Festbier BierMuncher's OktoberFAST Ale (AG)

I transferred this to the secondary fermenter last night. The gravity was down to 1.012 (I bought a new hydrometer). It's a beautiful orange/red hue.

One thing I noticed is it's extremely clean. I added some Irish Moss to the boil, and I just used some gelatin in the secondary. I want to try to make this look as much like a lager as possible.

Only two weeks in, and the gravity reading tasted great! I don't know if I can wait 4 more weeks!

Kegged and carbed this over a week ago. Yesterday I gave it a taste. Still a little green (it's almost 5 weeks old now) but it tastes awesome. Another week or two of aging will probably work wonders for this.

One thing though. I use S-04 in my porters and stouts, and this had a similar finish that those brews have. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but I was expecting a little more of a cleaner finish, especially because this beer is supposed to simulate a lager.

The recipe is certainly a keeper, but I think I might use US-05 next time.

UPDATE: A few days later, and SWMBO had herself a pint of this and raved about it. I took a sip and that taste in the finish seems to have disappeared. She forbade me to change anything in this recipe. Who am I to argue?

Making this right now, I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out in a few months.

Thanks for the recipe!

I'm gonna fire this one up this weekend only I'll be using Nottingham. I'm thinking of fermenting around 62. I'm struggling with the single infusion... With the amount of specialty malt in this, I would think you'd need a beta and alpha rest to ensure enough fermentables. Did everyone have success with hitting final gravity with just the single infusion mash?

would this taste at all similar if i used Hallertau Tradition instead of Tettnang? or rather, would it taste good? I have a pound of tradition sitting idle so i'm looking for brews to use it on.

CorneliusAlphonse said:

would this taste at all similar if i used Hallertau Tradition instead of Tettnang? or rather, would it taste good? I have a pound of tradition sitting idle so i'm looking for brews to use it on.

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I would think so. The hop additions are more for bittering than flavor. The malt is what takes center stage in this brew.

CrookedTail said:

I would think so. The hop additions are more for bittering than flavor. The malt is what takes center stage in this brew.

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true true, good call.

Put in an order to AHB to make this.. not a super cheap brew but not too bad. About $40 before shipping for a 5gal batch.

Prob won't brew for a week or 3 though

It's been awhile since I visited this thread and I'm doing a 10 gallon batch tomorrow. What seems to be the general consensus on mash temp? Sorry I'm too lazy to read through the whole thread

I did a step mash, 145 and 155 for 45 minutes each. Also used Notty and fermented at around 60. Came out clean and tasted very similar to a lager Oktoberfest. Came out very clean for an ale with nice malt notes.

I will be doing another double batch in a couple weeks. Thanks for the recipe bier muncher.

Noob question. I just made the extract version of this. Beersmith said my OG should be 1.055. My actual is 1.044. Is a big deal? Is there anything I can do to bump up the OG?

I plan on doing this recipe this weekend. I have a couple questions:

1. I'm going to use Wyeast 1007 German Ale. I was thinking of fermenting around 60, should I make a starter?

2. How much does this beer benefit from going into a secondary? Should I just keep it in the primary for 3-4 weeks?

Brewing this Sunday and will ferment on a washed slurry of WLP080 Cream Ale strain. This has become my " go to" yeast and I'm hoping the lager strain that's in this yeast will help clean this beer up nicely with age. Can't wait!

I brewed back to back 5 gal batches yesterday. Same recipe on both. Used S-04. OG was 1.050. Plan is to ferment each batch 3 weeks in primary. No secondary. Then keg 5 gals, and bottle 5 gals.

hawgwild81 said:

Noob question. I just made the extract version of this. Beersmith said my OG should be 1.055. My actual is 1.044. Is a big deal? Is there anything I can do to bump up the OG?

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I'm no expert, but I would think that adding more extract during the boil should raise OG. Since I switched to all grain, my OG is usually low, so I compensate by adding a little more grain.

Brewed this last Sunday as our first all grain try. Everything went perfect Hit all the marks on our Mash temps, preboil gravity, Boiled 90 minites hit 1.054 on OG. Cooled crystal clear. Color is perfect though I did add 4oz of molasses to adjust for SRM of Grains. We used the Safale-04 everything is gonig smoothly. This is only our second batch, So we are still Newb's. I took a gravity reading today and the beer is at 1.012. I dont want it to "Dry" out if thats possible and loose any more of the sweetness it has. I tastes great for as green as it is. Question is What to do now. Leave it alone? Rack it off to a Secondary and chill it to 50 or lower degrees to slow it down? Or add some additive to stop the fermentation. Will be bottling since we are not set for kegging yet.

Yikes! I just finished brewing this and ended up with an OG of 1.064!
I checked my brewhouse efficiency and hit 74%

Dhack61 said:

Brewed this last Sunday as our first all grain try. Everything went perfect Hit all the marks on our Mash temps, preboil gravity, Boiled 90 minites hit 1.054 on OG. Cooled crystal clear. Color is perfect though I did add 4oz of molasses to adjust for SRM of Grains. We used the Safale-04 everything is gonig smoothly. This is only our second batch, So we are still Newb's. I took a gravity reading today and the beer is at 1.012. I dont want it to "Dry" out if thats possible and loose any more of the sweetness it has. I tastes great for as green as it is. Question is What to do now. Leave it alone? Rack it off to a Secondary and chill it to 50 or lower degrees to slow it down? Or add some additive to stop the fermentation. Will be bottling since we are not set for kegging yet.

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Not much you can do if you are bottling. You have to let it ferment out or you will end up with bottle bombs. Just have to hope it stops soon

I brewed up a batch of this yesterday, in the carboy around 6pm last night, airlock going crazy with a big thick Krausen over night and into this morning. It smells great! Tasted the preboil sample and it was great, sweet but good. 1.050 pre boil.

Question for those who have made this? Less than 24 hours after pitching the krausen is starting to drop, will probably be completely gone in the next few hours. Does this sound normal?

Brewed this today and my efficiency was great 1.060 preboil if it finishes up as good as the wort tasted its a Winner for sure Thanks BierMuncher your Recipies :rockin:

toolboxdiver said:

Brewed this today and my efficiency was great 1.060 preboil if it finishes up as good as the wort tasted its a Winner for sure Thanks BierMuncher your Recipies :rockin:

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You must know a really big women to be able to get panties big enough to make a tent out of.

Stevo2569 said:

You must know a really big women to be able to get panties big enough to make a tent out of.

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LMAO used to but she left me

Gonna go for round two of this beer for it's second anniversary appearance in my house. This time I have an all-electric kettle with a thermocouple so no more missed temps from crappy meat thermometers, a controlled fermentation environment so no more fermentation's at 80 degrees and higher and finally, I am grinding my own grains at home. If I fudge this one up then I really do suck.

Glad to see everyone enjoying this recipe, I am really excited as well! Can anyone give me feed back on how quickly krausen dropped?

finally brewed this... hit a mash temp of 156, but it was my first all grain using my cooler, and it didn't hold heat well - dropped to 150 by the end of the hour. hit good mashout temp, boil went perfectly. cooled with a great cold break... but the only yeast i have is nottingham.

i predict this will taste much less malty than i hoped for! oh well!

CorneliusAlphonse said:

i predict this will taste much less malty than i hoped for! oh well!

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I wouldn't so sure of that. A lot of the "maltiness" comes from the grain and the hopping rate, not the FG. It will probably be a little drier than with the S-04, but it will still be good.

I am brewing this on Sunday, and I plan to use US-05. I will mash on the high side, and the FG may be lower than BM's, but I am still expecting a great brew :rockin:.

Going to try this, but it will only be about four weeks from grain to glass. *crosses fingers*

I know it has been well over a year but does anyone know how Slowfro and IPAAAA carb levels finished at? I know I need more time but my 1 week and 2 week tastes have very little carbonation and no head whatsoever. I did get a pssst when I opened a bottle and it tastes really good.

CrookedTail said:

This intrigues me. I feel that in cooking, simpler recipes often produce the best results. Why should brewing be any different?

Using the percentages you've used above, I tried to build a 5 gallon PM recipe that I'd like to get your opinion on. The percentages aren't spot on, but they are very close.

Fermentables
3lbs Light DME
2lbs Vienna
1.5lbs Munich 20L
1lb Caramunich II
.25lb Carapils

Hops
1oz Tettnang @ 60min
.5oz Tettnang @ 45min
.5oz Tettnang @ 30min

Yeast
S-04 (although I'm strongly considering US-05)

OG: 1.052
IBU: 21.5
SRM: 12

What do you think?

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I plan to use this recipe using the US-05 as you suggested. Thanks for giving us your results!

It really hurts me that people are calling this an octoberfest.

agenthucky said:

It really hurts me that people are calling this an octoberfest.

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Get over it. I know it isn't an Octoberfest, but hell it will do in a pinch.

rwagner23 said:

Get over it. I know it isn't an Octoberfest, but hell it will do in a pinch.

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You can't call a duck a swan, it's a duck. No matter how much you want to look at a swan, it's just a duck.

I have no problem with the recipe, I understand the time length and even will give credit to calling it an oktoberFAST ALE, but all the descriptions and tasting opinions saying it's the best octoberfest, or a delicious octoberfest...IT'S JUST A DUCK

And you wouldn't taste an amber ale and say it's a great vienna lager. No matter how good it is.

Why bother with posts like that? It's clearly labeled ale and as you mentioned even mispells oktoberfest to get the point across. If it "really hurts you" choose a real marzen recipe.

SenorPepe said:

Why bother with posts like that? It's clearly labeled ale and as you mentioned even mispells oktoberfest to get the point across. If it "really hurts you" choose a real marzen recipe.

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If you say why bother with posts like that then you can also say why bother to call it an octoberfest when referring to it.

It's not mispelled.

And why bother? Because it's the internet, and is no bother. Absolutly none. And in the larger picture, the lengths one has to go through to get an authentic oktoberfest because of the crap being sold to the public is so far disconnected to the original style that it's down right becoming extinct and replaced with crappy fruity carmel beers. That's my point. It can be good, you can love it, but you cannot say it is something it is not. Just because you decided you want something but don't want to do what's necessary to get it. You've changed the product. In no other category would one call a lager an ale. Not one. They are miles apart. What if Dogfish Head filled all their bottles of 60 minute with a light lager?

This recipe actually looks pretty good (minus the cara-pils). I'd consider it if I wanted an english amber

Dude, calling an ale recipe that mocks the flavors of a marzen an OktoberFAST ALE is zero percent like passing off a light lager as DFH 60. Also when I was talking about spelling I was referring to OktoberFAST being a "misspelling" of oktoberfest.

SenorPepe said:

Dude, calling an ale recipe that mocks the flavors of a marzen an OktoberFAST ALE is zero percent like passing off a light lager as DFH 60. Also when I was talking about spelling I was referring to OktoberFAST being a "misspelling" of oktoberfest.

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but what if it was a hoppy light lager?

Okay. So I really screwed up. Still learning this whole thing. I ordered this recipe for 15 gallons and it is "All Grain" which I did not realize what I was getting into. I brew with my friend and he said we are not equipped to do all grain we normally do partial with extracts. We only have a 15 gallon pot, no false bottom, etc. I do have a 27 gallon conical fermentor. I doubt the company will take all the grains back. Any suggestions or reccomendations. Talk about a big screw up. Any help much appreciated.

Go get a voile curtain and look up brew in a bag (BIAB) if you only have a 15 gallon pot you can't do a full volume mash or boil so you will have to adjust your hop schedule for a partial boil.

It will work better If you get the curtain sewn into a bag but you can make it work if your careful.

Ok, I did this brew a little over 2 weeks ago, and the starting gravity was 1.064
I just did my second gravity reading in the last two days and it is steady at 1.021
Any idea why my #'s are so far off? I took the orig. recipe and just cut every thing in half, I was a bit high on my mash temp though. I did a sample taste and it tasted really good, so I went ahead and racked to my keg.
I can only imagine it getting better with age/carbonation. I am hoping this will be ready in a couple of weeks for my 11th wedding anniversary.

Sent from my iPad using HB Talk

JeepDiver said:

Go get a voile curtain and look up brew in a bag (BIAB) if you only have a 15 gallon pot you can't do a full volume mash or boil so you will have to adjust your hop schedule for a partial boil.

It will work better If you get the curtain sewn into a bag but you can make it work if your careful.

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curtain?