Ticket to Prague

Pictured right above is my entry for the Pilsner Urquell Master Homebrewer Competition. With less than a week to go before the judging event in DC, I decided to do a side by side tasting with Pilsner Urquell (left) and my beer (right).

First, a little recipe background. I went the traditional route and used a grist of 100% floor malted Bohemian Pilsner malt from Weyermann. The mash was a Hochkurz Double Decoction. In an attempt emulate the soft water of Plzen, I used distilled water with minimal salt additions. Hopping was 100% Saaz with three additions timed as outlined in some Pilnser Urquell recipe resources I read. One of the hop additions was a first wort addition added before the start of the 120 minute boil.

Finally, after primary fermentation, diacetyl rest, and kegging with some carbonation, I had an early taste of the beer and detected a prominent amount of diacetyl. At this point, to reduce the diacetyl, I decided to krausen it with a little over a quart of a second batch of pilsner I brewed that was actively fermenting.

After adding the krausen beer, venting the keg daily, and the gravity falling back down to terminal, I moved the keg into the kegerator for lagering 8 weeks. After krausening and lagering I detected no diacetyl.

As I mentioned above, I brewed two batches of this beer, only switching up the water profile and hopping a little. My plan was to enter the batch that turned out better. The first batch is clearly the better of the two. I'll put up a post about the second batch eventually.

Now on to the tasting.

• Aroma: The Urquell has a fuller and spicier aroma. My beer has a cleaner nose without the diacetyl but is lacking the deeper bread crusty, melanoidins and hint of diacetyl in the Urquell.

• Appearance: At first sight I was very surprised how similar the beers looked. I didn't expect the color and clarity be so close. Aside from my beer having a thicker, creamier, more lasting head, I could not tell the difference based on appearance.

• Flavor: My beer has a clean pilsner malt flavor with more hop bitterness than the Urquell. The hop character of my beer is more in the finish than in the flavor. It is clean and crisp with a lasting spicy bitterness. Although its lacking the melanoiden and diacetyl combo that seems to give the Urquell a fuller, deeper, more complex flavor.
  
  
• Mouthfeel: My beer is slightly lighter in mouthfeel than the Urquell. The carbonation is pretty similar.

This is definitely the best lager I have made so far in my short brewing career. It has that clean crisp lager bite that has been missing from my other lagers. I'm now a believer in krausening and the ability of active yeast to clean up fermentation byproducts like acetaldehyde and diacetyl.

Overall the Pilsner Urquell has a little deeper, complex malt character than my beer. My beer is a little more bitter and has less aromatics. But, it is clean and crisp with mildly subdued characteristics of the Pilsner Urquell. I think its a competitive entry for the competition and am happy with how the beer turned out.

Good luck to everyone else competing the event. I'm looking forward to meeting some of the people I've met through Twitter and blogs but have yet to meet in person. It should be a lot of fun.

A couple of resources I found useful when putting my recipe together were:

• The History and Brewing Methods of Pilsner Urquell
• Kris England's True Pilsner Urquell Clone

Ticket to Prague

Bohemian Pilsner

Type: All Grain	Date: 5/2/2011
Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal	OG: 1.050
Boil Size: 8.40 gal	FG: 1.012
Boil Time: 120 min
Final Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal	Brewhouse Efficiency: 78.00
Mash Amt Name Type % 10 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 100.0 % Mash Steps Name Description Step Temperature Step Time Step Add 18.50 qt of water at 138.4 F 131.0 F 10 min Step Add 0.00 qt of water and heat to 144.0 F over 15 min 144.0 F 30 min Step Decoct 4.56 qt of mash and boil it 158.0 F 30 min Step Decoct 4.10 qt of mash and boil it 168.0 F 40 min Hops Boil Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 1.00 oz 1.00 oz Saaz [4.5 %] - Boil 120 min Saaz [4.50 %] - Boil 80.0 min Hop Hop 2 3 18.3IBUs 16.1 IBUs 1.25 oz Saaz [2.60 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 4 7.7 IBUs

Yeast
	Fermentation Ingredients Amt Name Type 2.0 pkg Urquell Lager (Wyeast Labs #2001) [2365.90 ml] Yeast
Fermentation
	Pitch at 45°F and let rise to 49°F. Hold at 49°F until gravity is 1.019, then raise temp to 65°F for diacetyl rest Hold at 65°F until terminal gravity reached (2 to 3 days) Transfer to keg and krausen with one quart actively fermenting beer (1.040) of similar recipe Leave at 65°F until gravity reaches terminal once again. Lager at 37°F for 8 weeks
Notes
2 x 2 day old smack packs into 2.5 litre stirplate starter Distilled water: mash : 1.2gm Gypsum, 2gm CaCl boil: .6gm Magnesium, .3g baking soda