CLASSICAMERICANPILSNER |
by
Warren White
(and a Small Creative Consultant)
Well, summer is all but here, boys and girls (well, everywhere but here in good old Melbourne), predictably our affections turn to pale, thirst-quenching, full flavoured beers to restore ourselves after a hard day's slaving over a hot brew kettle. What better way to reach beer drinking nirvana than with a nice tall glass full of CAP (Classic American Pilsner) in all its golden, corn-accented clarity.
Most people's impressions of this magnificent beer is to turn their noses up and say, "What!" "I'm not drinking a beer that's 20-30% corn."... "Holy Reinheitsgebot Batman! This just aint kosher!" Upon their first sip, they are instantly and permanently changed in their line of thinking.
A CAP is a beer style that should find favour with almost every Australian craftbrewer or drinker due to the fact that they are a far tastier version of our mainstream and premium lagers. They are substituted with corn over the ubiquitous cane sugar but go far beyond Oz megaswill in the fact that they utilize the freshest ingredients and we make them ourselves with lots of TLC.
I won't kid you here folks. This beer can't really be made with your basic dump and stir 90 minute infusion mash like your beloved Ordinary Bitter or Mild due mainly to the fact there is a severe lack of if not a complete paucity of flaked maize in our country. (why is this so homebrew store proprietors??) as a consequence special mashing techniques must be employed due in no uncertain terms to the fact that we Australians have to settle for the use of polenta, corn meal, slop, baby mush or pig food. Call it what you want but it works well however requires a little extra toil and trouble in the brewhouse by ourselves via a process known as a cereal mash. More on that later.
If one wishes to head down the single infusion path, thus saving time and effort, the use of flaked rice, say about 20% would not be out of the question. Unfortunately it is going to give you a different result, namely a drier, far more neutral character.
So it's corn and “hard yakka” for me. I'd much rather have the tastier, more authentic result myself folks, dunno about the rest of you. So hi-ho, hi-ho it's off to boil some sloppy corn I go!
Take a look at this information and please make any comments or ask any questions.
Cheers!
Warren
Perspective
| Style Basics Classic American Pilsner |
|
|---|---|
| Original Gravity: |
1.044 - 1.066 |
| Final Gravity: |
1.010 - 1.015 |
| Bitterness IBU: |
25 - 40 |
| Alcohol by Volume: | 4.5 - 6.0 % |
| Colour SRM: |
3 - 6 |
| Appearance: Light to gold color. Substantial, long lasting head. Bright clarity. |
|
| Aroma: Low to medium clean, grainy and sweet maltiness may be evident. Medium to high hop aroma, often classic noble hops. No fruitiness or diacetyl. Some "cooked-corn" aroma due to DMS may be noticeable. |
|
| Flavour: Medium to high maltiness similar to the Bohemian Pilsners but somewhat lighter due to the use of up to 30% flaked maize (corn) used as an adjunct. Slight grainy sweetness from the use of maize with substantial offsetting hop bitterness. Medium to high hop flavor from noble hops. Medium to high hop bitterness. No fruitiness or diacetyl. |
|
| Body: Medium body and rich, creamy mouthfeel. Medium to high carbonation levels. |
|
| Overall impression: A substantial Pilsner that can stand up to the classic European Pilsners, but exhibiting the native American grains and water available to German brewers who initially brewed it in the USA. Refreshing, but with the underlying malt and hops that stand out when compared to other modern American light lagers. The maize presents a unique grainy sweetness that is indicative of the style. |
|
| History: A version of Pilsner brewed in the USA by immigrant German brewers who brought the process and yeast with them when they settled in America. They worked with the ingredients that were native to America to create a unique version of the original Pilsner. This style died out with Prohibition but was resurrected as a home-brewed style by advocates of the hobby. |
|
| Commercial Examples: None. |
|
| Recipe Basics - Mash |
|---|
| This is a beer that really
benefits from an all-grain regimen owing to an adjunct level of up
to 30%. Use a good Pilsner malt as your base. I use Franklin, because it seems to have little difficulty in converting the high level of adjuncts called for in this style, also use a good quality Polenta. I'm presenting two recipes here one was kindly donated
by Grant Stott and shows how two totally differrent beers can be
made if one wishes to. |
| Grant's CAP |
| Method: Stepped Infusion Mash + Cereal Mash O.G. 1.049 F.G. 1.015 Alc % 4.5 I.B.U. 23.3 S.R.M. 5.2 Ingredients: 3.9 kg Pilsner Malt (MASH) 500 g Munich Light Malt (MASH) 1 kg Polenta (MASH) 30 g Cluster 7% BOIL 60 minutes 20 g Elsasser 5% FWH (60)minutes (see comments below) 20 g Elsasser 5% FINISHING 0 minutes Boil Time: 60-90 minutes Mashing Procedure: Mash Efficiency 65% Fairly stiff mash at 60' C for 20 min. Add cereal mash to heat mash to 67' C for further hour Notes: Cereal Mash - 300gm Pilsner Malt + 1kg of Polenta at 67'C for 30 min Boil for 45 min. Use a deep pot and a long handled spoon as boiling polenta tends to spit and can really sting your hands. Additional water will need to be added as the boil progresses. Main mash 60'C for 20 min. while boiling polenta Sparge as normal add Elsasser FWH keeping at 70-80'C for duration of sparge (30-45min.) Boil, cool and ferment as per your usual procedure for a lager. I found the wort going in to the fermenter to be the clearest that I have ever encountered and it had a head that made the hydrometer sample hard to read even after 20 min. |
| Warren's CAP |
| All-grain for 40 litres: O.G. 1.052 F.G. 1.010 ABV 5.3 IBU 37 SRM 3.3 Boil time 60 mins 7.5kg Pilsner Malt (Franklin) 2kg Polenta 20g Saaz (3.8 AAU) & 15 Perle (7.5% AAU) as FWH 25g Perle for 45 mins. 20g Saaz for 30 mins. 20g Perle for 15 mins. 40g Saaz at Knockout Yeast: Wyeast 2278 (Czech Pils) 4 Litre starter employed for 40 litres. Please note that Melbourne water is quite soft, but I used 1ml of 88% lactic in the mash and sparge water but of course YMMV. Follow my notes in main articles pertaining to mashing, boiling, cooling etc. |
| Recipe Basics - Extract |
| Extract brewers, there's
no need to make a CAP your bête noire. Using Rice Syrup Solids for
your adjunct will still give a perfectly crisp and refreshing beer,
but unfortunately rice gives a different flavour characteristic. It finishes drier with a more neutral flavour contribution than corn/maize/polenta, depriving your CAP of that lovely grainy corn-flavoured sweetness that is so characteristic of this style. Extract brewers can follow the hop numbers stated above, but perhaps lowering their IBUs by about 5%. If using a full boil volume to allow for the rice syrup giving a drier, thinner tasting beer, but if you use a partial boil bringing your finished volume up with water the stated hop additions should work out quite fine. Substitute the the 7.5kg of grain for about 5kg of your favourite **Pale** Liquid Malt Extract and about 1.5kg of rice syrup solids per 40 litre batch and this should pretty much put you in the ballpark. Also don't boil any longer than say, 60 minutes or your wort may darken significantly skewing it out of style. |
| Yeast |
| Use plenty of your favourite
Pils yeast. I've found that true pedigreed Pils strains like Wyeast
2278 Czech Pils works very well in this style. This yeast leaves a
little of that residual European sulphur character that gives the
beer a nice dry, crisp and malty sort of impression that really brings
out the hops nicely, making you want to have another one. All that said I'm not going to twist anybody's arm on this one. You may have your favourite strains that work well for you and by all means use them. As stated earlier, even a nice neutral ale yeast works nicely in this one. Don't forget to pay careful attention to your pitching and fermentation temps. |
This is a beer style that is sadly commercially extinct in America, (why???) but universally loved and quite popular with US homebrewers thanks to the tireless writings, preaching, publicity and perfecting of the style by one Mr. Jeff Renner who thankfully is a frequent contributor to the Oz-Craftbrewer digest. This style is now recognized by the AHA and BJCP. It should have a straw to deep gold color (3 to 6 SRM). Hop aroma, flavor, and bitterness should be medium to high, and the corn should be perceived but not be overwhelming.
Most US home/craftbrewers claim that it's a beer that brings the memories flooding back of those beers that their fathers and grandfathers would drink. Most likely they, (like we down here would as kids), sneakily suck the dregs out of the bottom of the bottle while dad or grandad would turn their backs with a grin and say, “Don't tell your mother or she will kill me for letting you drink beer at your age”.
American Brewers say that the corn/grainy aroma is the first thing that
ignites the senses and brings the memories flooding back to those halcyon
days. They say smell is one of the strongest senses for triggering one's
memory. I still have memories every time I smell my boiling wort of my
primary school days in the early 1970s of the aroma of boiling wort wafting
over from the long since defunct Courage Brewery in Upfield where I was
brought up as a beer-sampling ankle-biter about 15 kms north of Melbourne
(maybe this explains a few things, was Courage Crest really that nice?).
Anyway back to the story at hand!
History
Prohibition is another facet of the American beer conundrum. Although the right to manufacture and sell alcohol was restored in 1933 after 13 years of illegality, the shadow of that frightening period - in which bootleg liquor was in the hands of the Mob -hung over the brewing industry for many decades.
Only the biggest brewers survived Prohibition, able to make a living
from soft drinks, yeast production and ice cream. Thousands gave up the
ghost and more followed during the Depression of the 1930s. Brooklyn,
once the greatest brewing borough in the whole country thanks to its Dutch
settlers, lost all its producers.
With a mass market to themselves, the giants went for the hard sell and the soft option of national brands. The country lost much of its regional diversity and traditional beer styles. In particular, it lost its ales and full-flavoured, higher gravity lagers.
Brewing existed in North America before the first settlers. The Indians and Mexicans made porridge-type beers, quickly made and spiced with herbs and plants. When the British arrived on the East Coast they began to brew in order to keep their communities healthy as well as happy. Brewers from the old country were cajoled into joining the settlers in the New World. They brought with them ale yeasts while farmers grew barley and other cereals and began to nurture a hop industry.
As in Europe, beer-making moved out of the home and the hearth and into specialist factories. The first commercial brewery was set up in New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1623. Ale, porter and stock ale - a strong, long-matured beer similar to old or stale in England - were the staple products of the first brewers. George Washington brewed his own ale at Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson was a brewer and his recipe at Monticello has been preserved. Another of the great American revolutionaries, Samuel Adams in Boston, was a significant brewer. He is now immortalized by a modern craft brewery bearing his name.
From 1840 the beer scene changed dramatically and fundamentally. The second wave of immigrants, a vast army of central Europeans forsaking despotism, unemployment and the drudgery of semi-feudal rural life, brought with them the skills and the thirst to make the new cold-fermented beers perfected in Munich, Pilsen and Vienna. Lager-brewing established itself rapidly and the Germanic influence can be seen in such famous names as Anheuser-Busch, Pabst, Heileman, Schlitz and Stroh.
The original British settlers were no match for the Central Europeans. Determined to stamp their mark on the New World, they grasped all the technologies made possible by the Industrial Revolution to produce beer in enormous quantities. They used the railroad to speed their products outside their home bases and they made a Faustian pact with the new service industries of marketing and advertising to tell the American people that their beers were the best, the greatest, the kings. By the turn of the twentieth century, there were 4,000 American breweries. Before the marketing men took over with their mission to turn beer into a commodity, those breweries served cities, towns and neighbourhoods with a vast range of styles.
The twin attacks of Prohibition and the massmarket mentality caused such
havoc that by the 1980s there were just six national giants and 20 independent
regional brewers left. It has been the enthusiasm of the craft brewers
that has restored choice and style - in every sense of the word - to the
American beer scene. As Charles Finkel of the Pike Place Brewery in Seattle
says: “It is not a beer revolution, it is a renaissance. We’re going back
beyond Prohibition and the second wave of immigrants with their lager
culture to the Founding Fathers. Americans are going back to their roots.”
Materials
Malt
The most abundant ingredient in a classic American Pilsner, after water, is malt. Back in the 19th century, 6-row malt was the most commonly used in American brewing. It is stated that six row barley is the most economical to grow because the greater number of rows per head increases the per-acre yield. It is a warm-climate barley and is the type most widely grown in the United States, favoured by domestic commercial breweries because it is rich in the enzymes needed to convert the adjuncts (read, corn & rice) they employ (adjuncts can go as high as 60 percent of the extract in some U.S. brews!!!). You thought that we had problems over here eh?
While brewers appreciate 6-row malt for its high diastatic power and large proportion of husk, they also don't like it because of its high protein content and large proportion of husk! This apparent contradiction arises because while husks provide the filter through which the wort is clarified, too much of it can add astringency to the beer. The high protein content of 6-row can make the final product hazy and unstable.
To counter these problems, American brewers (many of whom were German immigrants) diluted the 6-row malt with corn. This had the pleasant side effect of giving the beer a mildly sweet corn flavor. It was not until later that corn and rice were used in larger quantities to lighten flavor and increase profits. It is probably appropriate to use corn at a rate of up to 20% of the grain bill, the remainder being 6-row Pilsner malt. Starting gravities may have ranged from 1.048 up to 1.070, but it was probably most commonly brewed in the lower end of this range.
In the U.S. six row barley tends to the malt-du-choice for classic versions
of the style. We as Australians tend to be a little limited in our choices
in this instance, though what we do have serves the purpose quite well.
Any good 2 row Pilsner Malt is more than satisfactory of your average
CAP. Speaking from experience, Franklin works and works well, converting
as much as 25% adjuncts with no visible problems and finishing with brilliant
clarity.
Hops
Now onto the subject that matters most for your average garden variety homebrewer, the subject of the good old luplin gland.
Hop rates in classic American Pilsners were probably much higher than today's mass-marketed frauds, especially in the New York area (where consumers preferred hoppy beers). Read the Brewing Techniques article; The Bushwick Pilsners: A Look at Hoppier Days as told by Ben Jankowski.
Hop flavor was likely in the medium to high range, and hop aroma would also have been quite noticeable. Hop rates were probably in the range of 30-50 IBU's before prohibition.
Cluster hops were commonly used in America in the last century, and it is not unreasonable to think that they were used in American Pilsners. The brewers, with their Germanic heritage, may very well have favored using Saaz, Hallertau or other noble hops for flavor and aroma. As you can see, this was not a boring beer!
In the traditional variation of the style the way to go was pretty much limited to the plain old Cluster Hop. Basically this was used for the bulk of the bitterness with European Noble styles for flavour and finishing.
I'm afraid speaking from a personal perspective the author has nothing but sheer disdain for the humble cluster with their overly-rustic and curranty type harshness and thinks that they should have been banished with flares and Abba records in the 70s. However, feel free to use them if you wish or any other bittering hop for initial additions (like our humble Pride of Ringwood which I don't like any more than Clusters). I'll once again I’m only speaking from my own tastes and craftbrewers being the trailblazing individuals that we are should adhere to the each to their own theory.
But keep in mind that this beer is a Pilsner and If you're like me you'll spend the extra penny and use Euro nobles exclusively. My favourite combination for this one is Perle or Northern Brewer for bittering and Saaz for finishing and first wort hopping which gives a real killer hop flavour and pleasant aroma to your CAP. By Jeff Renner's Accounts Styrian Goldings also work well as First Wort and finishing hops too.
Read on the recipe sidebar for what additions and when to use them for more details.
First Wort Hopping (By Jeff Renner)
A lost and recently rediscovered German hopping technique from a hundred years ago, first wort hopping (FWH), works very well in CAPs. While I have found no direct evidence of this technique being used in the United States, American brewers of this time were largely German born or educated, or at least strongly German influenced, and it seems likely that it was used here. George Fix first reported the German research, which was published in Brauwelt in 1995, to the homebrewing community on HBD in 1996.
In this procedure, normal late addition or aroma hops are instead added
to the first wort as soon as the kettle bottom is covered, and kept at
runoff temperature (about 80C) during the entire time of runoff. These
hops are then left in the kettle for the entire boil along with normal
bittering hops. Hop oil constituents are bound in a complex manner with
other wort constituents resulting in "a fine, unobtrusive hop aroma;
a more harmonic beer; a more uniform bitterness" than control pilsners
with conventional aroma hop additions, according to the professional taste
panels, which preferred the FWH beer overwhelmingly. I feel it gives enhanced
hop flavor as well.
Yeast
German immigrants also brought with them lager yeasts. These yeasts produced much cleaner tasting beers than the traditional ale yeasts. Many people found that they liked the new beers more than the older ales, and their popularity soared.
Use plenty of your favourite Pils yeast. I've found that true pedigreed Pils strains like Wyeast 2278 Czech Pils works very well in this style, leaving a little of that residual European sulphur character that gives the beer a nice dry, crisp and malty sort of impression that really brings out the hops nicely and makes you want to have another one. Though all of that said I'm sure that everybody has their fave lager strain and don't hesitate to use it.
But keep in mind that all of this accounts for nothing if your yeast is not handled correctly, IMO incorrect pitching temps are where a lot of budding lager brewers tend to fail miserably in their endeavours.
Pitching your yeast at say 25c and putting it in the fridge and lowering it rapidly down to 10c is not the way to do it... How would you like to be dragged out of your nice warm bed and then shoved into a cold bath? Not nice huh? Warm pitching is a surefire way for your yeast to create more diacetyl than it can later reduce in the diacetyl rest and lagering stages. A beer that tastes like movie theatre popcorn will really stand out like “dog’s balls” in this style and is not desired in the least.
Try every method within your means to get your wort down to an ideal pitching temp; between 8-14c. (couple of hints on this later on).You'll really thank yourself in the final product, slight diacetyl is OK in a Bohemian Pils like Urquell but has no place in a far lighter-bodied adjunct driven Pilsner like a CAP where it will mute everything else.
Also don't forget to use PLENTY of yeast in this type of beer.Low pitching
and fermentation temps require big starters, like pitching onto a yeast
cake from a previous batch or a 2 litre starter. This involves stepping
up your smack pack or vial at least 2 or three times into increasing volumes
of wort. I won't go into detail here as it's described pretty well in
most standard homebrewing texts.
If low pitching and fermentation temps seem a little daunting to you or you are not suitably equipped to do so; try transforming your CAP into a CACA (yep more acronyms) a Classic American Cream Ale. Do this by using a neutral ale yeast like say, Wyeast 1056, 1007 or a high temp tolerant lager yeast like Wyeast 2112. The first two mentioned are ale yeasts that if handled correctly can give a reasonably lager like character, eg; restrained fruitiness in the finished beer. It should also perform well at higher than lager temps.
Another idea if liquid cultures completely daunt you or you are strapped for time; try using a good dried lager yeast like Saflager S23 which gives a nice dry hoppy finish, (though a little lacking in malt character for my tastes). Remember try and be pretty careful as you can once again with your pitching and fermentation temps. You'll shake your own hand and slap yourself on the back in the end if you do.
Let's Brew
Mashing
This is really the part that sets the CAP apart from your average single infusion quickie. This baby really demands a Cereal or Mixed Mashing schedule; unless unlike me you can find flaked maize (if you do know where to get it let me know!!) You'll have to put in a little hard graft on this one, but I find it quite fun and a rewarding way of expanding your all-grain brewing experiences. It also renders the corn perspective of this beer virtually useless to extract or probably even to partial-mash brewers.
What I'll basically do is give a detailed description of how the cereal mashing process goes and keep in mind that the data is for my own 40 litre batches so you'll have to do the mathematics yourself to calculate for a 23 litre batch if that's all you make. Speaking for myself 23 litres just ain’t enough!
First take your 2kg of polenta and roughly about 25% of it's weight in crushed malted barley and add them to a pot with a liquor grist ratio of 3 litres per kilo of overall weight.
Mash them in at about 55c to achieve a rest of 50c. This is protein rest of sorts for the purposes of enzyme liquidification and hold this for about 20 minutes, thus making the polenta far more manageble and less liable to stick to the bottom during the boiling stage.
Boost this to sacc. temps of about 65-67c for another 20 minutes and hold, then boost to boiling and boil for 30-45 minutes, stirring frequently or you'll burn the “bejezus” out of it. Don't hesitate to add more boiling water during this stage because this stuff absorbs water big time and dries out rather quickly.Also a certain amount of care is warranted when stirring polenta, a pair of rubber gloves are probably a good idea here as polenta has a habit of spitting up out of the pot and burning one’s hands. Grant Stott concured with me on this one as well. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
At or about the time your Polenta starts to boil, dough in your main mash with a liquor/grist ratio of about 2.3 litres per kg to achieve a rest temperature of about 60c and hold it for about 20-30 minutes.
This serves no real purpose other than the fact that when the two mashes are combined it levels out to a pretty nice equalibrium of about 67c for your main sacc. rest.
When your cereal mash has boiled for 30-45 minutes and your main mash has rested at 60c for 20-30 mins. quickly, carefully and thoroughly combine your two mashes in your mash or mash/lauter tun to achieve the above-mentioned sacc. rest of 67C.
Use an iodine test, which I would say is pretty important in this sort
of mash to check for conversion after about 60 minutes, which if you used
Franklin Malt like I did will show pretty much full conversion.
Sparging
Mash out and sparge carefully as per normal methods, but DO NOT OVERSPARGE. Tannic/astringent flavours will all but ruin this delicate lager and never let your runnings drop below about 1.012, 1.014 is probably even better.
Also do not let your sparge water go over about say, 75c as this will
leach out more tannins etc.
Boiling
Boil and add hop additons as per normal, but watch out for the mother of all hot breaks in this one. Also be prepared for more than normal amounts of break material in your fermenter, this is what I found anyway.
Hints on Cooling
As stated earlier lager fermentations in general really benefit from pitching temps at about or lower than the fermentation temperatures this is my wort cooling regimen as follows.
For my main wort chiller I have 50ft of copper coil wound into an immersion chiller by a fellow club member of whom I owe a debt of gratitude and probably a fair amount of homebrew too.
My first twenty minutes of cooling is done with the immersion chiller and straight tap water.
Step 2 is to connect my main immersion chiller to another smaller immersion chiller in a bucket containing a slurry of water, crushed ice and rock salt. I run the tap water through the chiller in the bucket of ice, then through the immersion chiller getting the temp down to about 18-20c.
IMO this still is far from ideal for lager pitching so I employ a third step as follows and this really works well folks.I have a small aquarium/pond pump which I put into a fresh slurry of water, ice and rock salt and pump this directly through the main immersion chiller. This on a good day will get my wort down to about 14c and pretty much near enough to suitable pitching temperatures for your average lager.
Thirty minutes or so of this treatment seems to be enough although your mileage may vary. It also has the added advantage of saving you water because the water just passes through the chiller and back into the slurry via the output hose.
A serviceable pump can be purchased from some homebrew stores and virtually
all aquarium and hydroponic suppliers for about $80-$100 dollars and more
than pay for themselves if you brew quite a bit of lager. Also works a
treat for getting the Ales down to a good pitching temp in the warmer
months as well.
Okay folks enough of my verbal diarrhea, it’s time to get cracking and find out for yourself!
Cheers - Warren
References
Special thanks to Grant Stott for his recipe contribution.
Renner, J. Zymurgy, Sept./Oct. 2000
De Piro, G. Malted Barley Appreciation Society Newsletter Vol. 4, No. 3, March 1997
Noonan, G.J. New Brewing Lager Beer, Brewers Publications, 1996
Protz, R. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Beer, Carlton Books Limited, 1998.