Kolsch Recipe (and advice on ferm temp)

[darthkotor]

[darthkotor]

Totally forgot to put this in the main post, too.

Has anyone "cask" conditioned and served their Kolsch? From what I understand Kolschbier is carbed (via spunding valve), lagered, and served in the barrels. I was thinking about using a polypin to carbonate, lager, and serve in to see if it has a noticeable affect.

[Beersk]

I wonder where the wheat addition comes from in Kolsch because the beer is often described as a cousin to the helles. It's basically a helles, to me, with an ale yeast instead of lager yeast and treated nearly the same way as helles otherwise.

I brewed a Kolsch 2 weeks ago and did 62C for 60 minutes and 72C for 60 minutes. I wonder if 60 minutes is necessary for the 62C rest.

I'd ferment at 15C (59F) for the bulk of fermentation, then slowly drop it near freezing. I am not sure there'd be a benefit to raising it since it's already warm enough. I raised mine, however, to about 18C for the last week.

[Bryan R]

I never understood wheat either. It's a helles with higher hops and an ale yeast to me.

[darthkotor]

I have been trying to track down a source for the wheat additions (even emailed a few different breweries trying to investigate, nothing there). Most sources (even legit ones from Germany) cite that some examples have wheat in them. I am beginning to think it might just be a cyclical quotation, where one brewery had wheat in it at one point and then that example became quoted again and again.

I personally really like wheat in there, so I tend to brew it with 7-20% wheat.

As for the rests, I am always worried about the enzymes denaturing. Kai's experiments on enzyme activity show that most of you alpha and beta are pretty much gone after an hour at 67 degrees, so I keep the mash short and sweet to maximize potential enzyme activity. I still retain a 85-86% attenuation from w34/70 when doing a 30/60 schedule.

[Owenbräu]

Some theorize that Helles (and thus kolsch) was actually derived from hefe. It makes sense they kept a portion of wheat, especially enough for that nice, thick, mousey head. Kolsch is probably more closely related to hefe than helles, IMO.

[Techbrau]

The RHG allows wheat in ales so it's possible some authentic examples use it but truthfully I personally don't see the point.

If I were to brew a kolsch tomorrow, I would probably use 95% Pilsner malt, 4% carahell, and 1% caramunich. I'd brew it to 11.5 Plato OG, hop it to about 24 IBUs with a good dose of FWH and maybe some at 30 or 15. The yeast is really what makes the style.

[Owenbräu]

Throw in 5% carafoam, and I'd brew that too