subject: How to Brew A Czech Pilsner [print this page] How to Brew A Czech Pilsner How to Brew A Czech Pilsner
What is a CzechPilsner?
The beer typeCzech pilsner originates from the city of Pilsen. The beer ischaracterized by its use of light and pale malts, that gives the beer its distinctive yellow to golden color and its malty taste, with a good sweetness. The hops used for brewing pilsner is Saaz. This hop gives the beer a mild taste, and a spicy and herbal aroma. A pilsner is cool fermented at 8C to 12C. This gives the beer a dry and crisp taste.
The Target Values For A CzechPilsner
When you are brewing a pilsner, you must be within the values in the style guide you see below. These are your target values when you are designing a recipe.
OG:1.046 - 1.052
FG:1.012 - 1.017
Color (EBC):7 - 14
Bitterness (IBU):35 - 45
Alcohol (Vol%):4.1 - 4.7
A CzechPilsner Recipe To Begin With
I have made a simple pilsner recipe for you. The amount of ingredients in the recipe is for one liter of water. This means, that if you have 20 liters of water in your kettle, then you must multiply with 20. The Ingredients are as follows;
Pilsner Malt (3 EBC): 140 grams/liter
Munich Malt (20 EBC): 40 grams/liter
Dry Light Extract (8 EBC): 14 grams/liter
Saaz hops (2.8 Alpha%): 8 grams/liter
Yeast: You can pick any pilsner yeast suitable
The brewing process is as follows;
Heat the water to 68C and add all the malt
Stir and maintain the temperature at68C for 60 minutes
Raise the temperature to 73C and keep it at73C for 20 minutes
Seperate the mash from the wort with your strainer
Sparge the mash with73C water untill you have the equivalent volume of wort in the kettle as you had water to begin with (1 liter in this case)
Raise the temperature to 100C - boiling
The total boiling time is 60 minutes from you add the first wort to you begin cooling the wort
First add 2 grams/liter Saaz for 60minutes total boil time
Then add 2 grams/liter Saaz for 45 minutes total boil time
Then add 2 grams/liter Saaz for 30 minutes total boil time
Then add 2 grams/liter Saaz for 10 minutes total boil time
After 60 minutes of hopping the beer, start chilling the wort
When the wort is10 C pour it to the sanitized fermenter bucket
Add the yeast and keep the fermenter bucket at fermentation temperature
When the fermentation has stopped, transfer the beer to a sanitized fermenter bucket for secondary fermentation
Add sugar to carbonate the beer to get the desired CO2 pressure and then bottle the beer
These ingredients, and this process of brewing Czechpilsner, gives you these values;
OG: 1048
FG: 1012
Color (EBC): 10
Bitterness (IBU): 40
Alcohol (Vol%): 4.7
As you can see, these values fits perfectly within the target values for brewing aCzechpilsner.
