Not to worry, you have plenty of options. If you can get down to 60-65 F you can use American California Lager yeast to get a clean lager like character, you can also push Saflager W-34/70 dry lager yeast to pretty high temperatures in the mid 60s as well and still have a "true lager". On the other hand if you can get your fermentation hot enough, try Lutra Kveik yeast, which works best around 85-100 F
@@TheApartmentBrewer I second the Lutra Kveik. I struggle with really warm temps in the summer at my house but using the Lutra Kveik and a ferm wrap lets me "lager" even when it's a swamp outside.
put your fermenter in a swamp bucket. exchange frozen water bottles to keep the beer in the 50s. there's no need for pressure fermentation or other special equipment to make clean lagers.
When you are passionate about something and you put your heart and soul into it there is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when the end result is to your satisfaction. This was evident in your tasting segment. Nice job!
If you are able to not drink the whole keg right away, I'd recommend seeing how much it changes in a months time. I made a mexican lager (NBs Atlántico) a few months ago and when I drank it at about 3 weeks old it gave the soft mouthfeel you describe in the video. However, after about a month, it became much more crisp - likely due to things dropping out like you mention in the video. I'd be curious to see if the same thing would happen here. Great video and I'll be making this recipe in the near future!
Thats one of the disadvantages of speeding up the process with gelatin. Giving it a few more weeks of lagering time really helps with the crispness. That being said, its still overall pretty much there. Did you use very soft water for your Mexican lager? Thanks for watching!
@@TheApartmentBrewer Agreed on the gelatin. I used 50% RO 50% carbon filtered water - so it was definitely on the softer side. I plan on doing proper water additions on the next batch but I was missing some of the additives (epsom specifically) so I used the blend to get some minerals but keep it softer.
Great video! I now have the All Rounder and spunding valve for pressure fermentation and was a good guide to get me started. Standing and stirring a thick decoction mash reminds me of making a dark roux: after 15 minutes I am ready to hit my head with a hammer just to relieve the boredom!
Very inspiring video! I have made my Czeck pilsners with meladoinin malts and I can't justify all the hard work of decoction. I think the meladoinin cheat works just fine.
Its hard to tell if there's a big difference, I just wanted to do it for traditions sake but thats just me, absolutely nothing wrong with subbing the melanoiden in
Great video and timing as well, I will be brewing my first beer with a new equipment on the weekend and decided to start of with a czech style pseudo pils the other day (its quite hot right now and I have no temp control, so I thought Voss Kveik might do the trick) so thanks again for this one, keep it up and greets from Germany!
Very well done video and I agree with the below comment about how obvious it was that you brewed a great beer. I just brewed my first Czeck Pils last week and it is in my pressure fermenter now. Hope it turns out this good. These have always been my favorite pilsners because I am a malt head instead of a hop head. I do like most German Pils but have not found an American Pils I enjoy. Most American are infected with hop craziness and their pilsner are like mini IPAs.
Glad you enjoyed the video! Interesting that you see American Pilsner that way, seems like most American Pilsners I've come across are more like Czech pilsners with a hint of American hop character. The one I just finished up brewing is actually relatively malty, nothing too exciting on the hops. That being said, the NZ and Italian pilsners I've had here in the states tend to be pretty hoppy!
Thank you for this video. I am learning a Pilsner I like with a similar recipe and like it better than a German Pilsner. You cleared up several questions I had about Pilsners and motivated me to try several more techniques. Keep the video coming.
Sounds delicious!!!! Man am I thirsty. I think the only thing that would hep me pass the time doing a decoction mash would be Apartment Brewer Episodes on repeat 😂😂 cheers 🍻
Last weekend I made 13.2 gallons of an experimental beer. I don't know how it will turn out, as the goal was to come up with a 'light bohemian pilsner' that combined the objectives of a 'light American lager' and a 'bohemian pilsner'.
@@TheApartmentBrewer i used fwh as a substitute to the 60' hop addition for years because it is more convenient to put the hops in the kettle at sparge run off and go doing other things. Recently I resumed to use 60' hop addition and I like it more than fwh. Fwh gives a non-clean flavor beer, a very tasteful beer with almost no aroma. It can be a weapon for very tasty hop forward beer in conjunction with dry hopping. For asserting andclean beers, stay away, I would say.
hello from the very bottom of Victoria main land Australia we are freezing, mid winter and below 0C I now do the pressure fermentation at room temperatures with W-3470 in fact I don't know of anyone who does lagers the old way any more, there is no difference in flavor, you might as well pressure ferment, then use gelatin, my lagers are super clean with no off flavors, no Sulphur smell, the warm pressure fermentation really is a game changer in the home brewing community, here is a tip for clearer lagers, replace the dip tube in your corny kegs with the floating dip tubes, the same as the ones in the fermzilla, when I add the gelatin I wait 2 days and the beer is clear, it gets even clearer a few days after that.
There's a lot of great techniques to make a lager nowadays that are different than the way it used to be, many ways to skin a cat! I share your love of floating dip tubes! They're a great way to speed up the pouring of clear beer.
I appreciate the kind words! I do my best to put a much information in there as possible and I'm glad you appreciate that! I'm not sure what you're asking about regarding converting the Refractometer readings?
Refractometers should be adjusted with an instrument specific wort correction factor. Brewfather have functionality for this and on Brewer’s Friend you can find a handy guide. Mine is 1.044, which mean that an OG reading of SG 1.050 (12.4°) is actually SG 1.048.
@@eirikhelseth1058 Ah I misunderstood. Ever since I got the refractometer, I've used Beersmith to convert my brix readings into SG, and there is a wort correction factor based on wort color that's part of that conversion. The SG value you see onscreen is not a raw conversion from the brix you see onscreen, but rather has been adjusted through Beersmith before being put onscreen.
You should check out super chalks for your tap handles, gives you much cleaner and clearer marking. Should be fine enough for you to write the names on there. Also lasts longer than regular chalk.
i was going through my beer recipes and i came across my czech lager i had made 3 months ago and i was curious to why it wasnt up to par. well..... hahah i wasnt focusing. my beer was off and i couldnt figure out why. i checked my paper and realized my ibu was 46. im like wow! but then i realized my alpha acid percentage was different as well. my hops which were all saaz was 3.9 and not 3.2 AA . although i didnt means to throw 3 oz at 60 i meant to do 2 oz. my day was already going sour so my head wasnt there.
The Pilsner series is seriously a brilliant idea. Did you do a 90 min mash because the DP of the malt wasn’t high and you wanted to be sure you had full conversion?
I'm glad you're enjoying the series! In this case, it definitely makes sense to hold it that long. Also it gives enough time to simultaneously do the decoction. In most cases I'll still do a long rest but I use the time to edit
Hello and thank you for the video. My ultimate goal is to create as close as possible Pilsner Urquel. What would I have to do differently to get there?
I noticed you used a starter. I like to use starters every time even for my 1.25 gallon batches. Is there a danger of over-pitching for me? Should I pitch only a portion of my starter? Thanks. Your videos are my favorite educational resource!
I would really say it's a stretch to overpitch. You're vitalizing the yeast and making a cleaner fermentation. Overpitching really only is an issue if you leave your beer on the yeast cake for a long time
Never done a decoction mash before so for clarity for me. While boiling the 9L of mash on the stove your mash in your mashtune/kettle you use continues to recirculate at 154. Then pour the boiling mash directly into that recirculating mash and your then ready to start your boil for all of it? I have a 3 kettle SsBrewtech Electric set up, the one being a mashtune and I fly sparge the mash. Any suggestions or would there be much difference?
Man, I'm glad you posted this. This was my next planned brew and you convinced me to give decoction a try. Was going to run the Jamil reciepe, but I'll take the carapils out and try it with the decoction. Quick Q, does the amount of decocted mash really matter when doing it for flavor rather than for step mash? I BIAB and never mash out so hitting mash out is not really important. A bit less mash decocted might make it more manageable for me though.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! If you're not too concerned about temperature, a smaller decoction volume is fine. The thing i wouldn't compromise on however is the length of time involved as this is where the color and flavor will come from
Can I ask what temp range you are talking about when you say "room temp"? I am in Australia, where I live isn't that extreme for Australia but room temp here, not airconditioned, could be anywhere between 5C - 35C (41F - 95F) Haha, never mind, you apparently jumped into a time machine and answered my question, much appreciated!
@@TheApartmentBrewer yes, I know..but, I found some real bargains on Etsy, just look/search for “Copper Jam Pans,” and such..they would easily hold amounts for decoctions..
How much darker do you think doing the single decoction mash and boiling the mash for 45 minutes gets you? Are we talking like just 1-2 srm or more? It looks pretty light on camera
6 Oz. of hops and it's not enough? Yeah, You're a hop head! I had 1.5 gallons left in my boiler & the hops stuck in my syphon. 5 weeks to lager, looking forward to it. I've added 3% Melanoidin for body & 3% Carapils for a better head. Craigslist came to my salvation with a chest freezer for $0.
Really enjoyed this video! I just brewed my first Bohemian Pilsner...already keen for the next one, and now I've got a lot of interesting techniques to add. I couldn't help but wonder, when you took your sample for ph, I was curious what your thoughts are on the whole, "room temperature ph is higher than mash temperature" debate (ranging from 0.25 to 0.35 ph units depending on who you talk to, when comparing mash 154f to room temp 68f). I have the same ph pen and for a while was worried my ph readings were always too high after cooling the sample down to room temperature (5.8-5.9). I did many calibrations to see if it was an issue with the ph pen itself, but then I came across the 'debate' above. Haven't been able to find a concrete answer on what the deal is, (apparently ATC calibration doesn't change the fact that room temp ph will always be slightly higher than mash temp ph). Anyways, interested to hear your thoughts if you get a chance. Really great job on the video!
When considering pH, it should be noted that the pH of a solution changes with temperature. The rate of change is dependent on the solution itself. For wort and mashes the actual pH is 0.35 units lower at 65 C (150F) than at room temperature 20 C (68 F). At 75 C it is 0.45 units lower [Briggs, 2004]. For optimum wort enzyme activity target a pH of 5.2 - 5.5 measured at mash temps during saccharification. Corrected to room temperature it will be higher. Cheers
Yeah I really just shoot for 5.4, these pH pens are not amazingly accurate despite their .01 level of precision. If your measurement is around 5.2-5.6 your mash will be fine. (My first comment got deleted)
Great video! Light Pilsner styles are definitely exciting when they come out right. Decoction mash does look like a big pain to do! Big fan of the "random amount of yeast nutrient" addition! Would you say the Spike CF5 is worth getting over a standard Fermzilla in terms of extra features?
Thanks! It really depends on what you want out of a fermenter. Fermzilla will honestly get you 90% of what you need and then some, but the spike has pretty much everything you would ever want and then plenty of extra stuff you don't need. I'm still happy I have it, the temp control, Stainless steel, tri clamp modularity, and many ports are actually very useful but it can be a huge pain to maintain and use to its full potential. Half the time I find myself going to a stainless steel bucket fermenter instead.
One thing to note on the fermzilla is that the plastic has an expiration date and at a point won’t be reliable for pressure fermentation. As a result you’ll need to buy another one 2 years down the road. This was how I convinced myself to go with the CF10 Stainless conical. That said, I could buy many fermzillas for what I have into my CF10.
I don't think you would need to make any adjustments at all for the Anvil Foundry 10.5, its a very similar volume. For what its worth, I get about a 68% efficiency on this system, so that may be all you need to adjust.
I can't find imperial L28 yeast... What's a good replacement for pressure fermenting at 20-22 deegC? Can I use white labs czech budejovice lager or maybe escarpment labs czech lager? or should I used Saflager W-34/70, Saflager S-23?
Not sure how to word this question, do you carb up your lager before you lager it, like set and forget and lager at the same time, or let it lager for a few weeks then carb it up for serving?
Doing some quick research on that yeast, it seems like a cal lager/hybrid yeast. I'd say as long as you keep the yeast in the mid 60s F you'll get a nice clean lager out of it
Nice vid. Your mash pH was high because you added alkanity to your RO base water. Definitely no need for that in a pale beer. The acid malt + lactic acid may result in a lactate flavour in your beer
Are you saying with a pale grist and no water adjustments that I would have had a proper mash pH? Because that's never happened unless I use the perfect amount of acid malt. 23 ppm isn't doing much for the residual alkalinity
@@TheApartmentBrewer I'm saying the same thing as you. You definitely need acid with RO water and a pale grist. Just not sure why you added calcium carbonate to the water because that will result in needing even more acid ? And I've found too much lactic results in an off flavour.
I've never tried pressure fermentation but plan to soon. Why did the pressure drop to zero when the fermentation finished. Shouldn't the spunding valve maintain the set pressure even after fermentation is complete?
That's what I was wondering? Once pressure builds it should hold indefinitely. Seems like there was a leak? Unless the pressure went down due to temperature drop.
@@TheApartmentBrewer I have always had a similar problem with my all rounder. I have checked for leaks and fixed the ones I could find but there seems to always be a small leak somewhere. Not a big problem, I just connect a gas line and bring it back up
I bought them from amazon a few years ago but unfortunately I think they're out of stock at the moment. Amazon does have a variety of chalkboard style tap handles if you are interested in that design though. amzn.to/2J1eVHz
30 to 45 minutes of actual boiling? good heavens... you'll have to dilute it multiple times to keep it from burning and to have enough thermal mass to raise the main mash temp lol. edit: oh, You're decoction's rather thin... that explains the 45 minutes; shoot, it takes 20-30 minutes of boiling just to get it reduced to where mine start at. Look at using a sort of slotted scoop to gather the grain for the decoction (I use a charbroil bbq spatula that's slotted as a mash paddle/scoop when homebrewing (in the brewery/distillery, we use a positive displacement pump to draw off the bottom of the mashtun (which is mostly grain after it settles) lol)), then dip out just enough liquid to make it "stir-able" in the kettle.
@@TheApartmentBrewer low oxygen brewing mimics some of the better German macro breweries and eliminates oxygen on the hot side as well. It starts with deoxygenated strike water and mitigates oxygen pickup throughout the entire brewing process. What I found is that the malt flavors are incredible and the hops come through very bright. Preserving malt and hop flavor and aroma by not allowing it to be lost to oxygen while brewing (because once it's gone, it never comes back), all the way through to package. It allowed my lagers to go to the German macro commercial level in appearance, taste and aroma. The Germans go through a lot of effort to do it, and now I know why they do. Cheers
Thats some really fascinating stuff! I'll admit I don't really subscribe to worrying about hot side oxidation at the homebrew scale, but its definitely a debated topic and some people have had varying results. Its awesome you've noticed a big difference, I'll have to try it out sometime, thanks for sharing!
I'd love to know whether you are able to reuse this yeast with a starter or two. I've been trying to find ways to lower the cost of batches and cutting $5 off from not needing another pack of yeast is definitely something I'm wanting to try. Having said that, I'm still really new to the brewing game and I'm still doing only extract.
You could build a larger starter to begin with and keep a portion in the refrigerator, depending on the size either make another starter with it or pitch it when ready. Or you could harvest the yeast during fermentation (crop topping) or after fermentation (generally want to wash the yeast from any trub, hop material, and so on).
I would err on the side of not reusing the yeast from a pressure fermented batch. However the technique that RP explains above is a fantastic way to keep costs down. Top cropping is pretty difficult with a lager strain since they don't tend to have very large krausens, but overbuilding a starter is a good way to keep some extra yeast around.
I'm sure the beer is nice to drink but it looks nothing like a Czech pilsner. It is very pale, it is served in a too thin too narrow glass that hasn't been chilled and it is poured without a thick head of foam to protect it from oxidisation. For these reasons it probably tastes nothing like a Czech pilsner.
your brewed beer is the color of pee and the foam on the Czech lager should be big. please look at the pictures of what a Czech lager should look like.
