Oktoberfest-Marzen beer with Ale yeast?

Do to budgetary concerns of a new baby and new house will not be able to lager for a while longer. However I have a Recipe kit for an Oktoberfest that I am planning to brew up Saturday morning but hears the kicker...I am going to use wyeast's 1099 whitebread ale yeast. From whit i have learned on the yeast it should turn out nice and clear with my standard practices. Does an ale yeast totally throw this off style? Im sure it does by beer nazi standards, But im not a hack i read and read on yeasts and this one to me seemed the most suiting. any feed back, anyone do this before or used this yeast before? potentally can this beer turn out too sweet? What should I look For?

I also started the yeast starter last night no results yet but im hoping as the house warms this afternoon it should kick into gear and we can pitch tomorrow.

Rogue Dead Guy is basically an ale version of a Märzen. The beer can definitely be too sweet, but that would be an issue of recipe more than yeast. Anyway, I'm sure it will be great.

There are numerous oktoberfest reciepes that use ale yeast on this board. Edwort uses a kolsch yeast, BierMuncher uses us-04, I personally use wlp007 in mine. Just ferment on the colder side of the temp range for the yeast your using and you should get good results.

Kolsch or California common / steam yeast would work well here.

Mine turned out great. I just pitched Nottingham went about my business.

I brewed my Marzen 5 months ago with a white labs Kolsch yeast. Pulled off my first pint earlier tonight and it was fantastic! You'd never believe it was brewed with ale yeast.

I'll join the list of the faithful in using Kölsch yeast for fake lagers, having done this a couple of times for a Munich Dunkel. I didn't get as "bright" or "crisp" of an experience from the beer, but it tasted really nice.

I have never used the 1099 before, but hey...I hope it worked out for ya!

MalFet said:

Rogue Dead Guy is basically an ale version of a Märzen. The beer can definitely be too sweet, but that would be an issue of recipe more than yeast. Anyway, I'm sure it will be great.

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Actually Dead Guy is loosely a Maibock, not a Marzen.

M_C

I used wyeast Scottish ale for mine and just tasted it yesterday after two weeks in bottles and i am very happy with it, I just picked something that kept some sweetness and didn't finish dry and could handle higher temps because I don't have any way of handling fermentation temps except a Swamp chiller

I've used 1099 several times and that's the yeast I chose to make my fake oktoberfest with yesterday. I use kolsch yeast all the time to make kolsches and I can't see that tart sharp flavor being very good in something I think should be malty and sweet. Maybe I have the wrong idea of what an oktoberfest should taste like, but it sure is good.

Misplaced_Canuck said:

Actually Dead Guy is loosely a Maibock, not a Marzen.

M_C

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this. but malfet is right. it can still be really good.

everything looks really good so far after 4-5 days of heavy blow off in the primary 6gal (i mean... when was it ever gonna stop) I racked into a 5gal secondary its super clear already and tastes about right when I checked the gravity. For some reason every time I rack into a secondary it just about stops all activity. any one know how to deal with this. am i just overly anxious?

Micah said:

everything looks really good so far after 4-5 days of heavy blow off in the primary 6gal (i mean... when was it ever gonna stop) I racked into a 5gal secondary its super clear already and tastes about right when I checked the gravity. For some reason every time I rack into a secondary it just about stops all activity. any one know how to deal with this. am i just overly anxious?

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I give primary fermentation 3 weeks before racking to a secondary, and unless your planning on ageing or lagering this then secondary isn't even necessary.

Yeah, 5 days is way too early to take a beer off of the yeast, that's why you see fermentation stop when you transfer to secondary (in addition to a lot more that you can't really see). You want to leave a beer in primary for at least 2 weeks to allow the yeast to clean up byproducts of fermentation, flocculate, etc. I've been doing this for a long time (3 week primaries) and it results in much better beers.

Soma said:

Kolsch or California common / steam yeast would work well here.

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+1 I would use the Cali common strain. Though it is a lager strain I've had very good results using it around 60-65F. Accentuates the malt flavors very well IMO.

Micah said:

everything looks really good so far after 4-5 days of heavy blow off in the primary 6gal (i mean... when was it ever gonna stop) I racked into a 5gal secondary its super clear already and tastes about right when I checked the gravity. For some reason every time I rack into a secondary it just about stops all activity. any one know how to deal with this. am i just overly anxious?

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What happened is the beer was fermenting quite nicely, then you up and racked it off all that wonderful yeast and stalled fermentation completely. I think secondary "fermentor" is a bit of a misnomer. I prefer "bright tank," as it more accurately describes why you would want to rack your beer from primary. By the time you rack to secondary all fermentation should be done, ideally you won't see any additional fermentation occurring in the secondary. All a secondary should be used for is to clear or "brighten" your fully fermented beer, and maybe for adjunct additions or dry-hopping. Personally, the only time I rack to a secondary is if I am brewing a lager and need to lager for extended periods, and only after I am certain the beer is fully attenuated.

-1 on the cali strain. tried it a few times with my ferm chamber at the middle and low range never liked it. Kind of has a weird taste to me IMO. I just brewed an O-fest with kolsch and the smell fermenting was much more lager like