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How to Brew a Fruity New Zealand Pilsner
About 2 years ago, Martin Keen decided to take “The Homebrew Challenge” and brew 99 beers in 99 weeks. This recipe for a New Zealand Pilsner is his 99th beer, the last one! We thought this was such a cool project, that we decided to invite Martin over to our office for a celebratory brew day. Follow along with the recipe below to brew this beer at home and make sure to check out our brew day video & Martin’s brew day video for some extra info.
Full Brew Day Video
This is a recipe for a 5-gallon batch and it is tailored for our 10 gallon 240 volt brewing system. Watch us use it in the video below.
Benchmarks
- SG: 1.048
- FG: 1.008
- ABV: 5.25%
Ingredients Needed
Grains
- 8 lbs German Pilsner (2 Row)
- 1 lb Carapils
- 8 oz. White Wheat Malt
Hops
- 1 oz Pacific Jade
- 1 oz Motueka
- 1 oz Nelson Sauvin
Yeast
- German Lager (White Labs #WLP830)
Brew Day Instructions
Water
Fill your kettle with 8 gallons of water. Add in a campden tablet to remove chlorine. We did the following water chemistry adjustments.
- 2 grams Calcium Chloride
- 1.5 grams of Epsom
- 1.2 grams of Gypsum
Mash
Crush your grain (we recommend double crushing for maximum efficiency) and heat your water to 148F. This recipe calls for a 60 minute mash.
Hops
Once your mash is done, pull your grains, hook them above your kettle, and let them drain. While you’re waiting for your grains to drain, set your controller to 100% power to start a boil. This recipe calls for a 30 minute boil with a 20 minute whirlpool addition at 180F. The hop schedule is as follows
- 30 minutes - .4 oz of Pacific Jade
- 5 minutes - .6 oz of Pacific Jade
- Whirlpool - 1 oz of Nelson Sauvin
- Whirlpool - 1 oz of Motueka
Yeast and Fermentation
After a 30 minute boil and 20 minute whirlpool, chill your wort to 68F, transfer to a fermenter, and pitch one pack of German Lager Yeast from White Labs. We fermented this under pressure for 3 weeks, however you may want to let it ride for 4 weeks. To learn more about pressure fermenting, subscribe to our YouTube channel and be on the lookout for an upcoming article. We’re doing a video about this very soon.
Tasting
This beer turned out great! Before tasting it, we got a nice fruity aroma from the beer. Once we sipped it, It tasted pretty dry and clean, as a lager should taste. We did perceive some white wine and tropical characteristics, which were most likely from our hops. If we were to change anything about this recipe, we might dry hop it, but even without dry hopping we got plenty of hop aroma and flavor. If you brewed this recipe, let us know how it turned out and don’t forget to check out Martin’s channel.
Hi just another question if dry hopping should I use both hops or just choose 1 to dry hop
Hi there I want to try and do this beer how long should I ferment this beer if I do not do it under pressure and what Temperature should I ferment it at and should I cold crush as well
I brewed this beer and it came out great. I also dry hopped it with 3 ounces of nelson, and another batch with 2 ounces nelson. The 2 oz Nelson version was better.
What’s the target IBU for This recipe??
Hey guys, What temp and pressure did you ferment at?
What’s the target IBU for This recipe??