coffeegod

Recipes 

Howdy,

I thought I would take a stab at designing my Octoberfest this year rather than using a kit. Here is what I came up with, I ran the numbers through Qbrew but could really use help. This is for a 6 gallon batch, the biggest my pot and crappy stove will handle.



8 lbs light lme
.75 lbs cara munich
.5 pilsner malt
1 lb two row barley
steeped at 165 for 45 min
1 oz Saaz at 60 min
1 oz hallertauer at 40 min
.5 oz tettanger at 15 min

White Labs 833 with starter

Oldsock

Recipes 

Are you doing a mini-mash or just steeping? You should do a mini-mash with some Munich or Vienna (which give much of the classic malt character of Oktoberfests). I would also suggest using some melanoidin malt, which is like a supercharged Munich. I would go for a mash temp ~150.

I would drop the later boil hops, Oktoberfests are not known for hop character.

Other than that it sounds tasty, good luck.

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Pappers_

Recipes 

Just an idea: use 1# of pilsner instead of the two row, and use 1/2# of Vienna also.

For the extract, you might consider a late addition (add 1lb at the beginnng of the boil, but wait to add the remainder until 10 or 15 minutes are left - this will give you a lighter colored beer and avoid carmelization.)

Do you use BeerSmith? It's really great and let's you know what the expected color, gravity, abv, etc. of your beer will be. There is a free trial period where you can see if you like it, then you. An purchase it for less than $30 if I remember right.

And good luck with your beer!

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ThickHead

Recipes 

I am no expert, but +1 on this suggestion.

In addition, if you are steeping your grains (not doing a mini-mash) I would definately up the grain bill substantially. I currently have an Oktoberfest in my primary and it looks something like this:

Grains (60 minute steap at 152 F)
-3lbs Munich
-1lbs Crystal
-.5lb Melanoidin

Malt (60 minute boil)
-6lbs Northeastern Extra Light Dry Malt

Hops
-1oz Mt Hood (@ start of boil)
-1oz Mt Hood (@ 20 min from end of boil)

Yeast
-White Labs Oktoberfest Lager Yeast (2000ml Starter)

Starting Gravity was at 1.066

Edit: This was for a 5 gal volume