Oktoberfest Ale yeast choice?

Yes I know brewing this is late but Im brewing a beer for my son's 1st B-day party for the adults. I was lazy and didn't brew an Oktoberfest this year so lets call it a Novemberfest. I have basically right under 4 weeks to brew and keg. So i'm thinking 3 weeks in the primary and 1 week in the keg to carb up. I have some washed US-04 and WL kolsch strain. I'm looking for advice on which out of these two would be best for the limited time I have to ferment. I do have temp control capabilities.

S-04 is a typical Octoberfest yeast and it'll do fine with 3 weeks. Just try to cold crash if you can.

I am also wanting the better strain out of the 2 to not ferment out too dry. Maybe ill use a higher sacc. temp rest

schoellhorn82 said:

I am also wanting the better strain out of the 2 to not ferment out too dry. Maybe ill use a higher sacc. temp rest

Click to expand...

I did a test with cry havoc and San Francisco lager and both turned out great. Everyone so far has preferred the San Fran over the cry havoc. Both fermented at around 58-60. The San Fran was done in just over a week and the havco took almost 3 weeks.

Nhurianek said:

I did a test with cry havoc and San Francisco lager and both turned out great. Everyone so far has preferred the San Fran over the cry havoc. Both fermented at around 58-60. The San Fran was done in just over a week and the havco took almost 3 weeks.

Click to expand...

Im really just looking at using these 2 yeasts that ive listed

chilton82 said:

S-04 is a typical Octoberfest yeast and it'll do fine with 3 weeks. Just try to cold crash if you can.

Click to expand...

What? S-04 is an English ale yeast, and Octoberfest is a German lager.. I don't think either yeast is the right one, but between the two I'd chose the Kolsch.

I use the white labs Kolsch in my Oktoberfests and they don't dry out too bad, I usually ferment in the low 60's and they turn out clean. You probably already know this, but if you're going for a 4-week turn-around I'd probably keep it on the light side with the OG and specialty grains since it won't have a lot of time to lager or mellow

If you want to do an ALE version of an Oktoberfest (which I do, for time purposes), you can use US-04. I used Wyeast 1968 this year (the Fuller's strain), and it worked very well. It doesn't attenuate very highly, so you'll get that residual sweetness you're looking for if you mash around 154.