My first AG Pilsner

[Oenologystudentprefersbeer]

For my Industry Project subject at Uni I had to come up with something to research so I chose to look at the sensory analysis of a lager that has been lagered for 4 weeks and one that has been lagered for 10 weeks and the overall sensory percetion of these two brews using the triangle test methodology.
I decided that since I had never brewed a pilsner before I would try it out and see how it went.

After a bit of playing around with recipes I ended up coming up with the following for a 70L batch:

17kg Weyermann Pilsner malt 88.3%
1.5kg Munich Light malt 7.8%
0.75kg Caramalt 3.9%

150g Saaz (3.0AA) @ 90 mins - 17.97 IBU
130g Saaz (3.0AA) @ 60mins - 14.56 IBU
60g Saaz (3.0AA) @ 15 mins - 3.33 IBU
Total - 35.87 IBU

Est OG - 1052
Est FG - 1013
Est ABV - 5.12%

I did a 90 min mash at 66C and then a 90 min boil.

I used the Fermentis Saflager W-34/70 yeast

This all went in a little over 2 weeks ago and it has now actually finished fermenting and had a diacytel rest and was moved in for lagering yesterday.

My actual reading were as follows:

OG - 1053
FG - 1002 (it went really dry)
ABV - 6.69%

When it had first finished fermenting there certainly was a bit of a diacetyl smell and taste to it.
I gave it 2.5 days at 25C for a diacetyl rest and that has all dissapered pretty well.

I have now got it lagering at -1C so I will see how that goes.

It was certainly a darker colour than I was expecting and flavour wise is more like a Munich lager I think than a Pilsner.
It is still tasty all the same

I'll leave it to lager for the two periods now and let you all know how it turns out.
When I have completed the group sensory analysis on it I will post the analytical results

[Oliver]

FG - 1002 That's a low FG ...

The lagering experiment should be interesting. Let us know how it goes.

Did you brew it on your own equipment or at uni? If your own, it must be some serious kit!

Cheers,

Oliver

[weizgei]

1.002 is really, really low for that grain/yeast bill. Did you taste it before the lagering? I'm hoping it's not infected somehow, it shouldn't have gone much below 1012? What temp did you mash your grain at? And how much 34/70 did you pitch on it?

[Oenologystudentprefersbeer]

I was able to brew it at Uni Oliver so I am lucky to be able to use the equipment

I did taste it Weizgei and it tasted fine . In fact I tasted some this morning (I'm doing NTU readings every week for analysis at the end) and it tastes great!
I think the problem was with the mash equipment. The mash tun is not insulated so it is very hard to try and keep temp using it.
I tried to go for a 65C mash temp but having to constantly run off, heat and re add wort all the time to keep temp was pretty hard.
I think that the temp must have fallen a fair bit and as such more fermentable sugars were extracted. Not sure how low it got as I can only really measure down to about 15-20cm deep in the mash tun but I'd say the lower half of the mash got pretty cool :/

Oh well, it still tastes good and it's really starting to sparkle after being in the cold room for a week and a half now. No detectable diacetyl or 2,3-pentanedione either. Winning!
Can't wait to get to drink it!!

[weizgei]

Glad it's ok, but I'm still pretty suss on a 1.002 final gravity. There's a limit to how low you can mash grain, go much lower than 64 and you're just giving the grain a warm bath rather than extracting fermentable sugar. The starches don't gelatinise, and you have to mash for a lot, lot longer to get conversion. I find in Beersmith if you go below 64C as your mash temp, your final gravity actually starts to go up again. It should be very hard to get a beer brewed with only grain under 1010.

Would love to know how it happened...