Czech Black Pilsener Specialini

[RobboMC]

My next bew is going to be a Czech Black Pilsener. To make specialini grade it should be stronger than a Swarzbier,
somewhere between 5% and 6% andt he Czech have the sense to put hops in their black lager.

Anyone got some recipe ideas?

 

[boingk]

Just pulling one off the top of my head I'd go a creation something like the following:

3.5-4kg light liquid malt extract,
500g dark crystal,
150g black patent.

Bitter to taste with Sazz ideally, but even running 4% AA you'd need around 55g to acheive even 30IBU. What yeast do you plan on using?

 

[Fatgodzilla]

Just pulling one off the top of my head I'd go a creation something like the following:

3.5-4kg light liquid malt extract,
500g dark crystal,
150g black patent.

Bitter to taste with Sazz ideally, but even running 4% AA you'd need around 55g to acheive even 30IBU. What yeast do you plan on using?

Also keen to have a crack at a czech dark lager. Got these two snippets of info that I'm using to build my recipe, the first I reckon in Gerard M's notes and the second I think a simple recipe from an american site. They back up Boink's comments above.

Post us on the final recipe.


Today we are brewing one of my favourite beers, a Czech styled Black Lager or Cerny Pivo. The recipe is "supposed" to be the same as that used at Prague's most famous beer hall, brew-pub, & beer garden known as U Fleku. They have been brewing beer at U Fleku since at least 1499: isotopic measurements of the remains of paintings on the wooden ceiling of the brewhouse have dated them back to 1360! It is the same recipe that I brewed at The Macquarie Brewery in early 2005. This beer was entered in the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) where it picked up a Gold Medal, & Best In Class in the Lager section. This is a very easy drinking dark beer, with some burnt toast or coffee flavours, but without the heaviness of a Stout or the strength of a Bock. By adding 3-4 litres of water to the wort you should have a starting gravity of 1.046. If using a healthy lager yeast such as the Saflager 34/70 you can expect a final gravity of under 1.010, probably closer to 1.008. This beer will ferment very nicely with most of the Lager strains at a temperature of around 12 degrees C.

Moravian Dark Lager
This recipe is taken directly from the brewlog from the day I spent brewing in the Moravia. 44% Budvar malt, 44% light munich, 10% 55Lov crystal, and 2% black patent. See complete details.
5 lb Budvar malt, 5 lb munich, 1.1 lb crystal 55, 3 oz black patent, 1 oz Saaz, 1 oz Saaz, 1 oz Saaz, Budvar yeast, 1 cup corn sugar. Three hop additions at 90, 60, 20 minutes.

 

[RobboMC]

Just pulling one off the top of my head I'd go a creation something like the following:

3.5-4kg light liquid malt extract,
500g dark crystal,
150g black patent.

Bitter to taste with Sazz ideally, but even running 4% AA you'd need around 55g to acheive even 30IBU. What yeast do you plan on using?

Yeast will be Saflager. Brew temp as close to 12 deg C as I can get in my garage in July.

The Morgans master blend liquid malts have some possibilities here:
Dark Crystal contains 60% dark crystal and 40% vienna.
Roasted Black contains 12% roasted black and 88% Munich.

So that would make the specialty additions (grain) equivelent to:
160g Roasted Black
1190g Munich
800g Dark Crystal
550g Vienna

if I used a can of each.

plus around 2 kg of light extract.
Should I bother using Pilsener extract? Is the difference worth the effort in such a dark beer?

Hops - Saaz, saaz and more saaz. The reason for making Cerny Pivo and not Swarzbier is the hops.

 

[Jedd]

Moravian Dark Lager
This recipe is taken directly from the brewlog from the day I spent brewing in the Moravia. 44% Budvar malt, 44% light munich, 10% 55Lov crystal, and 2% black patent. See complete details.
5 lb Budvar malt, 5 lb munich, 1.1 lb crystal 55, 3 oz black patent, 1 oz Saaz, 1 oz Saaz, 1 oz Saaz, Budvar yeast, 1 cup corn sugar. Three hop additions at 90, 60, 20 minutes.

This is an all-grain 5 gal proportions, right?
Is it possible to to with the extracts?

 

[bconnery]

Definitely possible with the Morgans extracts, or by steeping some crystal along with the Roasted Black one.
The dark crystal will bring a strong crystal flavour which going by that description, I've read that post before too, isn't what is used. A much lighter crystal is needed.

I'd suggest either using the Black and Caramalt Morgans range in an all extract version, a combination of the Black morgans and some steeped crystal, medium or just plain crystal as it is often sold as, or else something like boingk suggested but change the crystal.

Saaz is definitely the best choice but if you are concerned about amounts use one of the higher alpha relatively new german varities or something clean and save the Saaz for the later additions.

 

[Rabbitz]

I know that technically this isn't a recipe, but my LHBS has a Czech Black Lager "fresh wort" from ND Brewers in stock...

Rabz

 

[brettprevans]

my Vic July caseswap recipe

mongrel black bavarian/Schwarzbier

2.0kg light malt extract
1.5kg dark malt extract
300g choc grain,
100g black grain,
100g carapils
100g light crystal
50g Melanoidian Malt,
50g roast barley,
Saaz hops all the way, @60, @30, @15, @10 @0.
S-189 yeast
shooting for ~26IBU and 6.1-6.4%.

EDIT: obviously this is not a pils though, its a lager. Sub the yeast for a pils yeast, ditch the Melanoidian and really cold condition it.

 

[Fatgodzilla]

I know that technically this isn't a recipe, but my LHBS has a Czech Black Lager "fresh wort" from ND Brewers in stock...

Rabz

The Cerny Pivo (the Czech dark lager above) was my favourite beer last year. Well worth the $35 for the wort. Bought another one saturday and currently fermenting using Bavarian Lager yeast cake. Will do an all grain version when this fermented for side by side comparison.

IMHO a style well worth trying.

 

[RobboMC]

Thanks for the suggestions guys,

So far the my extract recipe looks like this:

Volume 24 litres
Thomas Coopers Pilsener kit
1 can Morgans Roasted Black malt
1 can Morgans Dark Crystal malt
1/2 can Morgans Caramalt

12g Super Alpha @ 45 min
50g Saaz, 12g @ 30, 12g @ 15, 12g @ 10, 12g @ flame out

Saflager yeast - brew at 13 deg C, 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary

I hear the comments about the Dark Crystal, but I like that sort of taste,
and of course the whole idea is to make the brew you like, it's not going in any
style shows. May also add a KG of Munich grain in a partial

 

[petesbrew]

Just gonna knock this one up on the weekend for the hell of it, out of what I've got in the garage.

Bastardized Schwarzbier
1.7kg Coopers Dark Ale
1.5k Morgans Pale Malt
approx 80g Roast Malt steeped (I have choc as well, but will wait for comments)
approx 20g Saaz dry hopped (also have NZ hallertau........ditto)
WLP029 - German Ale/Kolsch
Filled to 23Litres

Any comments or criticism welcome.
Cheers
Pete

 

[petesbrew]

Bump. Just mixed up the yeast starter.