Good evening,
I'm making a Peroni clone for charity. (A woman bid to fight hunger, for me to make a beer for her husband and he loves Peroni and drinks it while in Italy.)
I did some research and saw some recipes in two homebrew forums, but wanted to stick to the details for Peroni, in my clone:
Brewed by: Birra Peroni Industriale S.p.A.
Country of origin: Italy
Style: Euro Pale Lager
Alcohol by volume (ABV): 5.10%
SRM: 2-4
IBU: 24
QUESTION 1: I made my yeast starter using Wyeast, 2007 Pilsen Lager, smack pack. Should I have used Bohemian Lager 2124? (I have time to make that yeast starter since I want to brew on Sunday, June 17.
QUESTION 2: Please take a moment to review my recipe. Thumbs up or thumbs down? If thumbs down, what would you change? (Fyi, I did build the recipe in brewtoad and hit close to the Peroni profile.)
Grain Bill:
1 lb Briess 2 Row Brewers Malt
3.15 lbs Maillard Malts Pilsen Malt Extract Syrup
4 lbs DME: Extra light
8.945 oz DME: Light
32oz (2.08 lbs) Belgian Candy Syrup
11.6 ozs Briess Carapils
Irish moss
2 oz of US Saaz
1 oz of German Hallertau
I'm making 5.5 gallons
2. Put two pots of water on to boil: Kettle 4 gallons and 2nd kettle 2 gallons.
a. Bring 4 gal to 160° F and place 11.6 oz of carapils in water and let steep for 30 minutes until 170° F is reached. Take out bag and let wort drain into pot.
b. Bring 2 gallons of water to 150° F. Place corn and 2-row in muslin bag. Immerse and let it steep for 30 minutes and then let the liquid drain.
c. Add liquid from corn and 2-row steep to main kettle.
3. START OF 90 MIN BREW SCHEDULE
4. Add all DME and stir until completely dissolved. Add 1 oz of Saaz hops.
5. Mash at 148 F for 45 minutes. Stir gently.
6. Add 3.15 lbs of Pilsen extract.
7. Bring to a boil for 15 minutes. Add Irish Moss
8. Add 1 oz Hallertau and wort chiller and keep boiling for another 15 mins.
9. Add final 1 oz of Saaz, Candi sugar, continue rolling boil, stirring vigorously to make sure candi isn’t scorching.
10. Cool wort to 50 F.
11. Add cooled wort to carboy.
12. Add yeast starter. (I'll decant the spent wort after crashing it in the frig overnight.)
QUESTION 3: I live in NYC and have the water report. For my area hardness(grains/gallon CaC03 is 6.8, semi hard, pH: 6.8- 8.2 (they note my neighborhood's sample tested high, so I'm going to assume a pH of 8.2.) They say the water used to brew Peroni is soft.
Should I just swap a gallon of my main kettle water for distilled water and call it a day, or should I try to adjust my water to soften it to a Pilsner?
That's the full set of questions. She donated $225 to charity for this beer, so I really want to hit a home run on this one.
Side notes, if this helps: I have all the equipment I need for the lagering, kegging and bottling process. I own the Brewjacket system and can lager at step temps without issue. I own an oxygen stone to give the beer a good shot of oxygen at the start of fermentation. I own the filtration system down to 1 micron to give it an excellent appearance. I will force carbonate it and then bottle it.