Good Pilsner recipe

100% continental pils malt at 150 degrees F
White labs 833
1oz. Noble German hops at 60min
1oz. Noble German hops at 0min
Ferment until finished
Lager for 30 days
Drink the hell out of it.

 

Around 9-10#
2oz. Hallertau at 60min
1oz. Hallertau at 0min

 

Boil wort for 90 min

 

As long as you pitch enough healthy yeast and have temp control a good pilsner recipe is very basic and should be enjoyable. Cheers !!

Pat

 

So he would hate heady and Pliny...... His opinion means nothing.

 

Pilsner recipes are very simple, it's the process that makes or breaks the beer. You really need to have an excellent batch of healthy yeast, plenty of oxygen and the ability to ferment at a steady 54-56F temp.
I would go with 9 pounds Pilsner malt, 1/2 pound Carapils or wheat, mash at 148F for 60 minutes. Boil 90 minutes. Add 1 oz Perle for 60 minutes, 1 oz Hallertau, Hersbrucker or Tettnanger at 20, 1/2 oz at flameout. Cool to around 50F, pitch yeast and allow the internal temp to rise to around 55F.
When it's almost fermented warm it to around 65F for a week, then rack to secondary and lager as close to 32F as you can get for a month or 2.

 

Pilsner malt and noble hops.
A long list of procedures to do one right.

Look into it online. If you can brew a good pilsnernyou can brew anything.

 

Two stages would be good when using a WY or WL "pitchable" yeast. I begin with a 2L starter in one of those 5L erlinmeyer flask available at Northern Brewer. I do this so that I can use the I can use the stir plate. For lagers, Ive been propagating a second stage in a 5 gallon carboy with 2 gallons of wort.

 

No.

 

It won't freeze, but it also doesn't have to be 32F. 35-40 will be fine, but colder is better. As hopfenumaltz says a good pilsner is a challenge, a great one is even tougher. I've brewed a couple of good ones but am still hoping for a great one.

 

Same here. Perhaps the one have I lagering now will be the one.

 

Victory Prima Pils IS the bee's knees.

I also rather enjoy Schlafly pilsner. Whilst victory is very hoppy, Schlafly pilsner is not so much. It has the perfect (IMO) amount of hops for the perfect pilsner. IMO most of the time I am looking for more like the Schlafly when I am in the mood for a pilsner. The "pilsner mood" is ...

• a hot summer day, mowing the lawn with the lawn tractor
• when you're going fishin'
• when you can only have one or two beers because you have to drive out of here eventually
• when you know you're going to start drinking at 9am or earlier

Victory is more of a novelty beer for me, not to say I don't always want one. But the super hoppy pilsner isn't really representative of the style, and most BMC drinkers won't break into a beer like victory easily (they need to be slowly coaxed and weened off the water and into actual flavor).

Even then, I've had someone tell me Schlafly pilsner was "kinda thick." Baby steps, baby steps!

Sam Adams Noble Pils is another great commercial example of a pilsner with a nice balance of hoppiness and drinkability.

The commercial musings of a rambling madman aside, I think an all pilsner malt (90 minute boil) with a bittering addition, 10 minute addition (about an ounce) and a FO addition (0.5-1 oz), all noble (or fairly low AA non-threatening hops) sounds about right.

 

Do you experience sufficient conversion with a 60 minute mash at 148°F?

It is my understanding that if you mash low (e.g., 148-150°F) that it is beneficial to mash for a longer period of time. Below is a post from another beer forum which summarized my understanding:

“I like to mash at 149 for 75 min. My understanding is that lower mash temps make for a more fermentable wort, but mashing must be longer. Higher mash temps make for a less fermentable wort and can be mashed for less time. Of course your grain to water ratio can create other variables.”

Cheers!

 

Fully modified malt should convert fine in an hour, even at 145F. Most malts will convert in less than 15 minutes at 155F and you can see this measured in a malt spec sheet under diastatic power (or maybe alpha amylase, haven't looked at it in awhile).

I think lagers are all about step/decoction mashing. Pilsner is good to go with an upward infusion. A short mash-in at 122 and then a ramp to 145 for 35-45 minutes before raising to 155-162 for 10-15 minutes and then a mashout does the trick. This assumes you are shooting for a dry German-style profile. You can always mash-in right at 145, which is much more common in Germany these days as it suppresses lipoxygenase activity which can lead to beer stability issues.