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Recipe: pFriem Mexican Lager
From Josh Pfriem, cofounder and brewmaster at pFriem Family Brewers in Hood River, Oregon, here’s a homebrew-scale recipe for their clean, crushable, and softly floral Mexican-inspired lager.
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With its grain bill of about 20 percent corn grits, this beer won a gold medal at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival in the Australasian, Latin American, or Tropical Light Lager category. For a deeper dive into brewing lagers with adjuncts, be sure to check out Pfriem’s video course on Elevating International Lagers.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.042 (10.5°P)
FG: 1.007 (1.8°P)
IBUs: 22
ABV: 4.6%
With its grain bill of about 20 percent corn grits, this beer won a gold medal at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival in the Australasian, Latin American, or Tropical Light Lager category. For a deeper dive into brewing lagers with adjuncts, be sure to check out Pfriem’s video course on Elevating International Lagers.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.042 (10.5°P)
FG: 1.007 (1.8°P)
IBUs: 22
ABV: 4.6%
[PAYWALL]
MALT/GRAIN BILL
3.9 lb (1.8 kg) Gambrinus Pilsner
2 lb (907 g) Canada Malting Superior Pilsen
1.6 lb (726 g) corn grits
5 oz (142 g) Weyermann Vienna
1.2 oz (34 g) Weyermann Carared
HOPS SCHEDULE
1.4 oz (40 g) Perle at 10 minutes [15 IBUs]
1.4 oz (40 g) Tettnanger at 10 minutes [7 IBUs]
1.3 oz (37 g) Saaz at flameout/whirlpool
YEAST
Fermentis SafLager W-34/70, Imperial L13 Global, Omega OYL-106 German Lager I, or similar
DIRECTIONS
Mill the pilsner malts, then mix about 5 oz (142 g) of ground malt into the corn grits. For the cereal mash: In a kettle, add some 170°F (77°C) water to the grits and mix thoroughly; steadily raise the heat to 208°F (98°C) and hold there for 20 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid scorching. With the rest of the malt, mash in at 120°F (49°C), then mix in the cooked grits to bring the combined mash to about 144°F (62°C); rest 15 minutes. Over the next 15 minutes, gradually ramp to 154°F (68°C), then rest for another 15. Finally, ramp for 20 minutes to 174°F (79°C), then mash out. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle—don’t rush the lauter. Sparge and top up as needed to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate.
Boil for 70 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, do a whirlpool step: Stir or recirculate to create a vortex, add the whirlpool hops, and allow 10 minutes to steep and settle. Chill to about 50°F (10°C), aerate the wort, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 52°F (11°C) until the gravity has dropped to about 1.022 (5.5°P), then raise the temperature to about 62°F (17°C) for a diacetyl rest. (If you have a spunding valve, attach it when the gravity has dropped to about 1.012 (3.2°P), to harness some natural carbonation from the remaining fermentation.) Once fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized, lower the temperature to 35°F (2°C), remove or harvest the yeast, then lower to 29°F (–2°C) and lager for 3–4 weeks. Package and carbonate to about 2.7 volumes of CO2.
BREWER’S NOTES
Target pH: In the finished beer, we target a final pH of 4.1 to 4.3. We adjust our mash pH with phosphoric acid.
Corn: We currently source our grits—milled to a No. 14 “polenta” grit—from Adams Grains in California’s Sacramento Valley.
