The Real Pilsner Dilemma

[FreakWhenSee]

Hi All,

Bottling a Golden Ale today and I'm tempted to do my Pilsner 1 Can Kit straight afterwards. Two problems present themselves;

Firstly, It's a Wilko 1-can kit with, from what I understand, an Ale-strain of yeast included
Secondly, if I'm going to buy a yeast how much yeast (in grams) do I want to use in a 1-can kit in order to make the real deal Pilsner and not just an Ale?

Any advice at all, much appreciated.

-Jay

 

[morethanworts]

Hi

If you're talking about using a genuine, bottom fermenting lager yeast, then you'll need to be able to keep it cool (8-14C range) to get the best out of it. Otherwise, it will be an ale yeast that you want. I hear that some of the modern top-fermenting 'lager' kit yeasts are much better than they used to be, Coopers for example apparently.

As for how much yeast, see here and enter your figures for the batch size and OG. How many cans in the kit is pretty irrelevant. Set the Target pitch rate to 1.5. You will certainly need at least two 11g packs of dry yeast for a cool-fermented lager, or a starter.

 

[FreakWhenSee]

8-14c is no problem for me, I was concerned about the amount of yeast required for a beer kit.

Thanks a lot for clearing that up and for the link, that is going to be really useful

-Jay

 

[PD]

I'm halway through brewing an All Grain kit premium Pilsner I used the supplied Lager Yeast for a 23 litre brew...2 packets.
I've had it fermenting at 10c for around 12 days now and the gravity has just reached 1010 so I've raised the temp to 20c for a couple of days to help the yeast finish off then it will be crashes cooled to 2C for .... however long it takes...before going into a corny.
Its not a quick process using a bottom fermenting yeast.... :grin: