Kaapse Brouwers ★ 4.7
Rotterdam's flagship craft brewery, brewing bold ales from session pils to imperial stouts at Keilestraat with the Kaapse Kaap taproom on Katendrecht.
Make it at home
Ingredients
- 4kg German Pilsner malt
- 300g CaraPils malt
- 30g Saaz hops (60-minute boil)
- 20g Hallertau Mittelfruh hops (15-minute boil)
- 15g Saaz hops (flame-out)
- 1 packet Saflager W-34/70 lager yeast
- Brewing salts to adjust water for a Pilsen profile (low calcium, very low bicarbonate)
- Equipment: 30L mash tun, kettle, fermenter, temperature-controlled chamber, sanitiser
Method
- Mash crushed malts at 65C for 75 minutes in 12 litres of brewing water. Sparge with 18 litres of 75C water until you collect about 25 litres of wort.
- Bring wort to a vigorous boil. Add Saaz at the start of the 60-minute boil.
- Add Hallertau at the 45-minute mark (15 minutes from end). Add final Saaz at flame-out.
- Chill rapidly to 10C using an immersion chiller or ice bath.
- Transfer to a sanitised fermenter, pitch yeast, ferment at 10C to 12C for 14 days until gravity is stable.
- Cold-crash at 1C for 2 weeks (lagering); this is the Pilsner-defining step. Skipping it gives a young, harsh beer.
- Bottle or keg with priming sugar at 4.5 vol CO2. Condition cold for another 2 weeks before drinking.
Tip from the editors. Lagering is the single non-negotiable step; without 2 to 4 weeks of cold conditioning you have a German Helles, not a Dutch Pilsner.
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