Brewer’s Notes
There may not be a better beer style for showcasing freshly harvested hops than West Coast Pilsner. In this recipe the delicate volatiles of the fresh Simcoe cones are retained via a mellow cold fermentation with our Fresh Andechs lager yeast. A moderate dry hop adds aromatic depth while high minerality keeps flavor crisp and snappy.
Recipe Specs
- OG: 12.8°P
- FG: 2.5°P
- IBUs: 40
- ABV: 5.5%
Malt/Grain Bill
- 95% Sheuma Pilsner
- 5% Best Chit Malt
Hops & Additions Schedule
- 10 g/bbl Calcium Chloride to the mash
- 0.5 g/bbl Calcium Sulfate to the mash
- 0.75 g/bbl Calcium Sulfate at boil start
- 20 g/bbl Calcium Chloride at boil start
- 0.6 g/bbl Magnesium Sulfate at boil start
- 0.5 g/bbl Sodium Chloride at boil start
- 0.2 lb/bbl Simcoe T90 at 60 minutes
- 0.1 lb/bbl Simcoe T90 at 30 minutes
- 12.5 lb/bbl Fresh Simcoe in the mash tun
- 1 g/bbl Zinc Sulfate Heptahydrate to the fermentor
- 1 lb/bbl Simcoe Cryo at dry hop
- 1 lb/bbl Simcoe T90 at dry hop
- 1 lb/bbl Mosaic T90 at dry hop
Yeast
Berkeley Yeast Fresh™ Andechs Lager
Directions
Mash at 152°F. Add the calcium chloride and calcium sulfate. Target a mash pH of 5.45.
Vorlauf until the wort runs very clear after which you may begin to lauter into the kettle. If you have the ability to acidify your sparge water, add some phosphoric acid to bring the pH to 5.0. This will help buffer the pH rise and prevent astringency pickup from the grain husk. Try to not let your last runnings go above a pH of 5.7.
Boil for 60 minutes, adding salts and hops to the schedule. Clean out the mash tun and add the fresh Simcoe hops to the vessel. Keep the screens in the tun. You are creating a large hop back for steeping the fresh hops.
At the end of the boil, lower your wort temp below 200°F either by running through the heat exchanger or by adding filtered city water or cold liquor. Go as low as 170°F. Then transfer the wort to the whirlpool. After a 10-minute rest, transfer the wort onto the fresh hops. Continuously push the hops below the surface of the wort with the mash hoe ensuring total saturation of the cones. After the entirety of the wort is transferred and the hops cones have completely turned brown, begin to transfer the wort to the fermentor.
Chill the wort to 49°F, aerate to 12 ppm, pitch your yeast (pitch rate: 1.5⁶/mL/°P), and set your tank to 51°F. Add the zinc.
Hold fermentation at 51°F. When the beer is at 5°P, raise the tank temperature by 2°F each day until the set temp is 60°F so that dry hopping will happen at a warm temperature. This is not for diacetyl clean up because our Fresh strains produce very little diacetyl. Remove the yeast for 2 days then begin the dry hopping process.
Add the dry hops. After the hop addition, cap the tank and bring the CO₂ pressure to 10 psi, pushing the floating hops down into the beer. After an hour remove the pressure. The following day, rouse the hops from the bottom of the cone. After 48 hours on hops, begin to shave off the spent hops daily from the cone.
When the beer smells free of acetaldehyde and any residual sulfur (typically within a day or two after dry hop) crash the tank to 32°F. You do not need to worry about performing a forced diacetyl test as all of our Fresh strains produce levels of diacetyl that are far below flavor threshold.
Shave hops and trub for 24 hours. Carbonate to 2.6 volumes and clarify as needed with biofine or filtration. Leave cold for several days and then package.
