Black Pils Recipe

Apr 26, 2017

Black Pils (23 Litres)

In most cases, it’s safe to assume that a glass of black beer is either stout or porter. Looks can be deceiving, stout and porter are not the only styles of dark beer. According to the BJCP style guidelines, category 4C, Schwarzbier (black beer) or Black Pils is a dark lager that balances roasted yet smooth malt flavours with moderate hop bitterness. The 300g of crystal malt, although optional, adds a little extra complexity and residual sweetness.

Ingredients

1 x 1.7kg Thomas Cooper 86 Days Pilsner
1 x 1.5kg Thomas Coopers Dark Malt Extract
1 x 300g Dark Crystal Malt grain (optional)
1 x Lager yeast of your choice and/or kit yeast
1 x 250g Dextrose Corn Sugar or Carbonation Drops

Features:

Colour: Black
Body: Medium
Bitterness: Medium
Approx. Alcohol Level: 4.9% ABV
Naturally Carbonated: Natural

Instructions:

STEP 1: Mix

Crack the grains by placing in a plastic zip-lock sandwich bag and using a rolling pin, add to 2 litres of just boiled water, steep for 30 mins, remove the grains then bring the liquid to the boil. Add the contents of the beer kit and malt extract cans to the fermenting vessel and dissolve with 2 litres of hot water (this can be the boiled liquid from the crystal malt steeping). Add cold water up to the 20 litre mark and stir vigorously. Check the brew temperature and top up to the 23 litre mark with cold or warm water to get as close as possible to 24C. Sprinkle the dry yeast and fit the lid.

STEP 2: Brew

Try to ferment at 24C for the first 12 to 24 hours then draw the temperature down to 13C - 15C until fermentation is complete. Fermentation has finished once the specific gravity is stable over 2 days.

STEP 3: Bottle

We recommend the use of PET bottles or reusable glass bottles designed for storing beer. Bottles need to be primed so that secondary fermentation (producing the gas in the bottle) can take place

Priming

Add carbonation drops at the rate of 1 per 330ml/375ml bottle and 2 per 740ml/750ml bottle. Sugar or dextrose may be used at the rate of 8g per litre (approximately 6g of sugar to a level metric teaspoon). Store the bottles out of direct sunlight at 18C or above for at least 1 week while secondary fermentation occurs. Your beer can be consumed after 4 weeks. Bottles may be stored (conditioned) for long periods of time (3 months or more). Conditioning should improve flavour, reduce the size of the bubbles and make the yeast sediment more compacted

STEP 4: Enjoy!

While we recommend leaving your bottles to condition at or above 18C for at least 4 weeks - you may find that your brew benefits from further conditioning. Expect the alcohol content to be around 4.9% ABV.