Advanced · 20 litres · all grain
Czech Premium Pale Lager
The original golden lager, and a different animal from a German pils: softer water, a deliberately high finishing gravity, and enough Saaz that the bitterness is firm without ever being sharp.
Original gravity
1.052
at 72% efficiency
Final gravity
1.015
72% apparent attenuation
Alcohol
4.9%
by volume
Bitterness
31 IBU
Tinseth
Colour
5.1 SRM
10 EBC, Morey
Grain bill
4.70 kg
0.23 kg per litre
Brewed to Czech Premium Pale Lager, and all five computed figures land inside the published ranges for it.
OG inFG inABV inIBU inSRM inWhat decides this beer
Do not dry it out. The high finishing gravity is the style: mash at 67C, pick a low-attenuating Czech strain, and resist the urge to fix a 1.015 final gravity that is not broken.
Fermentables
| Malt | Weight | Colour | Extract | Of grist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pilsner malt | 4.60 kg | 1.8 L | 37 ppg | 98% |
| Caramunich A small caramel addition stands in for the decoction most of us are not going to do. | 0.10 kg | 60 L | 34 ppg | 2% |
Colour and extract are read from the malt reference, not typed into this recipe, so they are the same figures every other page on the site uses.
Crushing your ownGrain mill$92.90Hop schedule
| Hop | Weight | Alpha | Time | Contributes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saaz | 55 g | 3.5% | 60 min | 21.8 IBU |
| Saaz | 30 g | 3.5% | 20 min | 7.2 IBU |
| Saaz | 30 g | 3.5% | 5 min | 2.4 IBU |
Alpha acid varies by crop year and lot, which is why it lives on the recipe rather than on the variety. Brew to the figure printed on your packet and the bitterness will move; the IBU calculator will tell you by how much.
Method
- 01Mash at 67C for 75 minutes. High, on purpose.
- 02Boil 90 minutes with three Saaz additions.
- 03Ferment at 10C with a Czech strain. Expect heavy sulphur for the first week; it goes.
- 04Diacetyl rest at 18C for two days.
- 05Lager six weeks minimum at near freezing.
Numbers for the day
- Mash
- 67 C for 75 min
- Strike water at 3 L/kg
- 73.4 C
- Strike volume
- 14.1 L
- Boil
- 90 min
- Ferment
- 9-12 C
- Carbonate to
- 2.4 volumes
- Priming dextrose
- 120 g
- Yeast
- Czech LagerWyeast 2278
Strike temperature assumes grain at 20C and priming assumes the beer peaked at 20C after fermentation. Recompute both for your own kitchen on the strike and priming calculators.
For the mashDigital thermometer$12.31
For the fermentTemperature controller$36.00Before you package
Take a gravity reading two days apart and only package when it has not moved. A beer bottled while still fermenting keeps fermenting in the bottle, and the sugar you prime with lands on top of whatever was left. At 2.4 volumes this one needs about 120 g of dextrose for the batch.
To know it has finishedHydrometer and trial jar$21.99