Brewing Method: All Grain
Yeast: WLP830 German
Yeast Starter: Vial in 1L 3 days before
Batch Size: 21 L
Original Gravity: 54
Final Gravity: 9
Alcohol Content: 6.4 %
Total Grains: 6.6 kg
Color: 4
Extract Efficiency: 70+ %
Hop IBU's: 20
Boiling Time: 130m (unplanned)
Primary Fermentation: 8 days at 12oc
Secondary Fermentation: 36 days at 12oc
Additional Fermentation:
Grain Bill:
4.8 kg Franklin (lager malt)
1.0 kg Schooner (pale malt)
0.3 kg Wheat malt
0.5 kg Carapils
Hop Bill:
10g Perle pellets 9.2% 110 mins
10g NZ Hallertauer flowers 4.6% FWH
10g Tettnanger German pellets 5.6% FWH
10g NZ Hallertauer flowers 4.6% dry hop for 7 days
Mash Schedule:
Infusion mash with 16L of water at 68oc for 90 mins. Sparged with 24L of water over 50+mins. There was 2g of CaCl added to both the mash and sparge (Sydney's water is soft and neutral) Temperature of sparge water at the top of the mash was 70-72oc.
32L was collected and boiled down to 27L. Immersion chiller was added to boiler and cooled to 16oc in 50 mins. 5+L was left in boiler due to trub. (this makes it hard to estimate efficiency because should it be based on the OG and the amount at the end of the boil or the 21+L that ends up in the fermenter? The 70% is based on what ends up in the fermenter using my system. You might need to adjust depending on your system.
Brewers Notes:
This was bottled at 12oc using 170g of dextrose, boiled, cooled and bulk primed. ( I would use less next time eg. 120g). In May 2000 the lager was 8+ months old. A couple of bottles found under the house at this time were nice but with a definite honey aroma and taste due to age.( there is no where to hide with a helles.)
I had put a few bottles of helles in an old fridge, which sits on -1 to 4oc depending on season,6 months earlier. I opened a bottle expecting similar honey taste. The beer was crystal clear, excellent head and by far the best lager that I have made. This helles scored 126/150* at the Royal Bathurst Show 2000.It shows the benefits of lagering. If a lack of room is a problem try to put a few bottles from each deserving batch into a fridge and forget them for a while. Cheers.
* I used the score to give you an independent assessment of this recipe