Oktoberfest Brew Day!!!

**petep1980** · 07-19-2009, 02:52 PM

Cannot wait. I was supposed to be doing it this morning, but my hangover and afternoon company has pushed it back to the mid afternoon. No prob. My yeast has been started, my top off water chilled, and I have room in my kegger for a true lager-style fermentation. Noble hops, German malts and double decoction mashing. All I'm missing is the month of March, a couple caves and some leiderhosen!!!!!

Wish me luck!!

Ravenhead · 07-19-2009, 02:59 PM

Good Luck! I'll be interested to here about the brew day when you are done!

Matt Up North · 07-19-2009, 10:13 PM

You brewing yet, how's it look?

dontman · 07-19-2009, 10:39 PM

I'm brewing mine this Thursday. I won't be doing the starter until Tuesday so I figure 48 hours for a nice big population boom.

**Malticulous** · 07-19-2009, 11:51 PM

Mine is up next, after the yeast is done with some more schwarzbier.

**petep1980** · 07-20-2009, 01:37 AM

Ugh, I'm sure the beer will taste fine but my efficiency sucked - 59%, pulled 72% last time I did a double decoct. I'm not sure what the deal was.

I lost a gallon more water to the system than expected, so when I went to immerse my coil I didn't have the surface area I wanted so I pitched right @ 60°. My goal was mid 50s. This one is fine though because it'll be close to 50°F by the time fermentation gets going anyways in 12-24 hours.

Oh and during my crash cooling my thermometer broke. Sweet!!! The mercury bulb didn't break thank god. I triple filtered to get any glass out of the system.

SpanishCastleAle · 07-20-2009, 11:52 AM

I just brewed a 1.055 Oktoberfest yesterday too.

I decided to not do a decoction and just threw some Melanoidin malt in there as an attempt to compensate.

Quote:

I lost a gallon more water to the system than expected, so when I went to immerse my coil I didn't have the surface area I wanted so I pitched right @ 60°. My goal was mid 50s. This one is fine though because it'll be close to 50°F by the time fermentation gets going anyways in 12-24 hours.

It's difficult for me to get mine into the 50s so I just put it in the carboy @ about 75 F and set it in the fridge for a few hours and agitate it a few times and then pitch the yeast. Had a nice krausen this morning.

**petep1980** · 07-20-2009, 01:19 PM

I like the double decoct because you can be less anal with temps. In fact next time I do this method I feel I don't need a thermometer. Strike water is hot enough when I can no longer hold my finger in it. That'll be like 125-130. And I know it'll be cool enough to pitch because I can tell when something is chilly.

I need to re-work my system's overall efficiency. If I had enough mash water I bet my brewhouse efficiency would have been higher, my hop utilization better, and my crash cooling faster due to the increased surface area.

I also filtered my hops through too tight a strainer.

**petep1980** · 07-20-2009, 01:37 PM

I popped the lid to the corny this morning. There is a nice looking krausen in there at 55°F 12 hours after pitching. I'm going to continue making lagers because I have a good system set up for lager ferments.

**Malticulous** · 07-20-2009, 03:43 PM

I just decocted the mash out on my schwarz. 11 gallons at 1.051, 89% efficiency.I think it was over 110F out yesterday. My IC only got it down to 85F so left it in the chest freezer at 45F overnight. It was only to 55F this morning. I pitched my slurry anyway. Sad thing was I had to top off 1.5 gallons to get my 11 (I only had 9.5 gallons at 1.060). I guess my boil off and watter measurements were off this time. I wish I had colder watter ready.