Pilsner Urquell: Different in US

There are a couple bars in Plzen that serve the unfiltered version as well. It's fucking great

 

“I much prefer a rising fermentation curve with a diacetyl rest before cooling back down to lagering temperature.” Sam, do commercial breweries have the capability to warm up fermentation tanks (e.g., 600 barrel tanks) from 50°F to 65°F over a time period of 1-2 days? Do they then transfer the 65°F beer to a lagering tank and then cool it down (over a period of days?) to 33°F?

Cheers!

P.S. The above mentioned temperature values are just example values.

 

I found this description of Bohemian beer brewing in "Pilsener B. Brauerei" (Bürgerliches?) in a German yearbook for chemical technology from 1907 (pages 353-354) which I thought was interesting and might fit the thread (my own translation, feel free to correct it as needed):

The Läuterboden (?) covers only half the lautertun bodens(?) , the mash temperatures are 28, 38, 48 and 58 to 60. The saccharification temperature is maintained for 15-30 minutes, only thick- mash is drawn, the wort cooks for two hours, and at the beginning of the boil the entire hop addition (only fine Saaz hops) is added. They use for 100 hl beer (85.4 barrels) 22 hektokilo (4856 lbs) malt and 47 kilo (103.7 lbs) hops.

Stammwürze 80%, nachguss (sparging water) 20%, the grainbed is only mixed once, the abzugbier is 11%, the lager beer 12% strong. In the fermentation cellar the vats each hold 25 hl; the temperature of the fermentation cellar is 4, it is set to the same temperature, and only with low fermenting Munich yeast. They let the temperature rise to 6 to 7 degrees, it is worked without swimmers (I assume they mean small floats with bits of ice on them used to cool the wort); degree of attenuation 55-58%; on siphoning day the vat is elevated.

- The vat is not lacquered, it is treated with lime and before it is filled with water, to which some juniper is added, washed (my rough translation, might need corrections). The beer is lagered for 8 to 12 weeks, afterwhich it is abzug or lager beer; it is lagered without wood chips, the lager cellar temperature shifts between 1.5-2 degrees. They let the beer 4 weeks stossen (?), and it is for this purpose gestochen (?) 3 to 4 times; bunged 14 days without kräusen.

 

Crusader, thank you for taking the time for the research and the translation. Cheers.

 

I have heard of some breweries in very cold climates rigging hot water into their tank jackets to warm fermentations during winter, but this is not typical. Commercial tanks normally only have the capability to be cooled via refrigerated glycol. The typical technique for a diacetyl rest is to turn up the set point for the cooling to your desired temperature during the final part of active fermentation. Yeast activity in a large cylindroconical tank generates a very large amount of heat that will quickly heat up the beer if the cooling is turned off. If you time it right, the beer will reach your diacetyl rest temperature just as it gets to about terminal gravity. If you are using a unitank system, you just wait until the beer passes a diacetyl test and then can start cooling it back down in the tank. For lagers, you can either take it down gradually by setting the cooling manually over time, or if you have automated tanks, you can program the cooling to go as fast as you want it to. For separate lagering tanks you can split cooling between the two tanks, cool all in one, or transfer through a heat exchanger and cool in line. Breweries all have different ways of doing it.

 

The more I think about this, the more I am starting to believe you are the victim of some kind of trick. The notion alone that Urquell is intentionally trying to amp up diacetyl is pretty absurd. And the levels you describe tasting sound off-the-chart high. I know that you guys are tested there on your ability to pick up off flavors by these being added to pils and then you consuming them blindly. Any chance your "friend" spiked a couple of bottles? You can test this by going to the store and picking up a couple more off th shelf and doing a taste test of your own. If you're still picking up that much diacetyl, then maybe your palate is just super sensitive to the stuff. I still think the story about PU shooting for higher levels is apocryphal, though.

 

Small correction of the temperatures, they're expressed in grad reaumur, with one degree R equal to 1.25 degrees C.
Mashing temps: 35, 47,5, 60, 72,5 to 75 degrees celsius
Fermentation cellar starting temp: 5 celsius
Fermentation cellar temp during fermentation: 7,5-8,75 celsius
Lager cellar temperature: 1,87-2,5 celsius