Bridge Rd Chestnut Pilsner clone

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Just pitched at 11pm last night two packs of 34/70 rehydrated h34r: on stirplate as per instructions around 20C, set fermentation fridge to 12C. Lovely thin dense krausen this morning so she's off and running.

I did No-Chill (cube hopped by 0min), but my 60min addition i put in at 60min (although the weight amount were done with no chill ticked) so Im hoping this turns out ok still. The wort tasted very nice, pretty bitter though as expected with galaxy, hoping it all mellows out into a nice crisp lager!

I did have a slight scare on the no chill side of things which i posted about here http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/76629-cube-didnt-shrink-potential-expanded-cube/ but now that I smelt the wort out of the cube it is all OK.

I also tipped the rehydrated yeast cream into the FV including the stir bar so had to fish that out with my second stir bar without touching inside the FV haha! Good times.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Hmm, so I noticed yesterday the (thin) krausen had subsided and was worried it could be a stuck ferment being only 5 days since I pitched. Upon measuring tonight (corrected refractometer) I'm getting 1.010. Currently doing a diacetyl "test" to see if it needs the rest, if not I guess it will need a little while longer to maybe come down a couple more gravity points and then it's lagering time!

Has anyone had W34/70 finish so quick at 12C? If not seems that perhaps the chestnut meal supplier was right, it does form a catalyst for super healthy/efficient fermentation?

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Think I need to stop posting at night time as the threads gets lost in the current topics list.

Anyway the outcome of my Diacetyl test was that I could not detect any distinct "buttery" smell or flavour, but the heated sample definitely smelt less "clean" than the reference sample at room temperature, so I attributed this to my lack of experience and decided to bump the temperature up by 2C on the controller (it was at 13.5C so almost at 14C this morning) and do a 2-3 day D rest. I did read advice from labels that lagers should be taken up to 18C for a D-rest, anyone got comment on that as I've got plenty of time up my sleeve as my kegs are full and I'll have enough beer for the next 4 weeks. Should I just bring it up to 18C for a few days before crashing to 12C, then 1C/day to as low as I can go (hoping my little fridge can get to 1C or lower)?


I'm still quite surprised the yeast was such a hard worker, being my first lager and only a re-hydrated dry yeast I anticipated a minimum 1 week primary fermentation. I hope that because my STC probe is just taped and insulated on the side of my FV that the internal temp of the wort was not a few degrees higher than 12C, although I am reasonably confident this is not the case as I used my IR thermo gun to check and it was always within 0.5C of the STC reading (shooting it through the glad wrap into the centre of the wort. Just another reason to use glad wrap h34r: h34r: h34r: .


ANYWAY, so taste test, actually quite a clean beer, light on the malts (typical of a lager), nice hit of galaxy, can see this being an amazing first crack at cloning this beer. Definitely did not pick up on the nuttiness though, but thinking that subtly may emerge after a good lagering period and with chilling and carbonation. :beerbang:

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Decided to raise the temp again to 18C and will hold there for 3 days, then crash chill to 12C, then 1C/day to as low as my little fermentation fridge will go and then hold that for 3 days before kegging and lagering.

As I have a kegerator not a keezer, I can only really get my kegs as low as 3C. Will this be sufficient lagering temp? Or am I better to plan towards the future if I want to continue lagers and invest in a keezer?

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Kegged and bottled the remains last night, OG was 1.049 and FG 1.012 (perhaps the chestnut meal prevented it getting any lower?). But tasting the flat hydro sample which had warmed to room temp by the time I tasted it and it tastes great, probably a bit light on with the galaxy bitterness and aroma but I'll wait until it has lagered in the keg for a further month or so before giving final tasting notes! Why so long you ask? I've got a keg and a half to get through anyway so unless I arrange a portable keg setup between now and Xmas day the kegs won't be drunk for Xmas :-(

Bridge Rd. state they condition (read: lager?) their chestnut pilsner for a minimum of 3 months, I might commission the 8 bottles from the batch to that task as the keg can no way sit in my kegerator that long :beer:

Also harvested the W34/70 slurry, it doesn't seem to separate quite like US05 does, so I might even shake it up, tip out half of the jar and then top up with some more sterile water so water down the slurry and attempt to get better separation for washing. If not I'll just keep some slurry as is.

Overall a successful Wednesday night I'd say (apart from the FV sitting in the bath tub full of PBW) =D

 

[SimoB]

Nice one mate, look forward to taste notes in a month. Do you carbonate to lager? Never done a lager

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Hmm interesting point. I've actually lagered it (at 3-4C as that's the lowest my poor ferm fridge's little compressor can take it) for 2 weeks already, so technically I think to strictly lager it I should have racked it off the yeast cake into secondary and held it there.

Since I've bottled (primed with sugar) and kegged it I was treating that as the racking to secondary part, so the keg will be right in terms of getting a proper lagering process. The bottles however I've just clicked may not have enough yeast in suspension to even carbonate the bottles? It was the brightest beer I've ever seen out of the FV.

It's only 8 bottles (although some of them are for Grainer as part of his Lotto win!) so I guess I'll check on for carbonation in a few weeks time and if no carbonation I'll make up a yeast solution to inject in and recap the bottles. Will report back.

 

[TimT]

So I made some almond beer this year - brown ale recipe, with some roasted ground almonds thrown into the mash. Can't remember the exact recipe I used but all the advice on the net said almonds contained lots of oils that may interfere with the head, so they advised to roast the almonds for an hour or so before grinding and adding to the mash. Would imagine a similar approach might be recommended for chestnuts.

I can't say the results of my beer were spectacular (though good enough, seemed a reasonable brown ale). To get more almondy quality perhaps I could have added higher quantities of the nuts.

Alternatively, perhaps you could do what's sometimes suggested for recipes involving fruit and nuts (including beer recipes) - soak the chestnuts in a spirit, like vodka or brandy for a day or so before adding to the mash. They'll plump up - I assume the spirit will kill any natural yeasts living on the nuts and give it a taste of the spirit you soaked it in - and when you grind them/add them to the mash their sugars and starches will leach out easily into the mash. In fact I might try that next time myself.

In the meantime looks like you've worked it out nicely for yourself. Chestnut beer: I like the sound of it!

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Interesting, will put it on the to do list to try once I get a recipe I'm happy with as being close to the original (although SWMBO said she liked the hydro sample, which is a first!!). The chestnut supplier said that Bridge Rd definitely just throw the raw (defrosted from frozen) meal into the mash which is the process I followed, but I'd be interested in seeing what impacts soaking in spirit would do. Will even give roasting them a crack in a heavier ale at some stage as I have more chestnut meal in my freezer now than hops :blink:

 

[Mardoo]

So how'd this come out in the end? Verdict on 1.0?

 

[Grainer]

I have one of these in my cupboard from the lotto...looking forward to it..Thanks heaps

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

It's quite a nice beer, has gotten better with age/lagering in the keg and bottles. Slightly under carbed in the bottle for the style, blame only giving it 4 weeks in the bottle at room temp to carb, it clearly wanted longer but the kegged version obviously is exempt from that issue.

I will dry hop with galaxy next time as it's lacking aroma, but think the malt is just about right when compared to the original, colour is identical, I've got one bottle of the original left so might harvest the yeast out of that for the next brew and see how it pans out. Will definitely keep this as one of my house styles!

You're very welcome Grainer, looking forward to a ruthless and honest review :beer:

 

[Mardoo]

Thanks for going the distance on keeping us updated on this brew! Very interesting.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

It's taken a while for me to get a good pic (read: remember to take a pic when enjoying one of these!), but here it is. After 2 months in the keg it's tasting very crisp, refreshing, still could do with more Galaxy and definitely would be magic with some aroma!

Disclaimer: the head dies away pretty quickly, I'm attributing that to Mardoo's original concerns about the chestnut oils carrying through the beer. Doesn't bother me though :beer:

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Alright, attempt #2. In order to get some more galaxy hops happening and to test the effect of unroasted chestnuts I've changed the hop schedule completely and upped the chestnuts from ~8% to 10%. This is for the case swap in July so putting my neck out to have this tested by peers properly

Also going to use the last original bridge rd. chestnut pilsner in the fridge to try and harvest the yeast from the bottle and use on the brew.


Chestnut Pilsner
German Pilsner (Pils)
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 24.5
Total Grain (kg): 5.800
Total Hops (g): 120.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.050 (°P): 12.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.91 %
Colour (SRM): 3.2 (EBC): 6.3
Bitterness (IBU): 39.8 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 72
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Grain Bill
----------------
5.000 kg Pilsner (86.21%)
0.550 kg Chestnut meal (fresh not roasted) (9.48%)
0.250 kg Carapils (Dextrine) (4.31%)
Hop Bill
----------------
20.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
50.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (2 g/L)
50.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (2 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
1.3 g Irish Moss @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 12°C with Saflager W-34/70 actual bridge road brewers chesnut pilsner yeast harvested from bottle.
Notes
----------------
20MIN addition actually added at flamout
0MIN addition actually cube hopped

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

This is tasting nice out of the FV, decided to use the White Labs Pilsner yeast. Having one problem though, after 3 weeks in the FV the gravity has been at 1.015/1.016 and seems to be staying there solidly. Even after having the last 4 days out at ambient (16C or so) to try and get the last few points knocked off.

This may be a result of the slight increase in chestnut meal in the batch resulting in more unfermentables, is it safe to bottle at 1.016?

 

[Forever Wort]

I tried a Bridge Rd. Chestnut Pils for the first time last night and was blown away. I will definitely be trying chestnut in a beer going forward and this thread has proven informative, cheers.

:beer:

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

No worries, if you were coming to the Vic case swap you'd get a bottle! Always chance to jump on the reserves list?

I ended up bottling this at 1.016 and storing safely in my garage, probably should have used PET bottles but oh well. I'm relatively confident that it was chestnut non-fermentables resulting in higher gravity. Will hurt locker myself up in another couple of weeks and check the cupboard hehe

 

[Mardoo]

That spoof is just aching to be made.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

That spoof is just aching to be made.

?? :blink: :blink: