Full Nelson - New Zealand Pilsner - Award Winning All Grain Recipe

We actually brewed this beer several months ago but negated to post it at the time (for a couple of reasons), but after recently entering this beer into the NSW Homebrewing Competition where it claimed second place in the pale lager category, we figured it's definitely worth sharing.

Recipe Rationale

SMaSH Beer Recipe

This beer is considered a "smash" beer, featuring Single Malt And Single Hop - with pilsner malt and Nelson Sauvin hops making up the recipe. It's a timely reminder that simple can be incredibly effective when it comes to making beer. On top of this, we also didn't bother with any water salt adjustments, and only adjusted mash and sparge water pH.

Novalager

This one certainly serves as validation for Novalager yeast in case anyone had any doubts. One of the judges did suggest it had some slight esters, so could potentially be made even better by using an alternative lager yeast (like W-34/70 for example) that produces low/no esters.

Competition Results

As previously mentioned, this beer won silver in the international pale lager category of the NSW Homebrewing Competition. Check out our tasting results post (link at the bottom of this page) to view the full scoresheets to see exactly how well it scored.

All Grain Recipe

Vitals

• Batch Volume: 23L 
• Boil Time: 60 minutes
• Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%
• Original Gravity: 1.049
• Final Gravity: 1.008
• IBU (Tinseth): 34
• BU/GU: 0.70
• Colour: 6.7 EBC
• Expected ABV: 5.4%

Mash Schedule

• Mash In: 65°C - 60 minutes
• Mash Out: 75°C - 10 minutes

Fermentables

• 5.0kg - Gladfield Pilsner Malt

Hops

Boil Hops

• 60 mins - Nelson Sauvin - 21 IBU
• 10 mins - Nelson Sauvin - 9 IBU

Whirlpool/Hopstand - 15 mins @ 85°C

• Nelson Sauvin - 4 IBU

Dry Hop (after reaching final gravity)

• Nelson Sauvin - 18g - 3 Days
• Note: we dry hopped with 18g as this is what was left of our 100g packet after the boil and whirlpool hops. You could easily increase this amount if you prefer a more hop forward flavour and aroma

Yeast

• Lallemand LalBrew NovaLager - 1 packet (dry)

Fermentation

• 20°C - 12 days

Carbonation

• 2.4 CO2-vol

Water Profile 

• Untreated Sydney water profile (approximate values)
• Ca2+ (Calcium): 13
• Mg2+ (Magnesium): 4
• Na+ (Sodium): 18
• Cl- (Chloride): 30
• SO42- (Sulfate): 5
• HCO3- (Bicarbonate): 50

Brewfather Recipe

• Brewfather Recipe Link

Want to see how it went? Check out the link to the Brew Day post below.

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