Wooly Pig Zwick’lbier Hoppy Pils

Mill the grains and mash at 146°F (63°C) for 35 minutes; raise to 154°F (68°C) for 25 minutes; then raise to 172°F (78°C) and mash out.

Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule.

After the boil, do a whirlpool step: Stir or recirculate for 60 seconds to create a vortex, add the whirlpool hops, and rest 10 minutes.

Chill the wort to about 56°F (13°C), aerate, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 56°F (13°C). Once the gravity has dropped to about 1.016–1.020 (4–5°P), attach a spunding valve (if you have one), and allow a temperature rise to 60–65°F (16–18°C) for a diacetyl rest.

Lager for 2–4 weeks with head pressure, aiming for 2.6 volumes of CO2. Serve it unfiltered—enjoy it fresh, with a slight haze.

BREWER’S NOTES
Water: My brewing water has notable calcium chloride and sulfate, and medium hardness, more like Dortmund and less like Munich or Plzeň. This lends the beer a crispness and subtle bitterness that works well with modest hop additions.

Mash: We mash in thin, with a 5:1 water-to-grist ratio. (Alternatively, you can mash in thicker (3:1), then add hot water for the step to 154°F/68°C.) I originally did the thinner mash for a few reasons:

First, I remember from Künze’s Technology of Brewing & Malting that lighter beers can potentially benefit from a thin mash, in the realm of 4:1 or even 5:1. However, you must keep your pH in check—if it gets too high, you risk increasing the beer’s astringency.
The thin mash seems to work well in my brewhouse, and I end up sparging less—which think may help reduce polyphenol extraction and hot-side oxidation. The thinner mash theoretically increases extract efficiency— but sparging lass may decrease extract efficiency, so that may be a wash.
On a small brewhouse, I think the simple increase in thermal mass is a benefit for keeping the temperature higher—around 170°F (77°C)—which lowers the wort’s viscosity and might help with vorlauf and first wort collection. In smaller brewhouses like mine that have dedicated lauter tuns, there’s not a good way to raise the temperature of the mash in the tank—so, if you increase the thermal mass, I think it just helps out. It’s also a lot easier for me to pump thinner mash out of my mash kettle into the lauter tun.
Also, texts such as Brewing: Science and Practice, by Briggs, Boulton, Brookes, and Stevens, suggest that a thinner mash is good for fermentability. The Augustiner strain isn’t necessarily the best at attenuation. I think when brewing a pils with Augustiner yeast, this method may be helpful.
Controlling pH: I just do my best to ensure I’m not adding high-pH water—no higher than about 6.5. So, I also treat my foundation water to ensure an even lower pH that’s similar to the mash pH. For final runnings during wort collection, I try to keep it below 6.0, but I’m generally quite a bit lower than that. My post-boil pH is generally around 5.15 for my pils.

Spunding: If you can, spunding will give you a smooth, naturally carbonated mouthfeel.