New Zealand Pilsner - Brewday & Recipe

Brewery: Old North Brewing
Style: New Zealand Pilsner
Date Brewed: 04.12.2015


After my last brew I was convinced that the next important piece to my brewing puzzle was a fermentation chamber. I was really intrigued by Marshall "The Brulosopher" Schott's post about the SC-1000+ fermentation controller, which is a venerable SC-1000 temperature controller flashed with a brewing-specific software. I purchased a flashed SC-1000+ through Will Conrad's BlackBoxBrew.com. It took me quite a while to put the assembly together and find a chest freezer, but this has nothing to do with the difficulty, and everything to do with how easy it is to distract me. The overall construction took me maybe 4 hours, and two of that was because my original project box was too small. Also, I opted to install a larger relay in my box to protect the SC-1000+ from spikes in voltage due to the chest freezer switching on. Instructions and a wiring diagram may be found here.

It took me a while to decide on what the inaugural brew should be, but after a tasty bottle of Trader Joe's New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, I decided that a lager of some sort, hopped heavily late in the boil with Nelson Sauvin (famous for tasting a lot like a NZ Sauvignon Blanc) would be perfect. This was further spurred on by the onset of yard work season. I decided on a New Zealand Pilsner/India Pale Lager at a fairly low ABV for post-yardwork crushability.

I picked a fairly standard grain bill for the Pilsner, adding some carapils for body and head retention, and a smidge of Munich 10L to give  bit of dimension to the malt bill and add a little bit of color. I hopped this beer fairly heavily for a Pilsner; I want a lot of hops in here, with a fairly dry finish. I used HopShot, a CO2 hop extract, for the bittering additions, as the extract seems to be a little more subtle than many bittering hops.

My one nod to tradition was a last minute decision to mash out using a decoction step rather than adding more hot water. I found this relatively easy (I just scooped out 6.25 qt of thick mash and boiled in on the stove indoors while the mash continued outside). It was only afterwards however that I realized that I should have boiled the decoction for around 15 minutes. I only boiled for about 5 minutes. Next time I will go the whole distance to get that nice melanoidin development. On the whole I found this a very easy way to get to a mash out step in without adding tons of water, and I might end up using this trick in future beers.

Recipe

--------------------
Batch Size: 6 gallons into fermentor
Measured OG: 1.046
Anticipated IBUs: 44.0
Anticipated SRM: 3.5
Actual Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.2%
Boil Time: 75 mins

Malt
--------------------
85% [8.5#] - Avangard Pilsner Malt
10% [1#] - Carapils/Dextrine Malt
5% [0.5#] - Munich 10L

Hops
--------------------
3mL of HopShot Extract @ 60 mins
5.7 AAU [0.5 oz, 11.4%] - Nelson Sauvin @ 10 mins
11.4 AAU [1 oz, 11.4%] - Nelson Sauvin @ 5 mins
17.1 AAU 1.5 oz, 11.4%] - Nelson Sauvin @ Flameout

Extras
--------------------
1 Whirlfloc tablets @ 15 mins
0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 mins

Yeast
--------------------
Two-stage starter of WLP800 "Pilsner Lager". Aiming for approx 350 billion cells. 

Water
--------------------
Winston Salem, NC municipal water
3.4 g CaCl
2.5 mL 88% Lactic Acid

Mash
--------------------
Saccharification Rest - 18.25 qt @ 150 F
Mash Out - Decoct 6.25 qt and boil

Notes
--------------------
04.09.2015 - Made 2L of 1.040 starter wort and pitched yeast. Didn't boil the starter, just brought to 185 F for 5 minutes and then cool (thus pasteurizing it).

04.11.2015 - Crashed starter cold in new fermentation chamber.

04.12.2015 - Brew day. Brewed solo this time.

Mash pH was 5.4.

Batch sparged this time around with two steps of 3 gallons each. Mixed well, let sit for 5 minutes, mixed well again, vourlafed, and then ran off completely each time. Collected 8.63 gallons of 1.034 sweet wort.

Boil proceeded normally.

Chilled 6 gallons of 1.045 wort to 85 F and then racked to 6.5 gallon bucket. Placed bucket in fermentation chamber and chilled the rest of the way to 48 F. Aerated with wort aerator on syphon and with 5 minutes of vigorous shaking. Pitched starter. 

Began lager fermentation program on SC-1000+ controller. This will hold at 48 F for 7 days, ramp up to 65 F over 5 days, hold at 65 F for 3 days for a diactyl/attenuation rest, and then a 7 day chill to 33 F for lagering. 

04.15.2015 - Nice signs of activity in the airlock. Resisting the urge to crack open the bucket. The temperature controller seems to be working like a dream.

04.20.2015 - Beginning a very slow ramp up to 65 F over the next five days. This should help attenuation while suppressing ester formation.

4.28.2015 - After three days at 65 F I took a gravity reading. 1.011. A little bit higher than my anticipated FG (1.010) so I've opted to over-ride the fermentation controller and sit at 65 F for two more days. If gravity is still the same at that point, then I will begin to cold crash. I'm planning on fining with gelatin and letting the beer lager for a week or so before carbing.

Hydrometer Sample. Excuse the messy kitchen counter.

I tasted the sample I took for gravity readings and am fairly happy with the beer. The sweetness seems appropriately restrained, and there is a firm but not overwhelming hop bitterness that lingers appropriately. There is a little bit of mid-palate hollowness that I'm not crazy about - great bready pilsner note and a nice Sauvignon Blanc -esque nose and flavor, but not much between the two. Also there is a tiny hint of DMS in the nose. Not loud and in your face, but vaguely... corny. Probably still within style. Perhaps served at proper temperature and carbonated these issues will work itself out. I'll have to wait and see.

04.30.2015 - Beer dropped the rest of the way to 1.010. Began crashing cold over the next week. I will take another gravity reading in a few days to make sure I've hit terminal gravity since I've recently had problems with over carving beers. 

05.06.2015 - Beer has reached 33 F. I added 1/2 tsp unflavored gelatin to 1/4 cup water and microwaved it 7 seconds at a time, stirring, until it reached 145-150 F. I dumped this straight into the fermentor.

05.13.2015 - Beer has sat at lagering temps for a week, plus gelatin fining. Time to rack to a keg. Hit it with 30 psi of CO2 for now and I will give it 24 hours to work.

05.14.2015 - Dropped CO2 to 13.5 psi, which at 42 F should give me 2.52 volumes of CO2, right in line for a north German pils.

05.15.2015 - I couldn't resist taking a sample. This beer is by far the clearest thing I've brewed, though there is still the merest suggestion of a chill haze. I'm going to refrain from giving tasting notes until this beer has a chance to sit in the keg for a week or so longer.

08.11.2015 - Tasting notes and recipe tweaks may be found here.

Rye Saison - Brew Day & Tasting Notes

Brewery: Old North Brewing
Style: Farmhouse Ale / Saison
Brewed On: 01.15.2015
Bottled On: 02.07.2015
ABV: 7.0%

Appearance: Pale gold and mildly cloudy. Huge billowing head stays around for quite a while, eventually settling into a persistent small cap.
Smell: Spicy and earthy. Reminiscent of an herb garden or freshly dug loam. Also a strong note from the rye stands out clearly. Notes of grapefruit peel, hay, dandelion, and coriander emerge as the beer warms. Very much a classic Belgian saison.
Taste: Opens with a peppery note, then races across the palate with notes of coriander, allspice, and a hint of black cardamom. A light tartness emerges along the sides of the tongue. Pilsner malt is very present, with an excellent honeyed bread taste that balances all the funk quite well. Retro-nasally there is almost an orange blossom note, very subtle, but present. Finishes with the peppery note still standing, and an earthy spiciness, almost like petrichor.
Mouthfeel: Light body. Prickly carbonation refreshes the palate. Fairly clean finish, but a sort of peppery note lingers for quite a while.
Overall: A great example of a farmhouse ale. Many layers of funk open up as this beer sits. The spicy notes from the yeast really ties together the rye and pilsner malt. 

One of the worst things I think that a new home brewer can do when designing a recipe is to try to many things at once. The best idea in my opinion is to stick to simple recipes and tweak only one or two things at a time; don't try and brew an untested IPA recipe with a new hopping technique, hop combos you picked from thin air, a new fermentation schedule, and the latest cool yeast. Of course, a fair substitute for trying all of these things out one at a time is to read what other's are doing and tweak one or two things.

This recipe was inspired by two things; Ed Coffey's farmhouse ale brewed with the same strain of yeast and the book Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski. I based my recipe on Markowski's "Classic Saison" recipe (p. 161), but substituted rye malt for the recommended wheat malt, and I used Munich I instead of a caramel malt because I wanted to keep the beer pale, but malty. These substitutions were inspired by Coffey's recipe for "Farmer in the Rye".

The Avangard malt I used in this recipe really caught me off guard. I originally designed this recipe to clock in at a much lower 1.048 OG, and only assumed I would get 68% efficiency. I was guessing that that number might even be high since I was still figuring out my system. Instead I got near 75% efficiency and an OG of 1.057. For some reason my boil-off was also oddly high. Looking back I should have diluted my wort back to something closer to 1.048, but I ended up with a very tasty beer so no complaints.

Overall, this is one of my favorite beers that I have brewed. The natural temperature control that I gained thanks to a poorly insulated room and a warm closet definitely made a difference in this beer. A lot of other little things (mash pH, water chemistry, techniques, recipe tweaks, good yeast) that I have been working on for a while came together to make a really great beer. It's a testament to the fact that all of the little pieces really do make a difference when you bring it all together.

That said, it's pretty obvious from the picture that this beer is pretty darn over-carbonated. I'm not entirely sure why that is. I was originally aiming at 3.0 volumes of CO2 which is a little high but well within style. It's possible that the beer continued to ferment a fraction of a point after bottling (but given I measure the FG at 1.004 I sort of doubt it). I weighed out the sugar and measured using a calibrated bottling bucket. The problem seems to be endemic to the entire batch, so it doesn't seem like I failed to mix the priming sugar well. The only thing I can figure is that I used a sugar which was more fermentable than what I estimate (eg. I accidentally read off the dextrose priming amount while adding regular table sugar).

Recipe
--------------------
Batch Size: 5.65 gallons
Measured OG: 1.057
Measured FG: 1.004
ABV: 7.0%
Anticipated IBUs: 42.4
Anticipated SRM: 4.6
Actual Brewhouse Efficiency: 74.9%
Boil Time: 75 mins

Malt
--------------------
79.6% [9.75#] - Avangard Pilsner Malt
16.3% [2#] - Rye Malt
4.1% [0.5#] - Munich 10L

Hops
--------------------
8.5 AAU [0.5 oz, 17%] - Apollo @ First Wort Hop
3.35 AAU [0.67 oz, 5%] - East Kent Goldings @ 30 mins
2.25 AAU [0.60 oz, 3.75%] - Saaz @ 5 mins
2.25 AAU [0.43 oz, 5%] - East Kent Goldings @ 5 mins
2.25 AAU [0.45 oz, 5.4%] - Styrian Goldings @ 5 mins
1.24 AAU [0.33 oz, 3.75%] - Saaz @ Flameout
1.65 AAU [0.33 oz, 5%] - East Kent Goldings @ Flameout
1.78 AAU [0.33 oz, 5.4%] - Styrian Goldings @ Flameout

Extras
--------------------
0.5 Whirlfloc tablets @ 15 mins
0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 mins

Yeast
--------------------
The Yeast Bay Wallonian Farmhouse

Water
--------------------

Winston Salem, NC municipal water (delightfully soft according to city water reports)

4.1 g CaCl

2.4 g CaSO4

3.2 mL 88% Lactic Acid

Mash

--------------------

Saccharification Rest - 18.75 qt @ 151 F

Mash Out - Add 8.5 qt @ 212 F

Notes
--------------------
Decided against building a starter due to anticipated low gravity of brew, and to hopefully stress the yeast into producing more delicious esters.

Mash pH was 5.4.

Sparged to 7.5 gallons of 1.045 wort pre-boil.

Ran out of propane right as boil began. Was able to finish inside on electric stovetop.

Chilled quickly with home-made immersion chiller (thanks to very cold groundwater temperatures).

Started fermentation in a very cold room (65 F ambient), slowly moving into warmer areas over the first week. Finished fermentation in a warm (75 F ambient) closet for two more weeks.

This beer was naturally bottle conditioned to 3 volumes of CO2.