I've brewed the same recipe for the last few batches. Here it is. 6lbs Briess Pilsen 3lbs Vienna. Mash at 151. oh, this is a five gallon recipe. 1.3qts per lb of grain for the water. thin mash. hallertau mittelfruh at 60 minutes. I've used rinsed kolsch yeasts after the initial first yeast starter and saved them after the very first batch. after 2 batches, I started using pacifica hops cause I bought a bunch. same taste as with the original hallertau. Using the same rinsed yeast. Now. fast forward to now. I got a grain crusher, containers to hold grain, purchased 2-55lb grain bags of Weyermann Pilsner and Vienna. I did a finer crush than what I'm used to when I get grain at southern brewing. My gap is .022. The only real difference in the whole recipe is that I'm using Pilsner instead of Pilsen, and I'm using my own crusher for the grains. the hop schedule is the same at 60 minutes and the hops, pacifica/hallertau the same. I ferment everytime at 58 degrees for 2 weeks. I've lagered this recipe once with nice results. decided not to this time cause the og was 1.007 and was very thirsty. It tasted good straight out the test tube. I don't recall the og off hand but did the calculations and it turns out to be a 6.3% abv which is way off the charts for a kolsch!!! All in all, One person I served it to, don't drink at all and loved it. A darker beer drinker wanted more! I just wanted to find out what style this beer might be is one of the questions and if the change in my procedure has done anything to improve this. does the generations of yeast, which I must say after 4 rinsed yeasts, this yeast does not let up! It does work even during secondary! I'm not used to that.
A little higher than a Kolsch should be but if it tastes good to you that is all that counts. A finer crush will give you a higher OG. Too fine will give you a grainy taste. (So I've read.)
Call it an Imperial Kolsch if you want. There's really no recognized style that corresponds to a higher gravity Kolsch. Most likely you got a boost in mash efficiency due to a finer crush. And your new base grain might have a higher yield, though off hand I don't know. I've never used any American pilsner malts. Racist.
When did 1.3 qt per # of grain become a "thin mash" ? Did you have any runoff problems with such a fine crush? I've got my mill set at 0.035 and I'm happy with the 79% + extraction efficiency I'm getting via batch sparge. I used to use a spacing closer to 0.022 though when I was doing no sparge BIAB and got comparable extraction.
Love that comment! This person prefers beers with more color and I explained to them if the grain has the slightest bit of color, it will get darker, so they don't go off thinking dark beer is heavy,thick,stronger and all pre conceived notions about dark beer. Also letting them know just cause its light colored don't mean its going to be light either.
I should have said thinner mash perhaps. I tried 1.25qts # per lb of grain. You know,now that I look at the numbers here in front of me, there's not much difference between those numbers, like .75 qts.I'm only just over a year to homebrewing so I'm not absolutely sure on what's considered thin or thick mash, just only what I get from reading. Only runoff problems were that the first runnings were a little less than what I wanted which was probably a gallon and a half whereas I'm used to getting near 3 gallons for the first runoff but noticed after sparging with 5 gallons of 175 degree water I got much much more to make up for what I didn't get in the first runnings. I failed to check the gravities each time. Next time. Will do, just for fun. I usually do this but this time I said, eh,not this time. All in all. I'm more impressed with this beer than all previous beers. I can't stop drinking this.. I'll call it an Imperial Koslch per vikeman! All other Kolsch step aside!
Linguistically true perhaps. But OP did switch from an American 'pilsner' to a German pilsner. Not the same malt.
