Homebrew Recipe: Pil-Ale Ice
Friday, January 23, 2009 at 4:12PM Here's a happy accident. I recently brewed a batch of beer and only had access to pilsner base malt. I cobbled together an all-grain batch using the following:
12lbs Pilsner malt
1lb Crystal malt (20L)
1oz Kent Gouldings hops (pellets) -60min
1oz Fuggles hops (whole) - 30min
1/2 oz leftover homegrown Chinook hops (whole) -15min
SafAle American Ale yeast (dry)
I mashed for 90min at 154° and original gravity hit 1.050 despite sub 60% efficiency.
It fermented in the Ferminator for two weeks at 66-68° to a final gravity of 1.014 leaving about 4.7%abv. I kegged it, force carbonated it and served it for the first time just before Christmas. Its quite a tasty brew. Even one of my my bud light drinking friends asked for a second glass. Very pronounced pilsner type aroma with a little wheat-like fruitiness up front. The beer finishes surprisingly dry with a nice hop finish. The beer turned out great, but the appearance was cloudy (which makes it look like a wheat beer too). The head retention just plain sucked.
Then, I accidently froze the beer keg while converting my mini fridge to a kegerator! I was pissed and figured the batch was doomed. After thawing the keg and re-carbonating it I found that the head retention vastly improved and the beer cleared up considerably after the first few pours. My assumption is that some of the particulate matter and yeast that didn't flocculate was shocked to the bottom by the freezing process and was removed in the first few pours. I can't explain the difference in head retention but it is dramatic. Any ideas?
The beer is quite tasty with a more subtle fruitiness. Significantly improved by chance!
Cheers,
D
Beer, Homebrewing, recipe in All-Grain, Beer, Homebrewing, recipe
Reader Comments (3)
I believe what happened when you froze and thawed your keg is what is call the "cold break." Many brewers cool their beer to 32* after fermentation ends, and before they keg. At this temperature, the left over yeasties die off and settle to the bottom, and it clears up the beer.
Now take this with a grain of salt; I am no expert, and I personally don't have a kegging setup (although i'm working on that) I just read a lot on the forums.
~neill
p.s.- nice website!
Welcome to the site Neill! The cold break explanation makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
Hope you get keggin' soon, it beats the heck out of washing bottles!
-D
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