West Coast Pilsner

WC pils round table

CBB 257

malts

Everyone has moved away from German Pilsner towards domestic Pilsner

Not as robust as a German malt, little richer,

Timbo (h.land park) 45% Rahr 2-row, 45% weyerman Floor malted vo(?) pils, 10% Carafoam

Domestic is less overwhelming

fermentation

Can ferment a little warmer cause it doesn’t need to be as clean as a lager. Knockout at 54 (12), ferment at 56(13) dry hop as hot as possible, in the 60’s (H.Park)

Sam- little warmer, 16ppm oxygen (vs lager which is 8-9ppm) be careful with cold ferms, high sulfur hops can clash with the sulfur in the low temp lager term.

Nick- goes a little cooler

hops

Lower abv so they build structure in the body to hold up to the hops

Timbo is 3.5+ lb/bbl

Other guy (Firestone?) does about 1.5lb/bbl dry hop and higher abv (5.9%) for balance (lager yeast you don’t get esters to fill out the profile)

Nick- 1-1.5 lbs/bbl dry hop (doesn’t over saturate)ops: sam- start with noble in the boil, get that traditional German flavor as a bottom layer. Mandarin and melon they really like (new German hops) spalt select in boil. Simcoe is good on these beers, always tries to get some of that. And citra is good with lager ferms. He’s a little more careful with mosaic. Their core wcpils is Simcoe hot side, dry hop with mosaic/nelson. They save the nobles for Italian Pilsners

Bob - low alpha hops on hot side, recently noble heritage but US grown, instead of 1lb of high alpha they use 3lb low alpha cause that high vegetal matter gives it a little weight and structure. Cold side- lager kicks more sulfur for sure. Can play well or not. Bright tropical high tone citrus zest hops play well with sulfur; citra, mosaic, Nelson. Maybe those old school hops help build thiol stuff that works well with the sulfur in the lager yeast. They do 69/30/10 and whirlpool to build layers of texture. The varietals they like are Adina, super saaz f/michigan, they like floral delicate citrus and not so much herbal, Crosby sterling,

Firestone doesn’t layer so much in the kettle

Other guy - Calista may be a good one for boil and whirlpool

dangers

dank overload

Lager ferment already leads to dank/weed. So too much danky hops can lead to garlic or too danky

hop creep

Hop creep is scary cause lager yeast works at low temps. They found that 60 is good. If they go below 55 they get a kind of gourd flavor from hop creep. They get a full Plato, if shooting for Timbo to be 2.7 then they plan for 3.5 and it will creep down
Other guy sees very little hop creep cause they do a faster fermentation and maybe cause if their yeast strain (it’s very flocculant) (welcome to la). They get down to 1.8-2 Plato before dry hopping
Switching away from German malt maybe helps cause they kind of hit the enzyme limit (?)
German hops have a lot of hop creep potential

They dry hop at about 60 (15.5)

Wibby

Loves Waiti hops cause low alpha and high oils and you can add tons to the whirlpool. Adds a new dimension to his hop program. CBB 185

North Park

When testing new hops the make west coast Pilsner and dry hop at about 2lbs/bbl CBB 386 Fidens, Sapwood, and North Park