Mmmmmm...

My Oktoberfest is finally ready.. Not too bad if I sayso myself..

Congrats! What a beautiful site!

looks good. give us the break down :~)

Enjoy......

Okay, looks great to me...but I cant really taste it from that picture...so, please mail me one as soon as possible so I can verify the taste.

Brings a tear to my eye.

DeRoux's Broux said:

looks good. give us the break down :~)

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This one was just made from a bestbrew kit. Only thing I changed was amount of hops I added at what time in the boil. I am not much of a hop guy and it worked out very well. I have drank commercial Octoberfest and this is very simmilar but a bit smoother I would say.

As some of you may remember when I started brewing I didnt like beer all that well and one of the reasons I started was so that I could try out different styles of beer to find something I liked. I have to say it is working!! Its nice being able to talor a beer to what you like personally rather than being force fed what someone else thinks you should like.

Thanks to everyone here for all the help and suggestions

My next brew "scottish ale" is cold conditioning right now. Should be ready to bottle the week after Christmas.

I would like to find a good double chocolate rec to try out. Any suggestions? I have found a few from searching the site here but no one ever said how they turned out.

Getting ready to go get a glass outta the freezer and pour a cold one..

Thanks,
Chadd

that's a good way to look at it.

here's a double chocolate stout care of my local HBS, Defalco's in Houston, TX

DAVID'S DOUBLE CHOCOLATE STOUT Purchase Kit: Liquid or Dry yeast

Dark brown, roasty, malty smooth, with a distinctive chocolatey finish
6 lbs. dark malt extract
1 lb. domestic special pale malt
1 lb. medium crystal malt
1/2 lb. roast unmalted barley
1/4 lb. chocolate malt
1/2 lb. oatmeal
1/2 - 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (add to end of boil)
1 oz. Northern Brewer (bittering)
1/2 oz. U.K. Fuggles (flavoring)
No finishing hops (add cocoa instead)
1 pkg. Windsor Ale Yeast (or White Labs English Ale or Wyeast #1968)
1 pkg. Bru-Vigor (yeast food)
3/4 cup corn sugar (priming)
O.G. - 1.049
F.G. - 1.012

i've brewed this in the past, and a friend of mine still brews sit (i do all-grain version).

keep us posted!

chadd said:

... would like to find a good double chocolate rec to try out. ...

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I did this one back in May and I'm just beginning to drink it now. It is a really big Imperial Stout. You might want to up the chocolate content by half and reduce the dark malts by ~ 1/4. I like it just as it is! Lots of coffee overtones with light choclate flavor; it is right on the mark for an I.S.!

It is lightly carbonated - more like a cask ale. If you want more carbonation, you'll probably want to add a bit of yeast at bottling.

Rhoobarb said:

I did this one back in May and I'm just beginning to drink it now. It is a really big Imperial Stout.

It is lightly carbonated - more like a cask ale. If you want more carbonation, you'll probably want to add a bit of yeast at bottling.

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Hey Rhoo, so you've had that in bottles for 6 months? How did you decide on just 3 weeks in secondary...just curious, I'm fixin to brew one just like it today.

El Pistolero said:

Hey Rhoo, so you've had that in bottles for 6 months? How did you decide on just 3 weeks in secondary...just curious, I'm fixin to brew one just like it today.

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Yep! Count 'em - six!

No real reason I decided on waiting three weeks - I actually got lazy and waited 4-1/2! I think I read a similar recipe, maybe on the web - Cat's Meow or somewhere, where the brewer did something similar and recommended a long bottle conditioning. So, that's what I did. I just counted bubbles during primary until they were around one a minute, then transfered to secondary and took an SG at around four weeks. I sampled a bottle a month and it took about three months before the carbonation even reached a decent level. This stuff will probably be good this time next year!

I plan to brew it again as an AG this Spring. I might scale it down to a 3 gal. batch.