Viking Gold Helles Brew Session

This recipe won the Gold Metal at the 2011 National Homebrewers Conference (NHC) in 2011. This was in the Light Lager Category 1: of 191 different entries. Original Brewer = Vincent Rokke from Fargo, ND. Club = Prairie Homebrewing Companions. I scaled this recipe to 5 gallons with BeerSmith 2. Per BREW magazine: If you're brewing all-grain, you definitely want to to adjust the mash temperature to match the desired body of your beer. Mashing at a higher temperature like 156*F will result in a more malty beer and an increase in body and final gravity. Mashing at a low temperature, 148*F, results in a cleaner, drier finish to the beer with a lower final gravity. When brewing all grain recipes a lower mash temperature produces wort that ferments into a thinner bodied higher alcohol beer and a higher temperature mash produces wort that ferments into fuller bodied sweeter tasting beer. In my fourth year of home brewing I dove into brewing water properties and discovered how they influence the fermentation characteristics of wort. I also learned how brewing water properties can easily be adjusted to significantly improve the flavor, taste, color and quality of all my beers. Who knew? You can further improve the taste of your beer by increasing its malt flavor, while offsetting harsh bitterness, by adding a little Calcium Chloride and Epsom Salt to the same filtered, chlorine and chloride free water. I think of brewing water as a way to brighten the color and taste of my beer, in much the same way a treble control is used to increase the brightness of music during playback. It is true that water with high sulfate content enhances the sharp, bitter aspect of the hops, it's easily overdone. The result can be a chalky, metallic, or harsh character.. If you have soft water, add some Gypsum or Burton Salts, but start low, targeting half the amount of sulfate typical of Burton water. If you're really interested in learning more about creating the perfect brewing water profile visit the EZ Water Calculator site and download their free easy to use spreadsheet. It takes all the guesswork out of adjusting your water properties while keeping your additions within safe recommended ranges. There is a whole lot more to water chemistry, but you can begin to get your feet wet using just a few little tweaks and produce some really great beers. Most homebrews benefit from a simple addition of Gypsum & Calcium Cloride. This makes the hops pop! Adding anything else simply makes the beer taste more medicine like. Also, choosing which hops to use in a recipe is a lot simpler than choosing your grain bill. The overall amount of variation in flavor in hops is much less than in grains. When choosing hop varieties for established beer styles, review existing recipes and remember that, in general, classic beer styles are hopped with varieties from their country of origin. In other words, English beer uses English hops. German beers use German hops and so on.