Contrafact Homebrew: 04A

Style: 4A - Munich Helles

BJCP: A clean, malty, gold-colored German lager with a smooth grainy-sweet malty flavor and a soft, dry finish. Subtle spicy, floral, or herbal hops and restrained bitterness help keep the balance malty but not sweet, which helps make this beer a refreshing, everyday drink.

Full recipe on brewersfriend.com but here's the TL;DR

Brewday: 2018-7-7
Malt: Barke Pils, Munich
Hops: Magnum, Saaz
Yeast: SafLager W34/70 (Weihenstephaner)
OG: 1.044; FG 1.007; ABV 4.9%
Kegged: 2018-7-20

Trying out Weyermann's Barke Pilsner malt with 16% Munich

First time using the MonsterMill MM3. It ripped right through (vid) 5kg of grain in about a minute.

Crush

Brewday beer: MURICA - American Lager with Sterling hops

Kettle fill. 8G was just the right amount. After draining the bag, the level ended up at 7G or 26L which will end up at 24L after a 30 min boil.

Mash temp. Heated water to 69.5C which dropped to 67.1 after adding the grains.

Floor Manager Steve on the job

Boil

24g of Saaz at 5 min

Chilling

OG worked out to 1.044. New mill didn't magically give me better efficiency unfortunately. Everything has been coming up right around 70% and this was not far off at 67%. This is my life now.

Wort sample

Went for the direct pitch method this time rather than rehydrating. Read a study from Fermentis where they found no practical difference between batches brewed by rehydrating vs direct pitch. I'm not expecting any difference and it cuts a couple of minutes out of the brew day.

Fermenting at basement floor temp: 19.1C

2018-7-15: I'm anti-secondary unless I need the yeast for more beer! This was split for two batches: Festbier and Märzen while the Helles got a new container to hang out in for another week before it gets chilled and kegged.