Bohemian Pilsner 40L Brewing Journal

Started 8th November 2020

I am aiming for around 40 IBU's for bitterness and have decided to use 100% Saaz Hops. This is not the most efficient way of bittering as the alpha acid is only just over 3%, so a lot of hops are required but hopefully I will be rewarded with depth of flavour.

The method to be used is as follows:

Ferment at 11c for around 5 days.
Raise the temperature slowly until 18c is reached.
Hold 18c for 2 days for diacetyl rest.
Chill to as close to 0C as possible for 5 days

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Recipe	Measure
Brew Length	40L
Bohemium Pilsner Malt	10000g
Saaz Hops (Start of Boil)	150g
Saaz Hops (last 10 Min)	50g
Saaz Hops (flame out)	50g
IBU	42
Yeast (Using Starter)	WLP838
Mash Liquor	25 Litres
Strike Heat	72C
Mash Temperature	64C
Mash Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Sparge Temperature	77C
Mash Efficiency (estimated)	75%
Boil Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Fermentation Temperature	11C
Expected OG @ 80%	1054
Actual OG	1053
Expected FG	1013
Actual FG

Water Treatment:

Recipe	Measure
CaCo3 Adjustments
Calcium Carbonate CAC03	154 ppm
Calcium Carbonate Required	30 ppm
Adjustment Necessary	124 ppm
CRS per Litre Required (Brupacks)	0.65 ml/L
Total CRS to add to Mash (25L)	16.5 ml
Total CRS to add to Sparge water (9+25L)	5.8 + 16.5ml
*Chlorine Treatment*
Campden Tablets (half in mash, half in sparge)	1 tablet
Calcium Adjustment (using brupaks calculation)
Calcium in Water	110 ppm
Calcium Required	120 ppm
Adjustment	10 ppm
Gypsum	1 Tsp

Water Schedule:

This brew will be batch sparged, so the water will be scheduled as follows:

Mash = 25L using 16.5ml of CRS +1/2 Campden Tab
Top Up = 9L using 5.8ml of CRS
Final Batch Sparge = 25L using 16.5ml of CRS and 1/2 campden tab

Mashing:

Pre Heated Mash tun with warm water.
Mash water heated to 76c and treatments added.
Added 25L of water to mash tun which settled quickly to 71C, so doughed in with 1 tsp of Gypsum
After 5 minutes the temperature was 65.8C, so the recirc pump was run until temperature wasw 64.5C
The lid was sealed and mash timer set for for 1 Hour 30 Min.
The final Mash temperature was 64c.

Sparging

25L of sparge water was heated to 85C and treated with 16ml of CRS and 1/2 campden tab.
Mash tun drained to boiler.
HLT filled back to 25L, treated with an additional 16ml of CRS and heated to 85C
Forgot top up so, heated a futher 10L of water to 85c and added to mash tun.
Final batch to boiler.

Boiling

Boiler switched on as soon as first few litres of wort were drained from the mash Tun.
First batch of hops added once the boil started.
Last 15 minutes - inserted immersion Cooler
After 1 Hour 20 min second batch of hops added with Protofloc.
Flame out hops added.
Cooling started - This took around 1 hour to get down to about 25c and at this point the cold break was evident and their were clear clumps of break material.
Original Gravity after boil was 1053. Final volume seems a bit low, which may because i stopped the pump as it started to pick up sediment. After settling there was around 5L of hoppy liquid left in the boiler.

Fermentation:

1.75L yeast starter of WLP838 start 2 days prior.
I was not able to refridgerate the starter so the yeast was still in suspension. No choice but to pitch all of it.
08/11/20 - Yeast pitched at 17:00 temperature 20c with chiller set to 11c
09/11/20 - It took around 18 hours for signs of fermentation to show. Temperature stable at 11c.
10/11/20 - Fermentation steady temperature 11c.
11/11/20 - Sg reading of 1029. Krausen now thinning.
13/11/20 - Temparture raised to 13c
14/11/20 - Brix reading is around 7 which is 1013sg
15/11/20 - Start Diacetyl rest Temparture raised to 15c
16/11/20 - Temprrature raised to 17c
17/11/20 - Brix was 6.5 which is a fnal gravity of 1010 which seems a bit lower than expected but tastes fine.
18/11/20 - Temperature set to 0c for lagering

Tasting Notes:

For some reason this brew was very bland and was overly bitter with little hop flavour. Not sure exactly what went wrong but it is still drinkable so it will not get thown out. The first time I did this brew it was with with teh premium floor malted pilsner and WLP8000 yeast, so maybe that has made the difference. Not one to do again.