OK, so every year our homebrew club heads down to the Emerald Coast Beer Festival. Starting last year they have a competition. This year it is a Kolsh. Our club is having a brew-off to choose which one to take. One of our experienced brewers, also a brew mentor of mine, has an art on Kolsh. I want to make one that will compete with his. All I know about his Kolsh is that it is 100% pilsner. I want something slightly different. I researched some recipes and methods. Here is my original plan. Can you guys help me tweak it and offer any advice I haven't already covered? My recipe for a 5 gallon batch is. I am using WLP2565. I bought a smack pack and let is swell for 3 hours. I made a 2 liter starter that foamed over and I'm left with 1600 ml. The recipe is: 7.5 lbs of german piilsner 2 row .5 lbs wheat malt 2.5 lbs munich 1 oz tettnang (60) .50 oz tettnang (15) Mash at 149 for 90 mins. Boil 90 mins. Ferment at 60 for 4 days and increase by 1 degree per day afterwards until I get to about 67. Then lager for months. A few questions. First, any tweaks on this recipe? Second, is my mash and boil time right? Third, How much water do I need for a single step mash? I want to do a batch sparge. How much water at this point? How do I calculate this for future? I've been brewing with a partner that did these calculations with a program before and I don't know how. Lastly, any suggestions for this style that I haven't covered?
I'm really particular about my Kolsch. I switched up my recipe once, and I didn't like it. My preferred recipe is: 9lbs Pilsen 1lb of Kolsch malt (munich or vienna if you don't have kolsch) Mash at 150F Bitter to ~22 ibus with a noble hop at 60 minutes No late hop additions. I think additions in the last 20 minutes just don't taste right. I also try to ferment my kolsch at the bottom of the temperature range of that yeast initially (i.e. around 56F) Regardless... your recipe looks fine. Not my preference, but definitely on par with many of the ones I've seen.
Just a ‘heads up’ on my experiences with Wyeast 2565: I have only used Wyeast 2565 to make Kolsch beers. I have always enjoyed my homebrewed Kolsch beers but it has been my consistent experience that my Kolsch beers needed extended conditioning time to ‘clear’. I am using the word clear in single quotes since for me it was more of a ‘clear’ from a taste perspective than a visual perspective. I am not overly concerned about the appearance of my homebrewed beers; if they are a bit cloudy but taste good that is OK with me. I had the let my Kolsch beers ‘sit’ for an additional 1-2 months in the bottle before I enjoyed drinking them. Below is the description that Wyeast provides for this yeast: “This strain is a classic, true top cropping yeast strain from a traditional brewery in Cologne, Germany. Beers will exhibit some of the fruity character of an ale, with a clean lager like profile. It produces low or no detectable levels of diacetyl. This yeast may also be used to produce quick-conditioning pseudo-lager beers and ferments well at cold 55-60°F (13-16°C) range. This powdery strain results in yeast that remain in suspension post fermentation. It requires filtration or additional settling time to produce bright beers.” Cheers!
My Kolsch using 2565 is in the bottle now (about 1 week) and it is extremely clear... I mean crystal. I fermented at 56-58 for 15 days, then allowed it to warm to room temp for another 12 days before bottling. The flavor seems excellent to me as well. I did not filter, and only used a standard amount of irish moss during the boil. While I hate the phrase "YMMV" it definitely applies to most anything related to homebrewing, as everyone uses different equipment, has slightly different set-ups and procedures, ambient temps, handling and storage practices, etc. Maybe I got lucky, but this was my first cold fermentation, first Kolsch and use of this yeast, etc - so I cannot believe that this yeast is super hard to deal with under the recommended parameters.
your recipe looks good but i would add .5pound of carapils. Maybe use vienna instead of munich. And maybe up the wheat malt to a 1pound (right around 10%). The only other difference i would do if i was brewing it is add another half ounce of tettnang at 5minutes and at flameout to make it a slightly hoppy kolsch
Similar reason to why pliney uses carapils in the recipe yet they also add table sugar to give it some nice body and head, mashing at 149 will ensure the beer still finishes pretty dry
I like kolsch's too, I'm drinking a fantastic homebrewed kolsch right now. The only thing that I see unusual in your recipe is the munich. I know you want to tweak it, but it doesn't take much to tweak a kolsch. I would cut the munich way back. 25% munich might make it unrecognizable as a kolsch. I think 10% munich would be pushing the limit.
I agree with Naugled; depending on which Munich you've got I consider 25% to be slightly too much --> way too much. I've gone as high as 1/3 Kolsch malt with good results (gets a little dark at that %) but more than 10% Munich was too much IMO. cheers-- --Michael
if this is something like the Weyermann I it'll be great. Less certain about Weyermann II as it's pretty rich. If it's a domestic 10L or 20L Munich, personally I would probably leave it out or keep that 2.5 oz number. then again any of these will make good beer, so do what you want. To each their own. I like 20% Kolsch malt, 80% Pils, Spalt, and WLP029. Emphasizes hops and has a restrained white wine fruitiness. cheers-- --Michael
I went with 7 lbs german pilsner, 12 oz wheat, and 1/2 lb of munich. I did a 90 min mash and 90 min boil with 1 oz tettnanger at 60 and .5 oz tettnanger at 20. Hit the OG aimed for. Trying to cool down to pitch temp now. Good brew day.
