At last, it's time to tackle the first brew with the new system. I pondered a great deal about what kind of lager to brew, a smoky Bamberg-style proto-lager, a replica of some large macro-beer, like Heineken or Carlsberg? A Budweiser? A more modern take with American-style hops? A Bock? A dubbel Bock? Marzen or Octoberfest beer? Mexican? Vietnamese? Chinese? Japanese? The possibilities within lager are endless. However, in the end, I was drawn to the original Pilsner beer. Therefore, I decided to brew a Czech-style pilsner with a (hopefully) sweet caramel notes, golden colour, a nice foam top and just the right amount of bitterness and crispiness. A dreamy images of a bit hoppier version of Pilsner Urquell floated in my head.

Recipe for 27 liters
MALTS:
4,5 kg Viking Pilsner
250g Viking Cara Pale
250g VikingCaramel
150g WeyermannSour '
HOPS:
10g Alus
10g Hallertau Tradition
50g Magnum
YEAST
SafLager Lager-yeast 2 packets

Of course, dreams are dreams and brewing the very first beer with a new kit is never simple. Even though I enjoyed immensely brewing with the kit. The Grainfathers app felt like cheating in comparison to doing everything by hand. I could get the exact temperatures, the mash was evenly warmed and cooled however I wished, and both the app and the little screen on a Grainfather were beneficial along the process.

One of the main challenges during the brew day was the electricity in the main cabin, as using all of these devices from one outlet kept blowing up the fuse quite often. However, this was remedied by running extension cords and rearranging the electricity. What was super lovely was that the Grainfather understood the blackout and kept the state of the brewing in the memory, so it was easy to continue from that.

After that, the whole brew day ran perfectly smoothly, with a malty biscuity aroma hovering into the cabin and later replaced with the fresh, dank scent of hops; It smelled like a brewery! It smelled like centuries of Bavarian history!

I will be posting the phases of the brew to my instagram at @stillebeer