Bohemian Pilsner

ChicoBrewer

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Established Member
Joined
May 12, 2018
Messages
814
Reaction score
825
Points
93
Had a nice Trumer Pils at the pub the other day and I thought why can't I give a Pilsner a try? So I did a little research and found this article by Jamil Z about Bohemian Pilsner. I made this recipe. I'm wondering about the water. I'm building from DI water and here is what I came up with from my Bru'n Water sheet.

Targeting 50 ppm Ca, 5 ppm Mg, 5 ppm Na, 55 ppm SO4, 70 ppm Cl

Adding 3.1g Gypsum, 2.8g CaCl2, 1.4g Epsom Salt, .6g Mag Chloride, .6g table salt gets me there perfectly.

2ml Lactic acid in the sparge gets me to 5.36 pH according to Bru'nWater.

For those of you that do pilsner's - does the water profile look like what I should target?

Also curious if domestic Pilsner malt from Great Western is suitable or is it worth the extra to get a german or Czech malt?
 

Attachments

  • BH Water Profile.pdf
    216.4 KB · Views: 116
  • Hous Bohemian Pilsner.pdf
    373.3 KB · Views: 88
Last edited:
everyone says Great Western is fine but I only use Rahr or Avangard, no preference actually.
as for the water I always go balanced between Calcium Chloride and Gypsum
 
Why is table Salt listed twice as a water agent in the mash? Other than that I don't see anything wrong. Domestic pils malt should be fine. Any reputable malt company is going to be able to make a good base malt. If you want to spend more for historical accuracy that's fine too.
 
I probably meant to make one of them sparge. Idk why the recipe editor doesn't let you combine mash and sparge if you want to. I make all my water at once and add acid to the mash.
 
FYI - I removed the sparge and mash salt additions and just made them "Boil" (overthinking again...)
 
I just entered the data from the Bru'n Water spreadsheet into the Brewers friend calculator. I have done this before with similar results. There are significant differences.

Here is the calc. https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/?id=WXYDS5B

Attached is a spreadsheet with the differences. It's a simple dilution. How could they be so different? P.S. I don't know which one is correct :)

Also - Bru'n Water has a way to print a nice summary for brew day
 

Attachments

  • delta.pdf
    210.5 KB · Views: 147
I'm not saying whats right or wrong but one difference I see in all other calculators, they generalize too much on ingredients and some do not even have a starting ph, how can you know the ph if you don't have the source, Brewers Friend treats every ingredient independently and I think that can make it much more accurate
 
I'd use carahell malt instead of carapils personally just my measly 2c there Chico the pilsner beer is made from the brewers process and a good healthy yeast pitch. I look forward to seeing how you fair.
 
I'm not saying whats right or wrong but one difference I see in all other calculators, they generalize too much on ingredients and some do not even have a starting ph, how can you know the ph if you don't have the source, Brewers Friend treats every ingredient independently and I think that can make it much more accurate


I think I found the reason the BF calculator is different than the Bru'n water calculator as far as there being a delta when adding the same amount of salts in each. The Bru'n water calculator gives the option to add Calcium Chloride as anhydrous (CaCl2) or Dihydrate (CaCl2 * 2H2O). The BF calculator only gives the option for Dihydrate. When I switch the Bru'n water to Dihydrate they match (except for the acid). The problem is that the LD Carlson Calcium Chloride is Anhydrous so I can't get a good output with the BF calculator. I guess the Bru'n water calculator is more accurate in that regard. Too bad BF calculator doesn't have an option to switch to Anhydrous.
 
I think I found the reason the BF calculator is different than the Bru'n water calculator as far as there being a delta when adding the same amount of salts in each. The Bru'n water calculator gives the option to add Calcium Chloride as anhydrous (CaCl2) or Dihydrate (CaCl2 * 2H2O). The BF calculator only gives the option for Dihydrate. When I switch the Bru'n water to Dihydrate they match (except for the acid). The problem is that the LD Carlson Calcium Chloride is Anhydrous so I can't get a good output with the BF calculator. I guess the Bru'n water calculator is more accurate in that regard. Too bad BF calculator doesn't have an option to switch to Anhydrous.

maybe we should add that to a request
https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/forums/feature-requests.7/
 
Trumer pils is not a bo-pils, its a German (more specifically Austrian) pils and has little to nothing in common with a bo-pils. So which one are you looking for?
 
I originally started with Austrian pils but while researching I became interested in Bo-pils so I switched gears lol. Random googling lead me there. So I'm sticking with the Bo-pils for this go round. Not having access to good examples of both of these styles makes it difficult to discern the difference. I do have trumer since I live close to San Francisco where it is brewed domestically.

Can you suggest examples of Austrian pils that doesn't taste skunked because it was shipped from Europe? Paulaner maybe?
 
Last edited:
Anything shipped across the pond is going to be oxidized. Your best bet is the local trumer, however the real trumer does taste better, but none the less it will give you a good idea.
bo-pils are sweet, bold and hoppy, high og, high FG
German pils are dry, bitter and low og and FG.

bo-pils is super soft water, basically RO with no minerals added
1.055-1.016, decocted heavily, low attenuating yeast, diacetyl.
All saaz, high ibu to balance, still no additions after 30 though
I would start with a higher kilned base malt to bring some of the melanoidians. ( weyermann pale aleish)

G-pils
ca to about 40, cl to about 80, a little sodium to 40
1.046-1.008 very dry
60 minute only addition to about 30ibu
malt would be like pils with a little bit of light munich to bring in some melanoidains


here is an example of my G-pils with munich

PUiwu62.jpg
 
Anything shipped across the pond is going to be oxidized. Your best bet is the local trumer, however the real trumer does taste better, but none the less it will give you a good idea.
bo-pils are sweet, bold and hoppy, high og, high FG
German pils are dry, bitter and low og and FG.

bo-pils is super soft water, basically RO with no minerals added
1.055-1.016, decocted heavily, low attenuating yeast, diacetyl.
All saaz, high ibu to balance, still no additions after 30 though
I would start with a higher kilned base malt to bring some of the melanoidians. ( weyermann pale aleish)

G-pils
ca to about 40, cl to about 80, a little sodium to 40
1.046-1.008 very dry
60 minute only addition to about 30ibu
malt would be like pils with a little bit of light munich to bring in some melanoidains


here is an example of my G-pils with munich

PUiwu62.jpg


Thank you for the thoughtful reply. BTY I love the Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie style graphic in your logo. I'm a big fan of American Arts and crafts movement. I have made several copies of Greene and Greene furniture.

As for the pilsner. It seems I may have my water a bit off for bo-pils. I do have an RO/DI unit under my sink. Maybe just a bit of CaCl2 and Gypsum. And Weyermann Pale Ale malt and a decoction step? Sounds interesting. I have the WLP800 which I believe is a low attenuating lager yeast.Don't know If I can source Weyermann. Might have to sub Briess.

bo-pils water.jpg
 
I don't know Bopils as much as I know german, but zee Germans rarely/never add sulfate, and I think it would be out of line for this as well. The whole point of the bopils is to have super soft water so the hops come though really soft as well.

I'm not saying you have to decoct, but saying they do. IMO ( and Zee Germans) a little bit of munich to a pils malt bill will do pretty much the same thing, (which is why a lot of these german breweries use it and don't decoct anymore).

However the key to this beer IMO is not allowing all thefermenatable sugar to be fermented fully, thus leaving sweetness and body. It's not the same as a high mash temp (dextrins, thats just muddy). Bopils is not my style personally it's too peaky for me, however if it were me I would mash it to finish at about 1.010, and halt fermentation at 1.015. that would put the body/sweetness there, and I guess if you are lucky?! You may get a touch of diacetyl as well, which would be proper. Which is another reason I don't do Bopils, cause D is a flaw to me, and I want no part in it.
 
Hey Chico! I read this thread this morning and on the way into the office, I stumbled on a BeerSmith podcast on BoPils that I downloaded some months back, planetary alignment huh? ...check out #99...I think it was 2015. Brad Smith did the show with More Beer's Chis Graham who says that this stuff to him is like "Mecca"...I guess he likes it!
 
I don't know Bopils as much as I know german, but zee Germans rarely/never add sulfate, and I think it would be out of line for this as well. The whole point of the bopils is to have super soft water so the hops come though really soft as well.

I'm not saying you have to decoct, but saying they do. IMO ( and Zee Germans) a little bit of munich to a pils malt bill will do pretty much the same thing, (which is why a lot of these german breweries use it and don't decoct anymore).

However the key to this beer IMO is not allowing all thefermenatable sugar to be fermented fully, thus leaving sweetness and body. It's not the same as a high mash temp (dextrins, thats just muddy). Bopils is not my style personally it's too peaky for me, however if it were me I would mash it to finish at about 1.010, and halt fermentation at 1.015. that would put the body/sweetness there, and I guess if you are lucky?! You may get a touch of diacetyl as well, which would be proper. Which is another reason I don't do Bopils, cause D is a flaw to me, and I want no part in it.

Question - how do you "halt fermentation at 1.015"? It feels to me as if I'm at the mercy of the mash temp and the yeast
 
Question - how do you "halt fermentation at 1.015"? It feels to me as if I'm at the mercy of the mash temp and the yeast
You're not - there's always sulfite and sorbate. But these methods leave sugars in the beer that could later start fermenting and create little grenades. I would not recommend it. Let the beer ferment all the way through then if you insist, adjust the gravity with maltodextrine or unfermentable sugars.
 

Back
Top