Kellerbier

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Sir Sudster

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Just read an article in this months edition of BYO about a medieval homebrew from Franconia called "Kellerbier". This just might be an interesting experiment.

It's a relatively unknown beer style in North America. ( i've never heard of it) yet its home is Bavaria.

It's a cask condition lager, requiring slow, cool fermentation in oak for several months. Served unpressurized. ( i didn't like this part ) . I like some carbonation so I think I'll adjust this to low carb level.

Check it out, its an interesting beer with a medieval heritage.
 
I saw that Kellerbier article and was thinking the same thing - it looks like something I'd like to try.
 
kellerbier (basement beer) rocks. I had many MANY of them when I lived in Stuttgart. In fact, HB99 was looking for a recipe some time ago, but never got any responses or posted a follow -up.

If you have a recipe, I'd like to see it please!

-walker
 
Here's the recipe/process (compliments of Sudster and his scanner):

Caveman Kellerbier
5 US gallons
All temperatures are in degrees farenheit

All Grain Recipe
Ingredients
8.00 lbs Weyerman Bavarian Pils malt
3.75 lbs Briess Munich malt
2 cups French oak chips (light toast)
2.0 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh or Hersbrucker hops for bittering (8 AAU)
1.5 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh or Hersbrucker hops for flavor/aroma
your choice of yeast:
- Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager)
- Wyeast 2308 (Munich Lager)
- White Labs WLP838 (Southern German Lager)
- White Labs WLP920 (Old Bavarian Lager)​

Step By Step

The day before brewing, make a tea out of the oak chips. The tea will be used at pitching time:
- toast them on a cookie sheet at 250 degrees for about an hour
- put 2 cups oak chips in 180 degree water
- seal this in a jar, let it cool, and put it in the fridge overnight

Use a traditional step infusion mash:
- dough-in at 122 degrees
- let rest for about 30 minutes
- infuse with hot water to reach temp of 148 degrees
- hold temp for 15 minutes
- raise temp to 156 degrees
- hold temp for 15 minutes
- sparge slowly with near-boiling water until mash is at 170 degrees
- lower sparge water temp to keep mash at or slightly below 170 degrees
- finish sparging with kettle gravity of about 1.050

Boil wort for 90 minutes.
Add bittering hops with 75 minutes left in the boil.
At flame-off, add the flavor/aroma hops.
Cool wort to as close as you can to the fermetation temp (48 degrees).
Rack to carboy.
Add oak-chip tea.
Pitch yeast.

Ferment at 48 degrees to completion (perhaps 3 weeks).
Rack to secondary and allow to warm to room temp for a 2-day diacetyl rest.
Rack to tertiary and allow to age for about 2 months at 50 to 55 degrees.
Bottle or keg, but do not prime it.


Extract + Grain Recipe
Ingredients
6.50 lbs Weyerman Bavarian Pils LME
3.00 lbs Briess Munich malt
Same oak chips.
Same hops.
Same yeast.

Step By Step
Make the oak-chip tea the day before brewing as described above.
Put cracked grain into steeping bags.
Put bags into at least 2 gallons of cold water.
Slowly (over the course of 30 minutes) heat the water to temp of 170 to 190.
Remove bags from water, put into strainer and rinse with several cups cold water. DO NOT SQUEEZE.
Turn off heat, add extract, and start boiling.
Add hops and follow the same fermentation schedule as described above.

Extract Only Recipe
Ingredients
5.80 lbs Weyerman Bavarian Pils LME
2.70 lbs Bavarian Dark LME
same oak chips
same hops
same yeast

Step By Step
Make the oak-chip tea the day before brewing as described above.
Heat water, add extracts.
Follow the same directrions for hops, oak-chips, and fermenting as described above.

-walker
 
Walker said:
Rack to tertiary and allow to age for about 2 months at 50 to 55 degrees.
Bottle or keg, but do not prime it.


Is this a flat beer? 1 volume of C02 only?
 
yeah. the magazine said it was served this way. I seem to recall there being a BIT more carbonation than this when I had them, but I can't be sure. I remember then being low in carbonation, but not that low.

I agress with Sudster's original post though, and I think I'd add a bit o'primer to it, but if you are a stickler for authenticity.... just leave it in the basement in a carboy and draw off a little when you want to drink some of it.

-walker
 
Walker said:
kellerbier (basement beer) rocks. I had many MANY of them when I lived in Stuttgart. In fact, HB99 was looking for a recipe some time ago, but never got any responses or posted a follow -up.

If you have a recipe, I'd like to see it please!

-walker

Thanks for remembering my request...I thought I was being ignored.

Incidently, I brought back 2 kegs of kellerbier when I was in Bamberg in July.

BTW, thanks for the recipe. Maybe I'll brew a batch tomorrow. I ended up going to a German HB forum for some recipes...now if I can only find them... :confused:
 
I can't leave this thread to sit here forever like this.

The oak chip tea thing is utterly ridiculous. These beers have NO oak flavor; not ever. The "oak" barrels that you sometimes see Kellerbier and Alt bier in Dusseldorf served from are stainless on the interior and are just covered with wood on the outside to make them look cool.

Even in the lager brewing traditions that did actually use oak barrels (see old-school Pilsner Urquell) they went to extreme lengths to prevent the beer from actually contacting the wood; they'd cover the inside of the barrels in pitch to prevent the beer from contacting the wood and picking up wood flavors or infections from microorganisms that would setup camp in the wood. (Brettanyomyces can survive on the cellulose in a barrel almost indefinitely.)


The use of oak chips or oak tea is an abomination; this recipe should be renamed "Dof Americaner Kellerbier".

If I could destroy all traces of this recipe from all search engines everywhere I would be doing a great service to kellerbier. Adding this post to the end of threads that contain this recipe is the best I can do, though.


Adam
 
Adam,
Thank you for your post, which I am resurrecting to educate the general public.

Despite what the old BYO article says, and the Caveman "Kellerbier" recipe that keeps circulating to this day, there should not be any oak in a Kellerbier.

Never.

Not even a little.

Ever.
 
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