Crystal hops are not the most popular choice these days but have a rich history since being first bred in 1983 and are somewhat common both as a supporting aspect in hoppy American styles, including Sierra Nevada's Torpedo, and as a main component in subtler styles due to it's German heritage. After receiving a half pound from Hops Direct at HomebrewCon 2018 I had been unsure how to best utilize them since I've never used it or had a beer solely hopped with it. In the end I decided to continue my effort to help clean out hops from the freezer and give them a try with a generous amount in a pilsner-ish beer.
The beer was intended to be mostly like a German Pilsner, but came out a bit more full bodied and closer to a Czech Pils, but with a different hop character. This was a really enjoyable beer to have on hand with some mild lemon character rounding out the mild herbal hop flavors and crackery malt character I expect from a pilsner. A touch of diacetyl but definitely within acceptable levels. A nice beer that I would probably tweak by using more hops or additional malts in the future.
3/26/19
Measured out 8.25 gallons of water, added 1/2 campden tablet and 5 mL 88% lactic acid. Measured and milled 10 pounds Viking Pilsner malt.
3/27/19
I accidentally broke the glass holding the first hop addition right after adding them to the boil. While I think there's less than a 1% chance that any glass got into the beer (and even lower chance that it would cause any issues if it did) I decided it wasn't worth the risk and dumped the batch. Thoroughly cleaned all the equipment and repeated the steps from previous day. On the plus side the only lost ingredients were 10 pounds of cheap malt and 2 ounces of free hops.
3/28/19
Used plastic cups for the hops this time and didn't run into any issues.
3/31/19
Fermentation appears to be going slowly but consistently.
4/4/19
Pulled out of chest freezer and kept at room temp in the low 60s.
4/7/19
Krausen has fully fallen and no signs of ongoing fermentation. Moved back to chest freezer at 50F.
4/8/19
Lowered chest freezer temperature to 45F and added gelatin following the Brulosophy method.
4/9/19
Lowered chest freezer temperature to 40F
4/10/19
Lowered chest freezer temperature to 35F
4/13/19
Kegged and place in chest freezer back to 40F. Taste is just ok, not as clean and crisp as I would like but no noticeable off flavors.
6/10/19
Entered in the SFHG SMASH competition last week, didn't place but was pretty well received. I ended up kicking the rest of the keg the next day.
