Brew the Bighorn River
Bighorn Czech Pilsner — home brew kit
Czech Pilsner · 5.0% · 5 gallons
from $29In stock · Ships in 2-3 days
A five-gallon all-grain czech pilsner kit named for the Bighorn River: grain, hops, yeast and the recipe, milled and measured.
Brewed and boxed by Derek Leavitt
In the glass
Soft bready malt, a firm spicy bitterness, and a finish that asks for the next one.
Serve 40°F, poured hard for a thick head
Alongside Patience. This is the long one — do not rush the lagering.
Cold, even water below Yellowtail Dam that feeds trout like a conveyor belt.
The box arrives with the grain already milled and weighed, the hops in marked packets for each addition, and the yeast kept cold. You supply the pot, the water and the time. Nothing in here is a concentrate.
Full instructions come in the box and are written for somebody on their second batch, not their twentieth — every step says why it is there, so you can tell which ones you can bend.
- All grain, milled and weighed to the batch
- Czech Pilsner · 5.0% ABV · 38 IBU
- Hops bagged per addition, so nothing goes in at the wrong minute
- Instructions written for a second-time brewer
The numbers
5.0%Alcohol by volume
(1.050 − 1.012) × 131.25
38Bitterness, IBU
Bitterness only means anything against the style. This one is a Czech Pilsner.
3.5Colour, SRM
The swatch above is this number on the standard reference ramp, not an impression of it.
Gravity1.050 down to 1.012 — 76% apparent attenuation.
The day, and the wait
Nine weeks cold, a big yeast pitch, and a beer too pale to hide anything.
- First pint
- about eleven weeks77 days from brew day, including conditioning
- Batch size
- 5 US gallonsAbout fifty twelve-ounce bottles
- You supply
- Pot, fermenter, thermometer, hydrometer, bottlesThe starter kit below is exactly this list, if you have none of it.
- Mash in60 min at 150°FHold the temperature. This rest is where the body of the beer is decided.
- Sparge and run off45 minSlowly. Rushing it pulls tannins out of the husks.
- Boil90 min3 hop additions, each timed from the END of the boil.
- Chill and pitch30 minDown to 48°F before the yeast goes anywhere near it.
- Clean up45 minThe part nobody photographs, and the part that decides the next batch.
Brew day4 h 30 min, kettle on to kitchen clean. The rest of the wait is the yeast doing its own work.
What arrives, and what you supply
In the box
- Milled grain, weighed for a 5-gallon batch
- Hops in marked packets, one per addition
- Yeast — Saflager W-34/70
- Priming sugar for bottling
- Printed recipe and brew-day instructions
Worth knowing
- You will need: a brew pot, a fermenter with an airlock, a thermometer, a hydrometer and bottles or a keg.
- Ferment at 50°F for three weeks — temperature control matters more than almost anything else in this box.
- Patience. This is the long one — do not rush the lagering.
The recipe, in full
Printed on a card in the box as well. Nothing here is a concentrate and nothing is a trade secret.
Grain bill
- Bohemian pilsner malt
- 9 lb
- Carapils
- 6 oz
Hop schedule
- Saaz
- 1.5 oz at 60 min
- Saaz
- 1 oz at 20 min
- Saaz
- 1 oz at flameout
Fermentation
- Yeast
- Saflager W-34/70
- Schedule
- 50°F for three weeks, then six weeks lagering at 34°F
- Batch
- 5 US gallons
Named for the Bighorn River
South-central Montana · MT
The water it is named for
- Water type
- Tailwater
While the wort cools
- Brewing starter kit$139
Six-gallon fermenter, airlock, auto-siphon, hydrometer, thermometer, bottling wand and a capper. Everything the recipe assumes you already own.
- Bighorn airbrushed hat
The same water, hand airbrushed onto a trucker cap.
Where this came from
river beer · made
0 — nothing entered the score yet, at the Derby's published weights, since . Views are not counted.
- bighorn
- home-brew
- czech-pilsner
- mt