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Pilsner Malt

Since I am brewing a Maibock with it, I thought I would whip up a malt profile for Pilsner Malt.

Pilsner malt is a base malt that can be made from 2 or 6 row malt. It gets its characteristics from the drying and curing steps in the malting process, where in the kiln the temperatures are kept lower in comparison to other malts’ productions. The kiln is also well ventilated in Pilsner malt production so it dries out quickly. The malt is cured at lower temperatures too.

What is produced is a very light-colored, highly-modified malt with excellent glucan and protein levels.

Pilsner malt seems to be produced in a number of different countries including Germany, Belgium, The UK, and the US. Without doing an experiment, my guess is that each area produces something that is similar but a little bit different…probably not much different though.

It be used at up to 100% of total grist since its diastatic power tends to be over 100° Lintner (which is the measure of the malt’s ability to break down starch to sugar)

Some suggest a protein rest during the mashing of this malt, but others state that it should produce an excellent wort with a single infusion procedure.

It is recommended to boil your wort for 90 minutes when using Pilsner malt. If your grist has over 50% Pilsner malt in it, then you should plan for a longer boil to combat the production of DMS. DMS is Dimethyl Sulfide and it produces a cooked vegetable/corn aroma in your beer. Not good. Boil for 90 minutes and cool your wort down quickly to stave off DMS as much as possible.

More stats:

Flavor: Ferments clean, some grainy notes

Color:1.4 to 1.9° lovibond

Body: Good body and mouthfeel

Use: All lagers, but especially pilsners. Belgian beers work too.

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Diastatic Power

5 Comments

  1. Aaron

    For the record, I’ve been using Pilsner as the base for all of my beers lately. I haven’t experienced any DMS flavors from a 60 minute boil. I think it’s similar to hot side aeration – maybe on a different scale, it’s a problem, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it beyond the internet.

  2. Hi Aaron,

    That is good to know. Are you brewing 5 gallon batches?

    John

  3. Aaron

    Yes. I usually collect about 6-6.5 gallons and boil it down to around 5 in a hour.

  4. Good to know. I wonder if it is more present in larger batches (end result = 10 gallons or more).

  5. I must say I have been brewing for 15 years and never had the DMS issue even with Pils Malt. Some of that flavor should be in some beer stiles. Boil for 90 min I have never done and I have one lots of awards with pils malt in the bill. I think its like everything else someones way is there way, if you talk to them about it, to them its the only way.

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