Adding hops to a pilsner

[Ryan Perkins]

I brewed my first pilsner a few weeks back and I had a taste when I was transferring to a secondary vessel. Although I added plenty of late hops to the boil (czech saaz) I didn't taste or smell a lot coming through.  Have I missed the boat?  I know dry hopping a pilsner is not usually done and I have also read somewhere that dry hopping with czech saaz is not a good idea anyway.

I have a bit of riwaka left over from another brew so I was considering dry hopping with a bit of that. I don't want it to be too over the top just enough to notice. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Peter Smith]

1g per L. Riwaka works for me. http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/dry-hop-a-lager-during...

[Ryan Perkins]

Thanks Peter that thread is very useful.  Only problem is that I have already racked to a secondary, do you think it would be ok to leave the hops in during the whole lagering process?

[Peter Smith]

I have and that version is in bottles now but that brew is not ready yet... I think it would be ok as any flavours would be slow to release at these temps. Rumour has it that epic dry hops for long periods at low temp some beers. Makes commercial sense

[Ryan Perkins]

Yeah that makes sense, I'll run with that then I think. Cheers. 

[Ryan Perkins]

How did your pilsner turn out Peter? I tried mine for the fist time tonight after a very long wait. The 1g per litre of Riwaka turned out good just enough to notice and gave it a slight citrus flavour.

[Peter Smith]

My second gen went well, perfect amount of bitterness after a few months in bottle, and a light Riwaka flavour,   not massive but a nice level,  I am bottling this weekend third gen where I doubled the late riwaka hops in the boil.   I have been adding carapils and a bit of melanoidin malt.  I have decided for the next gen to remove all that and go 100% pilsner malt. Tet for bittering and do a different late hop, but its going to have to wait a while.  I need that fridge for another beer project so I am going to wait till later in the year to try this.   If you open a bottle after about 6 months and pour it you get a head that lasts forever about 1inch high like you are at Ockoberfest  8)

I am going to dump the yeast and start again with 2 other types.  Of the two I tried boh pils and munich I like personally the Boh Pils style more but the Munich did give that slight nutty thing and is IMHO very true to style to make a malty Munich pilsner.  I might get another fridge OR start to larger in corny kegs so I can reduce space.

I am going to enter soba nhb to get some feedback but I think there is too much malt in it...  will need to enter the right style...   malty and citrus is not true to german style

 

[Ryan Perkins]

Did the Riwaka come through citrusy with yours? I am used to using it when making pale ales and I don't generally notice too much citrus. I guess the pils malt let the hop flavours come through a bit stronger. 

I have just made a Munich Dunkel using Munich and Carafa with the 2nd gen yeast from the pilsner, it will be interesting to see how that comes out.

The beer with the thick head you were talking about is that the one with carapils of the 100% pilsner malt? The one I just tried was carapils and after 3 weeks in the bottle it already has a decent head on it.

Next is a hoppy NZ version using Gladfield malt, Riwaka, Nelson Sauvin and Motueka like Mark's one below.

[Mark Weusten]

I just dry hoped my 23 litre batch of pilsner with 50g Mixture of Riwaka, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin. Hopefully having a higher abv just under 6 % will balance this out a bit and it wont taste like diesel.

[Ryan Perkins]

Sounds like a good mix.  I just ended up putting 10g of Riwaka in (10 litre batch), my one is about 5.2% so probably doesn't need too much.  Now I only have to wait 7 weeks to try it :(

[Mudcrab]

Great that this thread came up as I am thinking of dry hopping my pilsner tomorrow. Mark, you mentioned a mixture of Riwaka, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin - would there be anything against dry hopping my 23L batch with only Motueka (anywhere between 25-50gms)?

I've used extract for this and steeped 50gms of Motueka into it already.

 

My preference would be to dry hop however I've read a few other forums which seem very anti dry hopping pilsners.

[Mark Weusten]

I reckon Motueka would be a tasty dry hop in a pilsner. I think the anti dry hopping movement are probably traditionalists who like the old school pilsners. I think they are a bit bland myself.

[Peter Smith]

http://nhc.soba.org.nz/styles#0D

Styles develop over time to allow local variations , pretty acceptable to do an NZ hopped pils, save a bottle and enter the SOBA HB comp.