altbier help

I'm going to make an altbier for the man who not only introduced me to good beer, but gave me most of his equipment to start brewing. So I want this altbier to be GREAT.

I'm going to use this recipe for a 1698 alt:

Batch size 5.5 gal
10# Rahr 2 row
3# caramunich
.5# aromatic
.5# German wheat
1oz pearle 60 8%
1oz pearle 30 8%
Wyeast 1007 German ale

mash notes are single infusion, no mash out,
45min mash @ 158, after 30 min draw 2 gal & heat to boil, add back for remainder of mash.

Tis is my 5th AG batch and first altbier. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions to make this brew go really well? I'm unsure about the 2 gal decoction...it would be my first. On my system it takes about 10 min for a 2 gal boil, so the wort would be added just for 5 min before mash out.

Im just a little anxious and want this beer to be as good as it can be. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

In the first place, they wouldn't have used wheat back then. But that's not really a big deal. It should make a good alt, although very different from the Dusseldorf style I prefer. I like drier, more bitter alts like Zum Uerige, while you recipe appears to be more of a Diebels type.

Have you checked our Kaiser's recipe? I just bottled a batch and it tasted fantastic without carbonation. I didn't do a decoction and I used WLP036 (dusseldof altbier yeast).

After racking off that yeast cake I followed with a dunkel recipe. I'm interested in the taste difference of the WLP036 vs a traditional lager yeast.