Help with a Helles

[Bryan R]

Good luck, it will be a long road with a lot of research. But very rewarding.

[Brody]

[Bryan R]

I can't speak to/for him however, but I am only talking the big 6 in Munich. Personally I have tried all the methods (well not ALL the decoction methods). They all yield a different end product and with that said, currently I am enjoying the decoction beers the best.

[Brody]

[Weizenberg]

Saaz is fine in Bavarian Helles. They are imported and thus more expensive. Only very special or festive brews have it.

I'd go with a balanced water profile to start with.

Stick to a mash pH if 5.5

Be careful with 'technical' acids in the mash. For better taste use 'biological' lactic acid, ie acidulated malt, in the mash. It will make your beer smoother.

Your hop utilisation as well as protein extraction will suffer at low pH. Therefore you boil at mash pH, then adjust to pH 5.2 15 minutes before end. This will put the pH in the range which helps hot break formation and make it more difficult for bacteria to compete with the yeast. You will probably need to use technical lactic acid in this step, so stop once you reached 5.2. Too much technical acid will make your beer harsh!

Try this for hops. 30% as first wort, then the other 70% at boil. Since you are decocting you can reduce your boil time to 50-60 minutes.

Make sure to bring the wort below 80 Celsius ASAP at the end of boil to stop making new DMS in the cool down phase! Then do your Whirlpool if you must... Loads of people get this wrong.

Czech yeast us fine. Ferment in the high temperature range then let it go up to 20C for a few days once it's past 50% EVG.


Pitch your yeast then aerate the wort to 8-12 ppm about an hour later. Don't aerate the wort without yeast in it!

Finings are a no-no. So are copper finings. Filter the end result in the sterile range. I do it at 0.3-0.4 micron with depth filter sheets made from diatomaceous earth.

Most of all, keep it simple!

Let us know how you got on...

[Techbrau]

[wobdee]