# Caramunich I & Czech Pilsners



## marky_mark (22/8/06)

Hey Guys,

I've been considering using a small percentage (2-4%) of Weyermann CaraMunich I malt in a czech pilsner to see if i can achieve some of that delicate sweetness whilst still using traditional german malts. I'd like to use some CaraHell, german light crystal equivalent but can't get it in Melbourne, as far as im aware... The other option would be to use some Joe White Light Crystal but I dont think that will give me the maltiness I want... and again with the desire to use German grain.

So...possible Grain Bill:

95% Weyermann Pilsner Malt
3% Weyermann CaraMunich I
2% Weyermann Acidulated Malt

What are your thoughts, will this give me a flavour profile similar to that of pilsner urqell or am I looking at too roasted a grain for this style?


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## wessmith (22/8/06)

Hi Marky_Mark, the Caramunich 1 ia a crystal malt and will be bit too full on for a pils - especially a Czech pils. The magic ingredient is Melanoidin malt which is NOT a crystal malt. The other alternative would be to use some Weyermann Munich 1 or JW Light Munich at around the 3% mark

Wes


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## Whistlingjack (22/8/06)

I've been using Weyermann Carapils at 5% in my Bohemian Pilsner. Can't tell you anything about it yet as it is still lagering.

The Weyermann website lists pilsner as one of the uses for this malt.


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## marky_mark (22/8/06)

It is my aim to try a pilsner with some melanoidin malt in the grain bill, around 3%, but I dont know it this will give me that caramel/toffee sweetness that the czech style is famous for. It will give some nice maltiness but that is only half the picture...in my opinion.

Does anyone have any experience that they could share to help me out here...

Thanks.

Cheers,

Mark


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## Stoodoo (22/8/06)

I am still yet to get hold of the complete recipe, however I have tried a homebrewed pilsener side by side with Pilsner Urquell, and to bt totally honest, the ONLY difference between them that I could distinguish, was that the homebrew held its head longer. Flavourwise I couldn't tell them apart. My brothers workmate who brewed this AG wonderbrew thinks he may have "lost" his promash recipe somewhere, somehow   :angry: I have been told that one of the grains used in this recipe is Weyermann munich type 1 malt. I am still hoping, praying....that I can get a copy of this recipe. I'll update you if I get hold of it.

Cheers


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## Mr Bond (22/8/06)

Stoodoo said:


> My brothers workmate who brewed this AG wonderbrew thinks he may have "lost" his promash recipe somewhere, somehow



Sounds like he's stalling cos he doesn't want his recipe out there on the internet b4 all the brew comps this year.


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## Ray_Mills (22/8/06)

Oh a Czech Pils
What a great beer to drink and enjoy!
Must be one of the best beers in the world today, probably the best beer in the world and the biggest challange for the most advanced homebrewers world wide.
Its really not the recipe that much but how you brew this beer. I have tried and tried and tried to get this style right and i have come to the conclusion we as home brewers will never get it right unless you have some magic in your brewery.
It all boils down to the ingredients available to the Czech brewer and what we can get our hands on. I was very excited when Wyermann came out with their Czech Pils malt and thought gee i have the magic malt to make this style.
I firstly found the malt more like a Vienna malt, not a pils malt at all. The beers came out a lot darker than expected and was really out of style in the colour range. I have talked to some of the countries most advanced brewers and they say this style is a tough one to get right. At state and national Competition levels a Czech pils style beer will not be there in the winning circle.
Over the years of brewing this style, I have come to the conclusion its all in the hops, I have got the grain bill ok with Pils malt, and some Carapils doing a single decoction. I have yet to find a knoble hop to bitter this beer without adding to much flavor. Saaz hops in flavor and late additions are fine.
Its the bittering hops that has me buggered and I think I might try some Perle as I have found this a very good knoble bittering hop.
This beer needs to be made with a decoction mash, fermented at 10C for 3 weeks, rest for 4 days at 20c, racked and lagered at 2c for at least 3 months minimum. This alone will make it a challange and then will take 6 to 8 weeks to carbonate natural in your bottles at 20c, longer if you have brewed it in the winter.
If any brewer out there has the answer to this style tell us all, but enter your beers first to a good competition and get some feedback. 
If you feel i have missed something i dont know contact me.
Cheers
Ray


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## matti (22/8/06)

WE DON'T have the water to match urquell even though you may have the ingredients.
My last lager i used 2 row european malt and crystal malt and Saaz hopped it madly.
Not a copy exactly but a nicebrew never the less.
Home brewing is not about copying but to make better beer cheaper.
If I feel like a urquell or a crowny etc $$$$$$$$$$$


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## blackbock (22/8/06)

marky_mark said:


> So...possible Grain Bill:
> 
> 95% Weyermann Pilsner Malt
> 3% Weyermann CaraMunich I
> ...



I don't know whether it's really worthwhile using the Weyerman Pils malt - do you normally? Best to save your $$ and use their specialty malts sparingly I reckon, after all it's not cheap!


BB


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## wee stu (22/8/06)

Ray_Mills said:


> Oh a Czech Pils
> What a great beer to drink and enjoy!
> Must be one of the best beers in the world today, probably the best beer in the world and the biggest challange for the most advanced homebrewers world wide.
> 
> ...



Hope you don't mind the heavy handed editing of your post Ray.

There is certainly very little place to hide one's flaws in the Czech Pils style, and it is a beer of finesse to which my own heavy handed brewing techniques are not well suited  

However, the skill of the Bo Pils brewer demands appropriate recognition alongside other, more forgiving. styles. 

So, if you do have a beer that you think cracks the style this coming competition season, I hope I can be forgiven for suggesting you consider entering it in ANAWBS, as well as your more local and State based competitions. At ANAWBS this year we have a classs devoted *soley* to the Czech Pilsner style. I'd like to hope we have some highly meritorious attempts at the style vying for a place in this particular winners' circle. Certainly the best will be appropriately recognised.

Enough digression, back to the important topic of brewing the perfect Bo Pils.


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## Kai (23/8/06)

I'm going to proffer a slightly different opinion and say that I don't think 3% Caramunich I would be overboard. It's only a small crystal addition and may complement the bitterness well. Of course, I've never tried it, but I would consider an option such as this sometime. I don't think it would have any negative impact.


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## Malnourished (23/8/06)

matti said:


> WE DON'T have the water to match urquell even though you may have the ingredients.


Sure we do. Melbourne water is remarkably close to Plzeň water. I do agree that trying to exactly copy a commercial beer is folly, though I'm not certain that's what the OP was necessarily trying to do.

marky_mark - I can't help but think that the "caramel/toffee sweetness" you're looking for is partially (or entirely?) caused by pasteurisation. I'm pretty sure I know the flavour you're talking about, and I don't recall fresh Czech pilsners having it in the Czech Republic. I think people make the same mistake with some bottled British beers - Fullers comes to mind. Anyway, have you considered using the Weyermann Bohemian pilsner malt?


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## marky_mark (23/8/06)

I did a Triple Decoction mash using 100% Weyerman Bohemian Pilsner malt and around 200g Czech saaz plugs last weekend. So It'll be interesting to see how that turns out. 

Surprisingly however, I got really low efficiency on that mash, around 60%. When I performed an Iodine test on spigot runoff, using iodophor after around half an hour of saccharification it kept turning black...but when testing wort from above the grain bed it turned the usual mahogony red. Came to the conclusiuon it could be from small starch ball in the spigot runoff, and maybe this was a cause of the underlying efficiency problem. 

Any way to say the least it was a labour intensive brewday and that is why I'd like to experiment with some different specialty grains to get the flavour impact im after from a single infusion mash.


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## marky_mark (23/8/06)

Malnourished, I guess i never considered that pasteurising could have such an impact upon flavour. I was under the impression that it isn't really heated enough to really cause much caramelization in the beer, especially post fermentation when most of the sugars have been eaten up. 

It is characteristic of the czech pilsner style to finnish at a higher gravity than most german or other european pilsners, and this is where the extra sweetness comes in, from residual sugars/unfermentables that cause that caramel/toffee note. From my tastings this sweetness is balanced by the strong bitterness, but you still notice it on the tip of the tongue and in the finnish. It seems characteristic of most czech beers, Kozel premium, pilsner urquell, budvar. But hey, maybe i've just been duped by the bottle, seeing as i havent had a chance to get over to prague and check out the fresh stuff...


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## tangent (23/8/06)

i think the malty grain flavours from the decoction process really support the higher IBUs as well. not just the sweetness.
i devoted this winter to brewing bo-pils and it really got me hooked. 
because of the lagering and longer brewing times i was pouring the first pils of 3 as the 3rd brew was finishing, so I couldn't adjust the latter brews based on my judgements of a finished beer, just on the tastes from the hydrometer tubes

it's definitely a lot harder to hit the balance target than I originally thought but I learned a hell of a lot about lager style hopping as well. it's about as far as you can get from APA tongue bombs.
after brewing this style, i can find a lot more difference between the green-bottle boutique beers than i could before which is a good thing..... i suppose.

the only reason i tried this style was because 
a) i like hops 
B) i got a bag of weyermann bo-pils from Darren, then thought "wtf am i gonna do with this?"


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## Malnourished (23/8/06)

marky_mark said:


> It is characteristic of the czech pilsner style to finnish at a higher gravity than most german or other european pilsners, and this is where the extra sweetness comes in, from residual sugars/unfermentables that cause that caramel/toffee note. From my tastings this sweetness is balanced by the strong bitterness, but you still notice it on the tip of the tongue and in the finnish. It seems characteristic of most czech beers, Kozel premium, pilsner urquell, budvar. But hey, maybe i've just been duped by the bottle, seeing as i havent had a chance to get over to prague and check out the fresh stuff...


Yeah, there's no question that Czech pilseses have more residual sweetness than their German counterparts. I just doubt (could be wrong of course) that the breweries that produce these beers use anything like Munich, CaraMunich or Melanoidin malts.

I reckon it's gotta be a function of base malt difference, mashing schedule and yeast. Pilsner Urquell still uses a ridiculously long triple decoction, for instance, which would presumably contribute some caramelisation, but (I think) they malt their own barley too so who's to say replicating it using commercial products wouldn't require a small proportion of specialty malts? I'm pretty sure Budvar no longer does decoctions though. Don't discount the effect of yeast either. For instance, look at the stated attenuation ranges for Czech pils yeasts - they're the lowest of all Wyeasts lager strains (California Lager doesn't count.  )

Of course this is all neither here nor there. I don't think a Czech pils should be caramelly, but it's your beer - 3% CaraMunich may give you exactly what you're looking for. It certainly won't ruin it. Your triple-decocted pils sounds great, btw. You've got a lot more patience than I do!


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## warrenlw63 (23/8/06)

Malnourished said:


> Yeah, there's no question that Czech pilseses have more residual sweetness than their German counterparts. I just doubt (could be wrong of course) that the breweries that produce these beers use anything like Munich, CaraMunich or Melanoidin malts.



No they don't use melanoidin malts. This (Maillard) reaction is created in the mash when boiling the decoctions. Lower level of liquids in conjunction with the grain of the decoct being boiled is bound to create small amounts of wort darkening and caramelisation as well. Hence the slightly deeper flavour and malt perception in some Czech versions of the style.

Warren -


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## warrenlw63 (23/8/06)

This great article from the now defunct Brewing Techniques magazine's website is also worth a read.

The History and Methods of Pilsner Urquell

Hope this helps.  

Warren -


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## pint of lager (23/8/06)

Brewing Techniques always have some good reading. 

I hope who ever is hosting the pages doesn't let them slip.


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## Malnourished (24/8/06)

Malnourished said:


> I'm pretty sure Budvar no longer does decoctions though.


Hmmm... I dunno how I got this idea, but it's completely wrong. Never mind.


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## DJR (24/8/06)

Malnourished said:


> Malnourished said:
> 
> 
> > I'm pretty sure Budvar no longer does decoctions though.
> ...


 
Well i would hope not, because the Budvar style Pils i put on last weekend was with a double decoction. 

'Twas 4kg of Wey Boh Pils, 500g of JW Pils, 200g of Wey Carapils and 300g of JW Light munich. Did a 53-66-72C double decoction with a 20-30' boil at each pull. Used 25g NZ B Saaz for FWH and bittering and then 3 Czech saaz plugs, 1 at 15' and 2 at flameout. WLP802 Budejovice of course. Tastes bloody good although it probably needs more Saaz plugs next time to get that real over-the-top Saaz aroma/flavour that Budvar has. But even though it has only just been put into lagering, the maltiness/sweetness that Budvar has is very similar to what i got. After lagering and bottling i'll organise a blind taste test and work out what needs to change. I'm pretty keen on getting a beer that's very similar to Budvar, nicer than PU in my opinion, hence why it's my avatar :chug: .

Anyway back on topic, haven't tried Caramunich but i'd say that using Melanoidin would be a better choice to get that caramel sweetness/maltiness, or Wey Carahell. I've seen some talk about Carahell being ideal for about 5% of a Bo Pils grainbill.


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## Stoodoo (24/8/06)

Been awhile since I've had a budejovicky Budvar, however I've always tasted more saaz hops in my Pilsner Urquell then I have in the Budvar. The Budvar imho seems more mild in hops and slightly more malty(SMOOTH malty that is) in flavour. Though everyone's tastebuds are different. I kegged a triple decocted PU clone 1.5 weeks ago and can hardly wait the three month conditioning phase I'm going to give it, however I am determined to make a great tasting Pilsner.

Cheers


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## DJR (24/8/06)

Stoodoo said:


> Been awhile since I've had a budejovicky Budvar, however I've always tasted more saaz hops in my Pilsner Urquell then I have in the Budvar. The Budvar imho seems more mild in hops and slightly more malty(SMOOTH malty that is) in flavour. Though everyone's tastebuds are different. I kegged a triple decocted PU clone 1.5 weeks ago and can hardly wait the three month conditioning phase I'm going to give it, however I am determined to make a great tasting Pilsner.
> 
> Cheers


 
Don't get me wrong, i was never saying that Budvar had more hops than PU, just that i preferred it. They still both have bucketloads of hops in them, just in the Budvar it's easier to taste the aroma/flavour hops without the bitterness of PU.

Anyway, sounds like a nice beer you have there. What was the temps/decoction schedule?

If anyone can work out what the secret is to brewing good Czech Pilsners at home, i think with our collective mindset we can really do it!


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