So the other day I did a double batch, the first a bo pils and the second a helles. I got better than expected efficiency on both brews so ended up with an OG on the helles of 1.054 and a ridiculous 1.064 on the pils.
I mashed the helles at 68 according to my recipe (it's the gold medal Sitzung Helles recipe) and pitched 3 packets of w-34/70 (estimated 540 billion cells with a required cell count of 436 billion according to beersmith) when the wort reached 11 degrees. I fermented at this temp until the wort was reading about 1018 s.g. and then raised it up to 14 for about a week. At this point it's at 1013 and has been there for about 4 days so I'd say that's f.g. all up it's been 13 days since brew day.
The pils I mashed at 65 degrees for an hour and then 70 for 20 minutes. I added a 3L stirred starter of WYEAST 2001 Urquell H strain ( estimated 414 billion cells, 500 billion required) and pitched at 11 degrees at the same time. The krausen on the pils only just subsided in the last day or so, it has been steadily chugging along. It is currently sitting at 1.014. I added the whole volume of starter so I recalculated the OG of the pils to be 1.059 for 23 litres - I just added 3L to the post boil volume and added 300g of dry extract to the recipe. aeration on both was just letting the wort trickle down the side of the fermenter while filling from the CFC.
So it's interesting that the helles, mashed at 68, had a substantial over-pitch of dry yeast and achieved 75.9% attenuation versus the bo pils which was mashed at 65/70 and achieved 76.3% attenuation. It's not really what I expected, but goes to show the importance of mash temperature on attenuation. I wouldn't be surprised if the pils dropped another point yet to finish equal to the helles. Interesting huh?
Now I was thinking, I've got a pretty beasty pils here.I was thinking of dry hopping it with 25 grams of saaz to maintain the malt/hop balance. has anyone had any success dry hopping bo pils? if so how much and for how long?
From here I plan to transfer both beers to cubes to lager for 6-8 weeks at 0 degrees so I have a window of opportunity to dry hop now for 4-5 days before transferring. Thoughts?
