Most beer drinkers know that quality beer is made from four ingredients: malt, hops, yeast and water.
Perfect Pilsener
I remember this recipe as the first of my beers. This is a classic pilsener recipe. If you are mashing and have the ability to ferment at lager temperatures, you should definitely give this one a try.
Ingredients
10 lbs Two-row Malt (American or European)
0.75 lb Crystal malt - Light (10-40 deg L) German
0.25 lb Cara-Pils malt
0.375 lb Wheat malt
0.25 lb Munich malt
1.0 oz Saaz* (5.0% aa) - boiled 60 minutes
1.5 oz Saaz - boiled 30 minutes
0.5 oz Saaz - boiled 10 minutes
0.5 oz Saaz - boiled 5 minutes
1.5 oz Saaz - boiled Dry hopped in Secondary Fermenter
1 tsp Calcium chloride was used in mash water.
Wyeast Munich Lager Yeast (2308) -- 2 packages in 2 quarts of starter.
Irish Moss was used in the last 10 minutes of the boil.
Procedure
The mash for this beer included a protein rest at 130 deg F (a bit high) for 30 minutes and a saccharification rest at 154 deg F for one hour. If you can do a protein rest at 122 deg F or so, its not a bad idea, but if you can't, don't let that stop you. Just do an infusion mash at 154 deg F and go from there. My mash water volume was 15 quarts (3.75 gallons) and the sparge water volume was 5 gallons.
Total boil time was 100 minutes, with the hop additions beginning after the first 40 minutes of the boil.
Fermentation was conducted at 45 to 48 degrees for five days and then raised to 55 to 58 degrees for another 10 days.
The dry hops were added during the lagering phase which was four weeks at 35 to 40 deg F.
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