Helles Exportbier

About This Beer

A Valley Brewers Style Session #2 entry. The club agreed one set of ingredients and every member brewed their best attempt at a 5C Helles Exportbier: malt-forward, clean, noble-hopped Munich lager.

This one is the second of two brewed off that same ingredient list. Owen brewed his in Auckland on 22 September with Matt there brewing it alongside him, and this followed six days later in Lower Hutt. Owen used Bestmalz CaraHell where his Auckland store had no Weyermann; otherwise the bills match.

Process was deliberately disciplined: step mash, cool slow fermentation, closed transfer to keg. Hallertau Mittelfrüh is the only hop, across three additions.

Mash

Three steps, balancing fermentability against malt body: a fermentability rest at 63°C for 45 minutes, a body rest at 70°C for 20, then mash out at 76°C. The finer crush slowed lautering a little.

Fermentation

Saflager W34/70 pitched at 9°C and left to ferment slowly under light pressure, under 1 psi. By days 10 to 11 gravity had reached 1.017 with velocity dropping off, which is what a cool lager fermentation should look like. Temperature then stepped a degree a day up to 16°C while pressure built gradually to 10 psi.

Steady from there: 1.010 at day 13, 1.009 at day 16, 1.007 by day 23 after cooling from 16°C down to 2.5°C over several days. Twenty-three days all up.

Packaging and tasting

Closed transfer through the FermZilla dip tube and bucket blaster to keg, clean and oxidation-free. Carbonated to 2.5 volumes, served at 15 psi and 3°C.

Tasted at kegging: clean, crisp lager character with good malt body and no faults. Refreshing and style-appropriate.