Batch 60

Batch number 60 and why not celebrate it with a classic – Czech Pilsner. I made this recipe myself and I tried to stay true to how a Czech Pilsner should be, bitter, malty and a bit floral.

Brewing this beer went really well, at least I thought so. I started off with crushing the malt and during this task I noticed a bit more flour than with previous crushes so I was a bit worried that the mash would get stuck and a bad brewhouse efficiency as a result. This worry was misplaced since I ended up with a even better efficiency than I anticipated, which was a bad thing on the other tip of the scale. Now, I did also end up with 0,5 liter short so the problem got even worse in the sense of the beer will most likely be too heavy on the alcohol. I didn’t want to top it up with water as I wanted to taste the end result as is.

The way too high alcohol number is a problem, it tastes OK  but it’s also obvious it’s not as tasty as it should be. It’s also really hard for me to know if I messed up anything else as the prominent taste of alcohol is making it difficult. But, to be honest I’m giving the beer a bit too much critic, it’s a nice beer and definitely a nice one a warmer day but it’s also a fact that this is not what I had in mind.

A reader who knows their Czech Pilsners will notice that I didn’t choose the classic Saaz hops for this beer, I wanted to try out it’s cousin from New Zealand (more or less the same hops but grown on New Zealand) and maybe it’s not preferable, I guess I’ll find out since I will do (almost) this exact recipe again in the next batch because I think this batch is not making it’s justice since I messed up alcohol volume too extensively.

I’m looking forward doing this recipe again and hopefully it will be great. Otherwise I will just keep improving until the beer is as good as I want it to be!