing obvious signs of fermentation after pitching yeast relates to how soon the yeast has established its dominance of the wort. The longer it takes, the more I worry. Cheers, Lusty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 I suppose it depends how big the jar is really. I use quart sized jars, so I usually end up with a fair bit of yeast in them. Then it gets thrown into the starter for the next batch to grow up enough cells. I find if I overbuild my yeast starters by about the size of the jar, then I end up with plenty enough yeast to ferment whatever batch it's going into. That higher pitching method I did use on the first batch, more so out of being too lazy to move the cube into the brew fridge after I'd removed the yeast starter. But the pitching temp seems to have made little difference to the lag time in these two batches. They both took about the same amount of time to show obvious signs of activity. Maybe Urquell lager yeast is just a slow starter, even though it took off like a rocket in the flask, which was on a stir plate. I can totally understand being concerned with long lag times given your experiences with them, and I do get a bit concerned about it myself when it happens. However, so far I've not had to tip any batches because of it, or even noticed any issues in them really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 Just took an SG reading on this current batch, it is sitting about 1030 after 5 days. This I expected, given the lower pitching/fermenting temp of 10C, and the 30-odd hour lag time. Smell and taste are free of any potential infections though which is good. It was rather sweet but again, to be expected given it's only dropped 16 gravity points from the OG. I will give it until tomorrow night when I get home from work before raising the controller temperature to 19 and letting the brew come up over however long it takes. By that time if it keeps going at its current rate it should have dropped another 6-7 points by then, which is where I begin raising its temp in line with the quick lager method. I decided to grab a picture of it all since the fridge is also stocked full of beers at the moment. There are a few random ones in there, that were left behind in my esky from a BBQ I went to on Saturday night. I took a carton of my first pilsner batch for people to try out and they were all quite impressed with it - in saying that though, they were also mainly megaswillers. It fits 15 on the shelf above the FV, and 12 in the door, so a carton plus 3, which is pretty handy, especially during the CCing phase . I don't normally lie bottles down in that top compartment but had no other space for them. Cheers Kelsey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porschemad911 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Am brewing my Bohemian Pilsner tonight. Just letting you know that I am going to steal your duct tape pattern for the temp controller probe ... mine is usually much more random! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.