Boulevard Pilsner clone

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Rugger1978
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Boulevard Pilsner clone

#1 Post by Rugger1978 » Wed May 18, 2011 11:23 am

I'm working on trying to develop a light session drinking Pilsner lager that's similar to Boulevard's Pilsner because I know our lady friends like it. I was hoping you could look over my idea and maybe provide some suggestion for anything I need to change or if I"m way off. This is my first beer I've ever designed.

To start I checked out the information provided for the beer by Boulevard:

Malts:
Cara 50
Munich malt
Pale malt
Pilsner malt

Hops:
Perle
Saaz
Tradition

Color (EBC) 9.5
Bitterness (IBUs) 16
Original Gravity (Plato) 10.3
Terminal Gravity (Plato) 2.0
Alcohol (ABV) 4.8%
CO2 - Bottles 2.6 vol. (5.1 g/L)


So here's my rough draft for a recipe for a 10gallon batch. I'm shooting for a 1.048 OG as that should give me somewhere around the 4.8 abv.

Base Malts (19 lbs of grain should approximately give me a 1.048 og if I did my calc right):
German Pilsner Malt - 15 lbs (80% of the grain bill)
Rah 2-row Pale Malt - 4 lbs (20% of the grain bill)

Speciality Grains:
16 oz of Weyerman Carahell

Single infusion Mash at 150 for 90 minutes. A few of the recipes I've noticed for this style of beer in my clone book use a 30 minute infusion at 122 and then a 60 minute infusion at 150. Any reason I should do that?

Hops:
Boulevard mentions that the IBU's is 16 so I messed around using Beersmith trying to put the hops they mentioned they used in an order which would give me approximately the 16 ibu's. Saaz is a flavor/aroma hop so I put it last. Based on an hour boil at 12 gallon start the below hop schedule should give me approximately 15.9 IBU's

1oz Tradition at 45mins
1oz Pearle at 15 mins
1oz Saaz at 1 min

And then for yeast:
Wyeast Pilsen Lager yeast 2007

Okay how did I do? If I totally got this f'd up, please let me know, lol
Jared Rudy
Fat Back Brewing
On Tap: Irish Red Ale, Vienna Lager, American Wheat, Belgian Triple, Oatmeal Stout, Saison, Hard Cider
Primary: Oktoberfest-Marzen
Kegged/Ageing: Russian Imperial Stout, Oktoberfest-Marzen
Next Brew: Vienna Lager or an IPA

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kevputo
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Re: Boulevard Pilsner clone

#2 Post by kevputo » Wed May 18, 2011 2:41 pm

Normally I'd leave this to the experts, but I'm a bit bored at work today. I guess this will serve as a test for me, since I've been researching the "why's" of AG over the last few months myself. Someone jump in and correct me if I'm wrong here:

The rest at 122F (protein rest) should improve clarity, but also decrease head retention. Most suggestions I've seen are to keep this short (maybe 15 minutes) unless you are using a lot of unmodified grain like wheat, oats, or unmalted barley. Otherwise head retention really takes a hit. I recently did a 30 minute protein rest in a batch with unmalted wheat as 50% of the grain bill, and it came out suprisingly clear with a somewhat weak head.

I'm still not familiar enough with the unique flavors of different malt varieties, so I won't even try to comment on the Carahell.

I didn't see boil time mentioned, but it's recommended to do a 90 minute boil when using Pilsner as the bulk of your grain bill, to prevent some off flavor from DMS or some other ominous sounding 3 letter acronym. The flavor is something like cooked/boiled vegetables. Quick cooling at the end of the boil helps with that as well.

As far as the hops schedule, adding at 45 minutes seems odd, was that part of one of the recipes you have or are you just trying to adjust the time to use the full 1 oz packet? Seems like there's a "no-hops-zone" between 60 and 30 minutes in all of the recipes I've seen, but I don't know why. My guess is you lose everything but the bitterness after 30 minutes anyway. Seems like Angelo mentioned something along these lines at the March Meeting when discussing IPAs/APAs. Can anyone enlighten me on this?

Unless your recipe calls for a 45 minute addition, I'd probably work the other way and figure out # of oz's needed at 60 minutes to hit the IBU target, and save the rest of the 1 oz packet for the next batch. You could probably add even earlier, depending on how soon your hot break occurs.

Hopefully that was somewhat helpful, and someone else can confirm that I know what I'm talking about.
Kevin Hansen

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Rugger1978
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Re: Boulevard Pilsner clone

#3 Post by Rugger1978 » Wed May 18, 2011 3:17 pm

Hmm that is helpful actually. Looking at recipes in my clone book for pilsners, almost all of them use either Pilsner Malt or Pale Malt, but not both. Alot of them use and adjunct like rice. But they all require 90 minute boils. So based on that and your information then I could adjust the hop schedule as follows:

1 oz Tradition at 90 mins for Bittering contributing 11.9 IBU
.5 oz Perle at 15 mins for Some Bittering and Flavor contributing 3.7 IBU
1.0 oz Saaz at 2 min for Aroma contributing 0.6 IBU
Total IBU then is 16.2

However, even though in their list of ingredients they mention that they use Pale Malt, I'm wondering if I should use just Pilsner Malt and some Crystal 10L or Carahell (11L).

So maybe 18lb of Pilsner Malt + 1/2lb Carahell mashed at 150 for 90 minutes.

Getting closer?
Jared Rudy
Fat Back Brewing
On Tap: Irish Red Ale, Vienna Lager, American Wheat, Belgian Triple, Oatmeal Stout, Saison, Hard Cider
Primary: Oktoberfest-Marzen
Kegged/Ageing: Russian Imperial Stout, Oktoberfest-Marzen
Next Brew: Vienna Lager or an IPA

Steve Brown
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Re: Boulevard Pilsner clone

#4 Post by Steve Brown » Wed May 18, 2011 3:47 pm

Good learning opportunity! I'm not at all the expert here, but I'll address what I've heard. As the experts weigh in, I'll learn more, too.

On the pilsner/DMS thing - I've heard the same regarding a 90 minute boil for pilsner grain/extract. The DMS (often described to me as a "canned corn" or faint garlic-like aroma) calls for a longer boil; also, use a completely open boil with no lid partially covering the kettle as the DMS will condense and drop back in.

The majority of what I've read also agrees with what you say about hop additions. Basically, boiling more than 20 minutes leaves only bittering properties; 5 to 20 minutes leaves flavoring properties, and less than five minutes boil leaves aromatics. Boiling more than 20 minutes and less than 60 supposedly is a waste of bittering potential and nothing more. There is also some counter-opinion that other additions round out the flavor profile.

I guess I just disagree with the majority of what I've read in this respect. My experience (and I haven't done robust statistical experimentation!) is that I can tell the flavor difference with a 45 minute and 30 minute addition as part of the total IBUs. Maybe it's all psychological. It'd be straight-forward enough to run an experiment: Brew the exact same recipe with only one change. Use two different hops with similar %AA as the 60 minute addition, e.g., Magnum (reputation as a clean bittering hop) and Galena or Sorachi Ace (citrusy/lemony, respectively according to descriptions by Hops Direct; other sources' descriptions vary!). If there's a flavor/aroma/any difference, it would be due to the hop (assuming all other things being equal, do it multiple times, double-blind tasting, ... ).

Like I said, this is just my opinion based on batch-to-batch memory, which could well be faulty. Personal laziness, space considerations, and to a lesser extent time constraints have prevented me from running side-by-side comparisons of hop additions, adjunct grain differences, yeast differences, etc. There can be *only one* change from batch-to-batch! But I try to talk to others, sample lots (!), make some notes and go from there.

R,DW,HAHB.

--Steve
Life begins at 100. 100 IBUs, that is!

"Hard work may not kill you - but why take the chance." -- B. Franklin

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