It seems like a good idea to have a large amount of base malt laying around now that I finally have a grain mill. I’m thinking of picking up a bag of Crisp Maris Otter for any British beers I want to brew (think biscuity) so that all I need is specialty grains. It keeps the costs down.

Now if only I could get moving on culturing a few key strains of yeast and growing aroma and flavor hops I wouldn’t have to buy much of anything when it comes time to brew.

I tore into the bag this weekend for a traditional Bohemian Pilsener:

12 lb Weyermann Pilsener malt
0.75 lb Carapils (dextrine malt for head retention)

Mash at 154 degrees for 60 minutes, collect enough to end up with six gallons after a 90 minute boil.

1.75 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 60 minutes for 20.3 IBU
2.25 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 30 minutes for 13.3 IBU
1 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 10 minutes for 2.3 IBU
1 oz Saaz (3.2% AA) @ 0 minutes for 0 IBU

WLP800 Pilsener (Urquell) in an active 2L starter (1.3L pitched)

Ferment at 52 degrees. I could only get 54 in the basement and the lager fridge is in lagering mode at 34 degrees right now.

The mash went well, though the grain looked a little more crushed than usual. It was my first crush with the new mill, the Barley Crusher, which was a breeze to use. It came fully assembled, you just stick in on the top of a 5 gallon bucket, hook up the drill, fill the hopper and let it rip. It’s fast and clean with no dust at all.

I definitely learned a lesson about whole hops as well. It was the first time I haven’t used pellets and I underestimated quite how much boiling wort would absorb into the hops, especially 6 full ounces. I only made a fermenter volume of about 4.75 gallons and had to top it off with some water.

The OG before the water addition was about 1.068, 12 points higher than it should have been, so I diluted it to 1.056 with three quarts of cold water. This also brought the temp closer to the target pitching temperature.

The WLP800 should attenuate down to around 1.014, or 75%, for an ABV of about 5.8% and a nice Saazy hop flavor and aroma.