Kölsch, the always popular summer beer. Great on a hot day, with food, or to appease your lager loving friends, I try to always have some on hand to balance out my heavily hopped taps.
I can’t take credit for this one, I copied/scaled the recipe from Kal found here. You can really use any clean tasting bittering hop, I have swapped the hops several times depending what I happened to have an abundance of at the time, they have all produced good results. Personally I have found the Wyeast Kölsch yeast to produce better results, but I am sure there were other factors at play as well, the White Labs yeast will also produce a good beer.
Because of the amount of pilsner malt you are using a 90 min mash and boil are recommended to reduce the presence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS). DMS has been said to have a similar flavor to cooked corn or cabbage, which aren’t bad flavors on their own necessarily, but when you are aiming for a smooth crisp beer, they are definitely unwanted. There is great debate on the interwebs as to how long a boil is actually needed to boil off all the DMS, but to me, an extra 30 mins of boil time on my brew day just means I can sit around and drink another beer to offset the higher brewhouse efficiency, not a big deal.
As far as fermentation temperature goes, I have had good success fermenting this beer in my basement in the summers, without any temperature control. I do usually let it sit for a week or two in my keezer at close to freezing before I tap it. And, opposite to all the IPAs I brew, this beer gets better with age.
Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Kölsch
Boil Time: 90 min
Batch Size: 11 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 12.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.043
Efficiency: 92% (brew house)
STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.011
ABV (standard): 4.92%
IBU (tinseth): 23.7
SRM (morey): 3.02
Mash pH:
FERMENTABLES:
15.25 lb – United Kingdom – Pilsen (94.9%)
13 oz – German – Vienna (5.1%)
HOPS:
52 g – Domestic Hallertau, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 23.7
MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 149 F, Time: 90 min, Add Grains in low 120s
2) Temperature, Temp: 168 F, Mashout
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.5 qt/lb
YEAST:
Wyeast – Kölsch 2565
Starter: Yes
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 75%
Flocculation: Low
Optimum Temp: 56 – 70 F
Fermentation Temp: 60 F
NOTES:
Boil 90 Mins
Mash 90 Mins
Throw grains in 120s
Raise temp to 68F for last few days of fermentation to clean up diacetyl.