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Author Topic: German Pils - hop and malt questions  (Read 7723 times)

Offline redzim

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2014, 01:02:12 pm »
FYI

Jever, Germany water profile:

Ca: 60   
Mg: 5   
Na: 15   
SO4: 75   
Cl: 30   
HCO3: 105

The alkalinity would have to be neutralized for use in a G Pils, but the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels give you an idea of an appropriate balance and intensity for those ions.

Just re-reading this thread, and noticing this statement from martin. Any idea how one would go about neutralizing the alkalinity, assuming I am building this water from the ground up starting with distilled?

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2014, 01:30:56 pm »
FYI

Jever, Germany water profile:

Ca: 60   
Mg: 5   
Na: 15   
SO4: 75   
Cl: 30   
HCO3: 105

The alkalinity would have to be neutralized for use in a G Pils, but the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels give you an idea of an appropriate balance and intensity for those ions.

Just re-reading this thread, and noticing this statement from martin. Any idea how one would go about neutralizing the alkalinity, assuming I am building this water from the ground up starting with distilled?

if you are starting with distilled you won't have the alkalinity to neutralize.
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Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2014, 01:33:00 pm »
FYI

Jever, Germany water profile:

Ca: 60   
Mg: 5   
Na: 15   
SO4: 75   
Cl: 30   
HCO3: 105

The alkalinity would have to be neutralized for use in a G Pils, but the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels give you an idea of an appropriate balance and intensity for those ions.

Just re-reading this thread, and noticing this statement from martin. Any idea how one would go about neutralizing the alkalinity, assuming I am building this water from the ground up starting with distilled?

if you are starting with distilled you won't have the alkalinity to neutralize.

+1 .  Or RO.
Jon H.

Offline redzim

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2014, 01:38:05 pm »
if you are starting with distilled you won't have the alkalinity to neutralize.

OK so when shooting for this water profile, I can just adjust to get my minerals correct, and not worry about the alkalinity?

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2014, 01:46:39 pm »
if you are starting with distilled you won't have the alkalinity to neutralize.

OK so when shooting for this water profile, I can just adjust to get my minerals correct, and not worry about the alkalinity?

you will have to worry about any alkalinity you add with the salts but more or less, yeah, no worries about high levels of alkalinity when working with distilled or RO water.
"Creativity is the residue of wasted time"
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Offline mabrungard

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #20 on: January 24, 2014, 06:34:59 am »
FYI

Jever, Germany water profile:

Ca: 60   
Mg: 5   
Na: 15   
SO4: 75   
Cl: 30   
HCO3: 105

The alkalinity would have to be neutralized for use in a G Pils, but the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels give you an idea of an appropriate balance and intensity for those ions.

Just re-reading this thread, and noticing this statement from martin. Any idea how one would go about neutralizing the alkalinity, assuming I am building this water from the ground up starting with distilled?

A portion of the alkalinity is knocked down by pre-boiling. That can bring the bicarb down to the 60 ppm range. The rest of the alkalinity is neutralized with lactic acid (acid malt in Germany). AHA members will see more of this approach in the Mar/Apr 2014 Zymurgy.

If starting with low alkalinity water, neutralization to the degree above would not be required.
Martin B
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Offline redzim

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #21 on: January 24, 2014, 07:03:08 am »
FYI

Jever, Germany water profile:

Ca: 60   
Mg: 5   
Na: 15   
SO4: 75   
Cl: 30   
HCO3: 105

The alkalinity would have to be neutralized for use in a G Pils, but the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels give you an idea of an appropriate balance and intensity for those ions.

Just re-reading this thread, and noticing this statement from martin. Any idea how one would go about neutralizing the alkalinity, assuming I am building this water from the ground up starting with distilled?

A portion of the alkalinity is knocked down by pre-boiling. That can bring the bicarb down to the 60 ppm range. The rest of the alkalinity is neutralized with lactic acid (acid malt in Germany). AHA members will see more of this approach in the Mar/Apr 2014 Zymurgy.

If starting with low alkalinity water, neutralization to the degree above would not be required.

So if I were to try to emulate this using BrunWater, I would start with distilled (or my H2O diluted w/ distilled), add various salts to get the mineral concentration as above, and then adjust the pH if necessary by either adding lactic acid in line 26 of the "Water Adjustment" tab or by adding acidulated malt to the grain bill in the "Mash Acidification" tab? And of course if starting with 100% distilled, I am finally understanding that the acid (either lactic or acid malt) is uneccessary?

I'm definitely looking forward to your article; just renewed my AHA membership....

red

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #22 on: January 24, 2014, 08:29:32 am »
FYI

Jever, Germany water profile:

Ca: 60   
Mg: 5   
Na: 15   
SO4: 75   
Cl: 30   
HCO3: 105

The alkalinity would have to be neutralized for use in a G Pils, but the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels give you an idea of an appropriate balance and intensity for those ions.

Just re-reading this thread, and noticing this statement from martin. Any idea how one would go about neutralizing the alkalinity, assuming I am building this water from the ground up starting with distilled?

A portion of the alkalinity is knocked down by pre-boiling. That can bring the bicarb down to the 60 ppm range. The rest of the alkalinity is neutralized with lactic acid (acid malt in Germany). AHA members will see more of this approach in the Mar/Apr 2014 Zymurgy.

If starting with low alkalinity water, neutralization to the degree above would not be required.

So if I were to try to emulate this using BrunWater, I would start with distilled (or my H2O diluted w/ distilled), add various salts to get the mineral concentration as above, and then adjust the pH if necessary by either adding lactic acid in line 26 of the "Water Adjustment" tab or by adding acidulated malt to the grain bill in the "Mash Acidification" tab? And of course if starting with 100% distilled, I am finally understanding that the acid (either lactic or acid malt) is uneccessary?

I'm definitely looking forward to your article; just renewed my AHA membership....

red

with low alkalinity water the lactic acid might still be necessary just not as much.
"Creativity is the residue of wasted time"
-A Einstein

"errors are [...] the portals of discovery"
- J Joyce

Offline denny

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #23 on: January 24, 2014, 09:10:45 am »
I approach it by cutting my tap water 30% with distilled which gets the alkalinity down.  Then I add minerals back to get what I want and adjust pH with lactic acid.
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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Offline gmac

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #24 on: January 25, 2014, 07:27:44 am »
When I brewed this, I used all distiller and added salts but since I've gone to 1/3 tap to 2/3 distilled and am fairly happy with the results.
No idea what my alkalinity is but I know it's high because the whole area is high with a limestone bedrock. But even with all distilled I have to add a touch of phosphoric to get the pH right.

Offline redzim

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #25 on: February 01, 2014, 08:03:58 am »
I want to brew a Jever style Pils next week. I plan to...

1) use 17.25 lbs Pilsner and 2.00 lbs Flaked Barley
2) start with 100% distilled water and adjust minerals (gypsum, epson, NaCl, and CaCl) to get very close to the Jever profile Denny listed above (my Ca will be high 30s, not low 50s, but everything else is spot on). Of course I won't have any alkalinity in this water
3) BrunWater predicts this will give a mash pH of 5.6, so I'll add 0.6 lbs of acidulated malt (basically 3% of the grist) to drop that to 5.3

sound good? I have a hop schedule I like (all Mittelfruh to around 45 IBU) and I like Hochkurz decoctions at 146F and 158F for my Pilsners.  (go ahead and tell me a decotion is a waste of time, but I kind of like doing them. the aromas are marvelous)

red

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #26 on: February 01, 2014, 08:22:50 am »
That looks good Red. What hop schedule have you settled on?

For anyone that questions the flaked barley, that is to simulate Chit Malt. Jeff Renner gave me that trick some time ago. I works, helps dry the beer out.
Jeff Rankert
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Offline euge

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #27 on: February 01, 2014, 08:28:34 am »
I've been using all pils malt for nearly all my beers lately. Procedure is to add a gallon of my hard tap-water to 14-15 gallons of RO and end up with an overall ppm of 60 or less. Ideally, I'd like to emulate that soft water to make some czech pils.
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Offline redzim

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Re: German Pils - hop and malt questions
« Reply #28 on: February 01, 2014, 08:48:57 am »
That looks good Red. What hop schedule have you settled on?


Using 4.0% Hallertauer Mittelfruh and aiming for an OG of 1.050 after a 90min boil, I plan to do 3 IBU (or 0.75 oz) at FWH, 40 IBU (6.5 oz) at 60 min, 2 IBU (about half an oz) at 15 min for flavor, and about a half an ounce at 1min or flameout, for a hint in the aroma. So about 45 IBU altogether.  (I've done this schedule with all Tettnang, all Hallertauer, and a 50/50 mix, depending on what I have in hand. I didn't like the all-Tett so much, but the 50/50 and all Hallertau are great.)