March 2, 2010 - Munich Helles

So I really liked a Stoudt's Gold that I bought as part of a mixed case last time I visited my folks in Pennsylvania. This beer is a Munich Helles style lager and is the opposite of a Pilsner, it is malt accented and hops only help balance the malt. It is a somewhat sweet (from pilsner malt) malty light lager. Since I enjoyed the decoction process the week before, I decided to see if I could find some undermodified pilsner malt for a batch. While picking up Dredhop entries in Ft Collins, I found that they had a sack of undermodified bohemian pilsner malt. I was off and running.

This time I used 18 lbs of Bohemian Pilsner malt, that's it. I was trying for the double decoction again. I doughed-in 4.5 gallons and rested at 98 for 10 minutes before infusing another 4.5 gallons to raise the temperature to 122 for a protein rest. After 15 minutes I pulled the first decoction of 3 gallons of thick mash. This time I held the decoction at 150 for 25 minutes before taking it to a boil. I then boiled it for 10 minutes before returning it to the main mash. This only raised my main mash temperature to 131, so I pulled 4 gallons of medium thick mash and quickly raised it to a boil. I was afraid I was converting all of my protein and would have no head retention. After 15 minutes the decoction was boiling and when I returned it my main mash temperature stabilized at 149. Here I allowed the mash to fully convert, about 40 minutes. At this point I pulled 4 gallons of mostly liquid and boiled. I added this back to the main mash for a mash out step to 168. Again I stired the mash and allowed it to settle for 10 minutes to construct a good filter bed. I again collected 13 gallons to allow for a 90 + minute boil. While waiting for the kettle to boil, I examined the grain bed. I was amazed at the slimy protein layer on top with finer grains getting larger the deeper I went in the grain bed. Stiring the mash and allowing it to settle for 10 to 15 minutes as suggested in Noonan's book seems to be working quite well.

I boiled vigorously for 90 minutes, adding 1.25 oz of Hallertau and 1 oz of Saaz at 60 minutes. Again at flame out I stirred for about 5 minutes and let the hot break settle for another 10 minutes. I cooled the wort to 58 and had an OG of 1.054, around 80% efficiency. I allowed it to cool in my fridge to 50 overnight and transfered off the cold break in the morning.

This time I chilled my starter (5 days old) to 50 prior to pitching and decanted the liquid off my 2000ml starter. I had about 400ml of yeast slurry that I pitched into the batch and was in low krausen within 24 hours at 48 degrees. Sampling this beer 8 days later, the gravity is at 1.030 and it has a nice sweet pilsner malt flavor with no esters. Tasting the decanted starter beer, I will never pitch this liquid again. If you are trying to identify what fruity esters taste like, I would suggest sampling the liquid portion of a yeast starter. I hope this will complete primary fermentation in the next week and I only plan to lager this one for 4 to 6 weeks at 35. With luck this one will make the May meeting.