Hey hey hey!!! Nice looking beer, yours definitely cleared more than mine. Thanks for the shout out! Funny because my next video is an IPL inspired by your Wicked Crispy 🍻 Enjoy that wonderful looking spring beer!!! Cheers!!!
Never change the way you make videos. love the super in depth videos. I've been a silent watcher now for a while and have learned something new from all you videos.
After over-drinking my fair share of Guinness, Kolstritzer Schwarzbier, and other stouts and dark beers, these german ale/lager hybrids like Fruh Kolsch and any altbiers I can get my hands on are my mainstays and favorite overall.
Wow! That Kölsch looks beautiful! As someone from colonge I really appreciate that you took the right kind of glass for this beer. I need to revisit brewing a Kölsch. I think I will test your recipe for that.
Kölsch is such a great style and was the first style I brewed for my college courses. As the weather starts getting nice outside, it certainly feels like the time for this style.
I know you’re dealing with limited brewing space. How do you like the claw hammer system? Given more space would you have chosen a multi vessel system over the BIAB one?
I do like the clawhammer system a lot. It holds a lot of grain and the parts are easily replace independently of the kettle si you don't have to replace the whole thing if a component fails. Honestly, I don't think I'll go back to multiple vessels. The only big improvement would be a 240V input since 120V takes forever to heat anything
With your refractometer reading, I found discovered that they need recalibrating almost every time. I never worried about it while homebrewing but now I'm working as an assistant brewer I was told to check the calibration at the star and end of every brew day.
One of the perks of brewing with distilled water is that it make it very easy to quickly grab some to calibrate with. While I dont calibrate every single brew, I do relatively frequently.
Been out of the loop and haven't brewed in a couple months. Watching this video to kick my butt into gear. I LOVE Kolsch style and love what you've been up to on the channel! Prost!
@@TheApartmentBrewer down in MS the heat gets pretty unbearable to brew in. I do have my induction BIAB set up for the hot months though. Nice to brew in the AC when you can!
Hey, I’m german and I love you channel. Don‘t worry about german pronounciation - you‘rs is better than my english spelling 😅 I just wanted to say: there is a „naturtrübe“/cloudy version of Kölsch called „Wiess“. Wiess is also the name, used for evry Kölsch brewed outside of Cologne. At least in Germany a Kölsch has to be brewed within the town borders of cologne (in german Köln) to be called Kölsch - by law. Fun Fact: The german dialect spoken in cologne is also called Kölsch. Thanks for your vids - really appreciate your work
Brewing a Kolsch tomorrow with some Vienna malt. Your videos are great, science based, to the point, and the distilled water calculations are a great idea.
Love the grain to glass videos. I liked the water Chem vid as well. Maybe more videos like that would be cool. Your takes on grain or different mashes would be a cool idea.
Great..I like to first wort hop w this, with most of the bill..it makes the hop flowery-ness subtle throughout. I only deviate from your recipe by sometimes using torrified wheat, and a tiny bit more color..just adore this beer!
Actually, you got a very nice color out of just the Pilsner malt..I’ve seen some sad Kolsch though..yes, wheat does add for this beer, and the stange concentrates the floral aromas. I’m a fan of first wort hopping..my best Kolsch to date was one I FWH’ed w a bit of Mt Hood..
I just recently brewed my 4th Kölsch. I really like the style. I've been using dry Kölsch yeast but this time I used WLP029. The hard part of this style is to not overdo the flavors. It's tempting to add a lot of stuff when you brew your own beer but this is a delicate style where everything should be in moderation. In my first attempt I added way too many hops which did make a very tasty beer but it wasn't really a Kölsch. I've since tuned it down and it got better. In my latest one I just use 100% Viking Pilsner Zero malt and Magnum hops at 60 min and ferment at 15 C with the WLP029. Now that I have a good yeast cake I will try adding 10% wheat as well.
I've been looking forward to the video for this beer. It's easy to see that you fell in love with this kolch. Between friends, family, and non-craft drinkers I blew the keg of my italian pilsner. I think this kolch is in my future. 🍻
@@TheApartmentBrewer I've gone straight to Czech Pilsner lagers. I know thats not recommended for beginners but thats what I like to drink. I'll do a Pale Ale soon too but I hope to graduate to a Guinness clone (nitro), I live in Ireland so its a natural next step
If you have a copper coil sitting around: I just run a hose through a coil before the chill plate. I set the coil in a bucket of just enough water and frozen ice packs. This brings the wort temp down very quickly and lower. The wort out temp will drop below 50 easily.
Hi, nice video on one of my favorite beers. If I could make a suggestion, instead of looking to add some Vienna malt, I would go with a light Munich malt. The "graininess" of the Vienna will work against the Kolsch taste. The cleaner maltiness of the Munich will give you an added layer of complexity without making it muddy. Hope my description makes sense. Good luck with it, and keep'em coming.
Great video! I love Kölsch, and brewed quite a few of them over the years. The one I brewed, I brewed 12 days ago using pressurized fermentation. And it turned out fantastic! All the typical yeast characteristics you wish from a kölsch, are present. I’m curious about the distilled water thing you got going there, does it cost a fortune or can a hard working chefs hungry wallet afford such a fine gadget do you think? 😅 I have to give you lots of cred for your channel, very informative, interesting and educative! Keep up the good work, cheers from Gothenburg, Sweden
Whatever you do dont rush this beer and skip the lagering. It needs that cold conditioning to be good. When I first made a Kolsch years ago I rushed it and cleared with gelatin. Beer was nice a clear but didnt taste very good so I stuck it in a spare fridge at my brothers house and forgot about it. Fast Forward three months later (middle of July) and my Brother calls me up and asked what all this awesome beer in his fridge was lol. Im not saying you have to lager for 3 months but it definitely needs lagering
Yeah a deliberate long lager definitely benefits these beers. Later this year in going to try and do some comparisons with gelatin finings vs traditional lagering to see what happens with various beers
@@TheApartmentBrewer usually what I do now is cold crash to 33F for a week or 2 the bottle carb then put them.in the fridge for a few weeks. (No.keg) That seems to be good.
Excellent video! Just FYI, pH decreases as temperature increases, and the mash pH values typically reference a 60F temp. So a pH of 5.14 at 84.7F will be higher if measured at 60F. I shoot for a pH of 5.05 at 150F to hit 5.20 at 60F. Cheers!
Thats why I use an ATC pH meter. Usually don't see large pH swings as the sample cools. Not a perfect correction but it gets the job done within a reasonable tolerance.
haha loved the review at the end, you should do that every time, verging on comedy gold. that beer was definitely a good one, i want to brew it but i feel like i need distilled water. I think this is pushing me toward RO setup.. crap. something else to ask the wife for!
I've treated my water for a while, but have only been using distilled for several months now. Even then, it is wild how big of a difference I still got when moving from treated tap water to distilled as a base. I think the conical is helping the yeast flocculate out a bit better, but I actually haven't done a full yeast dump yet. Usually I'm just pulling from the dip tube right above the yeast cake for clear beer into the keg.
Awesome looking beer and correct glass...where did you find one? I want to make a kolsch style with Crystal hops...intrigued by the reported hop flavor profile (I know, not a German noble hop.) Crystal: It's woodsy, green, floral and fruity with herb and spice notes of cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper)
Great vid as usual! Do you think finings are necessary for this yeast strain or do you pretty much have to hold it near freezing for a while to get it to clear up? Also please please please re-upload your first video with a Mystery Theater 3000 style commentary.
From what I've seen, it would take a solid amount of lagering at near freezing to clear up, so I really would push for finings on it to keep that fresh character. Hahaha I'll consider your request but only because you asked nicely
I'm a beginner brewer and I enjoy your videos. I've only done a couple extract brews. I saw where you mash ph was 5.14 or something like that, and mentioned to add some acid malt. Again I'm a beginner, but wouldn't the acid malt lower the PH or make it more acidic? I guess I'm a little confused here. I thought if the ph was too high, then you'd want to add acid malt next time or lactic acid to the mash. Maybe I'm mistaken, but then again I'm trying to learn.
Good question, and I'm glad you asked. I built some acid malt into the grain bill already, which lowers the pH. But it went down a bit too far (different maltsters have different strengths of acid malt) and I was saying to add less next time as it would get you more around the ideal 5.2 pH
Great video as usually! I notice that when you pouring beer, the foam was not coming out crazy like mine, may I know how long is your beer line and what else you did to contribute that? thanks
That depends on a lot of factors - line length, altitude, carbonation level, serving pressure, temperature etc. I'd encourage you to check out a beer line length calculator and start from there, you may have to tweak some stuff but eventually you'll get it nailed down.
Hey, man. Love the channel and have been learning a lot! I do have a quick question, though: I have found myself the sudden owner of a 35L BrewZilla and have used it to make a couple solid brews so far (I'm a *very* new rookie brewer and have only just transitioned to all-grain). That being said, it looks like, from this video, you're adding all 8 gallons to the mash and then just boiling down from there after mash-out. Unless I missed something, I didn't see a sparge or anything... In addition, your mash looked *really* wet when you initially added the grain bill; I've been strongarm-stirring through dry oatmeal for 10 minutes on my brews until the grain soaks through (with the help of a recirculating pump). Am I doing something wrong or is a no-sparge brew an option I wasn't aware of? Also, do you plan on doing a "basic how-to" series of videos on electric all-grain brewing? I could definitely use a series that goes through every step of the way with painstaking clarity... Would be massively helpful for us newbies!
First of all - congrats! Sounds like you're well on your way to making great beer for yourself! You are correct, a sparge isn't really necessary with these type of systems. You will be fine mashing with the full volume of water, your mash will be much thinner than what you're used to but that doesn't impact the beer at the homebrew scale. I don't have a tutorial series, but I would recommend researching BIAB (brew in a bag) l, which is the overall concept that is used by these systems. It is without a doubt the easiest way to get into all grain and a little research into BIAB will go a long way toward answering a lot of the questions you may have.
It takes a bit to get the hang of it but it's not too difficult. I like to use the water calculator from brewersfriend.com, but I have a video going over water chem if you want more details
How does the flavor change with warming up. Lagers seem to develop off flavors when warm is that true too with the lightness of the kolsch, or does the ale aspect allow for better flavor when warm?
Kolsch yeast is not a lager yeast, so it won't produce the kind of undesirable flavors some lager yeasts do at warmer temperatures and tends to deliver a pleasant mild fruitiness when its fermented warmer, while remaining clean when it is fermented colder.
Just made one from 2 packs of wyeast, but they were a tad old and I had almost zero Krausen, couldn’t tell if that was because of expired yeast or just the yeast/lower temps
weyermann makes a cologne malt as well specifically for kolsch! I did a kolsch w/ 85% weyermann cologne, 4.7% wheat, 4.7% carafoam, and about 5.7% acid malt. I'll admit it didn't come out good cause it was my first time pressure fermenting with a new yeast I hadn't used- it was a huge diacetyl bomb. I do intend to try it again with a different yeast. Also where did you get the stange glass?
I'll have to look for that next time, probably would need to special order it since my LHBS doesn't stock it. I got the stange from kegworks.com! Couldn't find one anywhere else on the internet, but the one I got is perfect and not expensive at all. Thanks for watching!
@@TheApartmentBrewer I really don’t know too much about beer, that is why I need to relate from the ones I like in order to have an idea of how others taste. Si far I haven’t liked any of the new beers in the breweries I have tried, mostly because they are too biter.
Interesting. I had planned on a pressure fermented helles, same basic grain bill as yours, but they ran out of the high pressure larger yeast. I went with a voss kviek as a recommendation from LHBS. Keg fermenting, No temp control, house at 72-78f. Gonna wrap in blanket and let it roll in the closet,, no pressure. Thoughts?
Lutra is a better replacement for a lager style at those temps. Voss can kick off some pretty strong orange esters. I'm pretty sure you can ferment it under pressure to reduce the esters. That, or just try to keep the temps on the very low end for the yeast.
I would echo the above comment. Lutra is your friend for clean beers with kveik. Voss will stay clean if you pitch a larger amount and keep it around 72, otherwise yes it will get orangey.
my wife wants me to make a kolsch. i dont have german noble hops. but what i do have is magnum, cluster, savinjski golding, saaz, which of these would be best? i think the cluster is as closest as hallertau as im going to get
I like it a lot, it's definitely different from the competition in some good ways. It may take up more space with all the parts but it makes them easier to replace if something breaks. Only issue is the 120V power takes forever to heat anything up and doesn't make up any gravity points in the boil
@@TheApartmentBrewer Thank you . I started with the RoboBrew III and loved it, but wanted something that could handle a higher grain build. I'm just hoping I made the right choice...
Did this very schedule yesterday, and my efficiency was through the roof! My recipe went a bit “darker” but I can’t help it..I think Kolsch that looks like hay water is just..sad! I used 3oz acidulated malt, 2lb Maris Otter, 6lb Boho Pilsner, 1lb Franco Belgian Pilsner, 1/2lb each of torrified wheat and Carawheat, here’s where I really go off script, 3oz Dingemans C20, and 1oz melanoidin! Used bottled spring water cut by a third w distilled, added a touch of fleur de sel, gypsum, and cacl. My mash clocked in at 5.3 ph about 15 min in. I first wort hopped w 1 oz Mt Hood, and am trying splitting one ounce of Mandarina at 60 minutes later and knockout at 75 minutes. Oh, my mash I shot for 126-130, (15-20) then it ended up at 143 30-40min, then 152-158 for same 30-40, then mashout. Using Wyeast Kolsch yeast. My chill was so good it overshot down to 54F! Yes, it’s taking a while to get going, but I love colder ferments for this. My runnings were so clear, and never dropped past like 6brix, I should have pulled even more out, but didn’t have more water anyway. I could or should have used about a pound less malt, my ferm gravity is about 6.5 to 7 ABV. I’ll call it an “Imperial Kolsch”…it’s a beautiful, beautiful color..golden with just a hint of copper..my only frustration w my system is the mash is a hundred temperatures, I’d love to get a recirculating pump and try to even out my mash, it’s on the stove, so that would be an easy way to keep it at the proper temp..
No! Keep your fermentation low, please! It’s the only way to get those crispy flavors and delicate aromas..don’t pull it to the “ale” side. Yes, I also like another malt addition like Vienna..