Bridge Rd Chestnut Pilsner clone

[DJ_L3ThAL]

I've already received advice based on my first lager attempt in terms of yeast here http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/75592-which-yeast-advice-for-chestnut-pilsner/

But now I am ready to give this clone a crack on my 1V BIAB AG system. For those who have tried the Bridge Rd. Chestnut Pilsner it is very light bodied with a "smoothness" from the un-roasted chestnuts and nice sharp bitterness from the galaxy hops, not quite as aromatic as S&W pacific ale but there is some aroma.

Based on some advice I received from the chestnut supplier, they are using 30kg chestnut meal per VAT/production run, which I have researched and found to be 240L batches.

Now here is where I am slightly stuck, scaling the grain amount to achieve the same ABV (5.0%) I am getting 4.7kg of pilsner malt for a 24L batch. But assuming the chestnuts are providing only starches and no fermentables, scaling down from 240L that means I need to use 3.0kg of chestnut meal in the batch which seems like quite a lot and it is expensive, so i don't want to go using way more than actually required and ending up with un-enjoyable expensive beer!

I was at the brewery and asked the bar staff for the recipe, they declined but said the tip they could give me is that it is "20% chestnuts in the mash". I'm torn between the advice from the chestnut suppliers who have said they use "20% chestnuts for their starch requirements which is 30kg per VAT/production run".

Just wondering if anyone has used similar nuts in beer and has a tried the beer and can give some guidance on which of the below would be the best starting point:

• 4.7kg pilsner & 3.0kg chestnut meal (being a total 7.7kg mash)
• "20% chestnuts" and therefore mash with 3.7 kg pilsner malt and 1.0 kg chestnut meal
• Just use 4.7kg pilsner malt and add 1.0kg chestnut meal on top

My second dilemma is that I've never used galaxy hops and cannot find the IBU of the original beer, I'd rank it slightly higher than S&W Pacific Ale so perhaps 30 IBU would be a good original target, thoughts?

My first crack in Brewmate at this is below:

Chestnut Pilsner
German Pilsner (Pils)
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 24.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.700
Total Hops (g): 45.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.051 (°P): 12.6
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.01 %
Colour (SRM): 3.0 (EBC): 5.9
Bitterness (IBU): 29.7 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 85
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Grain Bill
----------------
4.700 kg Pilsner (100%)
Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.6 g/L)
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (0.6 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
10.0 g Irish Moss @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 7°C with Saflager W-34/70

 

[Mardoo]

That's some good research Deej, thanks for sharing.

I don't have anything to add regarding your queries, but I would be inclined to try a protein rest. This is pure guess though. Just thinking about nuts and their starches makes me think it would be a good idea. I'll do some research and get back.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Awesome thanks mate, would appreciate that (and I'll have a Google also)! Hoping to lock in the recipe for a brew day Saturday-week so got plenty of time to take in suggestions/comments

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

reading here http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/75495-protein-rest/ it seems that perhaps the final rest at 72C for 15 mins after a regular mash (maybe 75min at 65C for this recipe?) will help break down the "remaining proteins" which would come from the chestnuts, as with such a simple grist of modern pilsner malt that should have all been taken care of during the mash. Does that sound about right or am I confusing myself more?

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

also Bribie's post #23 in here http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/31505-protein-rest-what-is-it-and-is-it-handy/page-2

I asked Herr Weyermann (in Question Time after his Wellington "Cryer Malts" presentation) about malts such as their Pilseners and Bohemians and whether they needed any special treatment and the info was that they are very well modified and you can just go ahead and use them in isothermal mashes etc, also with adjuncts up to around 30%. He said that whilst they love home brewers and go out of their way to support them, at the end of the day their malts overwhelmingly go to commercial Euro breweries - that's what got me interested in the Hochkurz Mash - works fine for them without a protein rest.

Not sure if chestnut meal can be treated as a standard "adjunct" with the oils it brings? If it can be then perhaps this is as simple as just starting with 20% by weight chestnut meal, single step infusion mash with a mash out?

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Seeing as though there is no evidence of previous attempts at cloning this I'll stick with the experimental path, will do the following mash:

• "20% chestnuts" ie. 3.7 kg pilsner malt and 1.0 kg chestnut meal. Infusion at 66C for 75 minutes then stepped to 72C for 15 minutes. If the pre-boil gravity is not at least 1.040 I can just put it down to learning and add some LDME to compensate, anyone see any obvious issues with this approach?

 

[Mardoo]

Well that sounds good. Everything I'm finding indicates amylase enzymes break down chestnut starches into fermentables, although its all anecdotal so take it as such. But normal brewing rests should be fine.

Also chestnuts are very low in oil compared to other nuts so that shouldn't be a huge issue. You could always rinse the meal with boiling water before mashing, but if I were doing itI'd give it a go without the rinse. If you're worried about the head maybe throw in some Carapils.

There's a fair bit out there about gluten-free brewing with chestnuts so if you haven't done yet, have a look there.

Just make sure you use a malt that has enough spare enzymes to handle the chestnut as well as itself.

 

[Mardoo]

OK, just found a few results from studies, so yes, alpha-amylase definitely converts chestnut starches, so fire away!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15137834

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

That's great thanks heaps for researching! Will add 5% carapils for head retention also, thanks for the tip! I've searched gluten free and found here http://www.chestnuttrails.com/pages/chestnut-beer that I should expect about 1.020 potential extract from the chestnut meal. Have plugged this into Brewmate and think I need to drop my grain amounts to stay within style. How does the below look?

Chestnut Pilsner
German Pilsner (Pils)
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 24.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.055
Total Hops (g): 45.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.050 (°P): 12.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.91 %
Colour (SRM): 2.7 (EBC): 5.3
Bitterness (IBU): 29.9 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 85
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Grain Bill
----------------
3.800 kg Pilsner (75.17%)
1.000 kg Chestnut meal (fresh not roasted) (19.78%)
0.255 kg Carapils (Dextrine) (5.04%)
Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.6 g/L)
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (0.6 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
10.0 g Irish Moss @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 7°C with Saflager W-34/70
Recipe Generated with BrewMate


Will definitely report back results of brew day and subsequent tasting notes and photos once brewed. Think you've helped me get a good starting point anyway and working off physical testing is always more fun hey.

 

[Charst]

Bit confused by your Nut numbers.


if your saying they are using 30kg for 240 Litres. So to make it easy lets pretend your making 20Litres.

240L / 20L = 12 home brew batches

divide 30kg / 12 (enough for one batch) = .25 kg

250g per 20Litre batch.

A vastly different number and obviously doesn't meet up with they 20% they quoted. So maybe the 240L figure is wrong.

the other query is if the 20% figure is by weight or by extract.

 

[Black n Tan]

Bit confused by your Nut numbers.

divide 30kg / 12 (enough for one batch) = .25 kg

30kg/12=2.5 (not 0.25)

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

...and hence 30kg / 10 (for 24L batches) = 3kg

I am not confident they do 240L batches anyway though I just read it in an old article about their brewery upgrade that stated they have 24 hectolitre fermenters. No idea either about whether it was meant to be by weight or extract, the bar staff guy was intentionally being ambiguous. I was hoping that someone on here might have some better information as to their batch size, or even better more data on the usage of chestnuts in the pilsner.

In any case for my purposes I think there's enough info so far on this topic to allow me to have a reasonable stab at creating a clone. At the very least I hope it's just a nice drinkable lager (also my first lager to boot!).

 

[Mardoo]

You're welcome, but caveat emptor - my tag line is "Noob What Craps On a Bit" because that's what I am. I can give you an opinion, or rather a "this is what else I'd do", but I'm absolutely no expert, just an enthusiastic experimentalist. I do my research but that is just knowledge. Try to get more input from more experienced brewers.

So, "this is what else I'd do":

Put in a 15 minute rest at 72. Also helps head retention. Might not even need the Carapils.

Do a mashout.

Drop your predicted efficiency, particularly because you're working with a significant percentage of a new ingredient. You can always dilute OG down. No shame in setting it at 65% like all the recipes in BYO!

I'd go with a subtler hop, a noble or something, but then the fruitiness of Galaxy might work well with the fruitiness of the chestnuts.

BUT, that's all me. It's your beer.

If you don't get many responses. PM a couple experienced brewers for opinions. Funnily enough I was going to suggest Charst who has now responded, among others. His point about weight vs extract is well-taken, but something you'll likely have to work out yourself. I myself would give it a go at 20% by weight since extract figures will likely be hard to work out since most available info on chestnuts isn't very specific. And I looooove chestnuts and my only issue with the BRCP is I want to taste chestnut more in it.

Good luck! I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes.

 

[TSMill]

His maths is bad...but end result closer to the mark than your calc. A hectolitre is 100 litres, so their batch size is 2,400L and the equivalent amount for your scale down is 300g.

Pretty sure the chestnuts are supposed to aid head retention, look up Pietra which is a Corsican beer using chestnuts in the mash.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Wowee, I won't admit I'm an engineer then regarding the maths errors... hah oops!

Also I swear the last time I checked it was not so obvious, but on here http://bridgeroadbrewers.com.au/brewery they state 2,500L batches..... so 288g is the number for a 24L batch. Thanks Mardoo, good suggestion on the efficiency I had not thought about the unknown results from chestnut meal. I'll adjust to 75% as I did get in practice 85% on my last brew. I've rounded up the chestnuts to 450g for good measure and then adjusted the grain amounts to achieve 5% ABV for 24L.

Chestnut Pilsner
German Pilsner (Pils)
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 24.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.530
Total Hops (g): 45.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.051 (°P): 12.6
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.01 %
Colour (SRM): 3.1 (EBC): 6.2
Bitterness (IBU): 29.7 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Grain Bill
----------------
4.800 kg Pilsner (86.49%)
0.450 kg Chestnut meal (fresh not roasted) (8.11%)
0.280 kg Carapils (Dextrine) (5.41%)
Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.6 g/L)
15.0 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (0.6 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
10.0 g Irish Moss @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 7°C with Saflager W-34/70

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

also to note on the above, I'm less inclined to go off the "20%" figure from the unhelpful bar staff as opposed to the people who sell them the chestnuts stating 30kg per VAT (2,500L), hence why by weight it's only 8% now. This doesn't correlate to 20% of the extract either as if Chestnut meal is 1.020 then surely that would mean more chestnut needs to be added to provide 20% of the extract as opposed to 20% by weight?

 

[Mardoo]

Further evidence...it's not $15 a bottle

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Just about to chuck my Irish Moss in, been a successful brew day, pre-boil gravity was 1.040 on refractometer (let pipette cool to 24C) and 1.042 on hydrometer (corrected).

Smells have been magic, am sipping a chestnut pilsner right now in the hope it will somehow make this brew similar :lol:

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

so OG ended up as 1.049 on refractomer (sample cooled to 24C) and 1.046 (temp corrected) on hydrometer. Seems a fair whack off each other and I know there's plenty of info on this mostly resulting in selecting one form of measurement and sticking with that permanently. I'm probably more inclined to believe the refractometer. Will re-measure the OG the day I go to pitch to confirm.

Will post back once it's been kegged and tasted (probably not until just before Xmas given lagering etc).

Happy days! :super:

 

[Mardoo]

How's the ferment going? Or did you no-chill it?