Need advice on my first Alt

I'm brewing my first alt and this is what I have came up with on beer smith and from reading around the forums for a while. Just wanted to post it and see if I missed something or if I'm completely off before I start the brew.

Style: Düsseldorf Altbier
TYPE: Extract

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.5 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.0 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 14.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes


Ingredients:

1 lbs Caramunich II (Weyermann) (63.0 SRM)
1 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)
6 lbs Munich Liquid Malt (10SRM?)
2 oz Spalter [4.50 %]
1.0 pkg German Ale (Wyeast Labs #1007)



---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.042 SG Est OG: 1.051 SG
Amt Name Type %/IBU
1 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) 12.5 %
2 lbs Munich Liquid Malt [Boil for60 min] 25.0 %
1.00 oz Spalter [4.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 18.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Spalter [4.50 %] - Boil 30 min Hop 14.4 IBUs
4 lbs Munich Liquid Malt [Boil for20 min] 50.0 %




Notes:
------
Steep Grains for 20-30 mins at 160F in a smaller side pot filled with 1.5 gallon. While steeping start to boil 5 gallons in pot outside. Once steeping is done add it to the full pot. Add DME and 20% of LME and Hops at 60, Hops again at 30. Last 15 minutes of boil add rest of LME. Primary for 2 weeks or when FG is reached at 58F. 2 days at 62-65F (for a dicytal rest). Cold Condition for 4 weeks at 42F - 45F. Batch prime and pitch new yeast, I save my yeast from my conical but dry yeast will work. Bottle, let carb at room temp(60F-65F) for 2-3 weeks. Bottle condition for 4 weeks at 35F. Prost!

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com

Any suggestions? Its a full boil in my new 15g pot. Eventually if this turns out the way I want it, Ill be doing 10 gallon batches but not yet. I have the 14g Stout conical that I ferment in.

Maybe add another 1oz of hops at 5min left in the boil. Hallertau?

Why Cold condition for 4 weeks at 40-42? Your using an Ale yeast.

From what I read here it says to lager for a while. I figured since I have the ability to save yeast, I could do it in the conical and just pitch a little bit when its time to bottle.

http://***********/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/124-altbier-style-of-the-month

German brewers tend not to add hops late in the boil, so that hop flavor is usually well married to the malt.

The fruitiness that characterizes British ales is negligible or nonexistent in altbiers. This is largely a result of yeast selection (along with hop choice). Unlike British ales, altbiers are given a period of cold-conditioning at low temperatures for several weeks after the initial warm fermentation. This process (undoubtedly the great-grandpapa of modern lagering techniques) provides a characteristic mellow smoothness very different from a British ale.

Fermentation temperatures for altbiers are reasonably warm (in the high 70° F range for at least one brewery!) as long as the yeast strain doesn’t produce too much fruitiness or any phenolic flavors. For most strains temperatures in the high 60° to low 70° F range should work very well. Lagering for a few weeks in the 40° to low 50° F range will promote the wonderful smoothness of a good altbier.

WLP 036 can bring out more alt flavors from my personal experience.

Your recipe and process both look good to me -- very much in line with what I would expect for a traditional Alt. You're right that the beer should be cold conditioned for a few weeks after fermentation. Even though it's technically an ale, the overall process for Alt looks more like a lager than an ale, and I think your proposed technique captures that nicely.

The only changes I might make are very minor.

1. Consider increasing the 60 minute hop addition. The Düsseldorf Alt style should be very firmly bittered relative to the Northern German Alt. So I might bump that 60 minute addition up so that you're hitting at least 40 IBUs total. I think your 30 minute addition is spot on.

2. You probably don't need to pitch new yeast for bottling. Alt and Kölsch yeasts don't flocculate worth a damn, so you'll likely have plenty of yeast still in suspension to carbonate your beer without having to pitch fresh yeast. Personal preference, though -- it probably won't hurt anything.

Overall, I think it looks like a great recipe. Let us know how it turns out.

Zum Wohl!

Ok sounds good, I put about 1.25 oz hops for the 60 addition. It bumped the IBU's up to 43.2 on beer smith.

I'm going to have to decide what strain yeast to use. WLP 036 or Wyeast 1007.

What I really want to do is try to make it as close as possible to diebels alt. I had fell in love with diebels alt when I was in Dusseldorf, and its nowhere to be found in the US. I thought I read somewhere that diebels was on the low side of bitterness but I could be wrong. I have yet to find a clone recipe for diebels alt, so let the experimenting begin.

Let me know how it turns out, as my last name is Diebel and i am looking to brew an Alt! Currently sampling my first brew, BB Kolsch, tastes just like the New Holland Kolsch I have on tap!

So I got all my ingredients finally... some delays have occurred.

I recently got a new 15 gallon kettle and didn't know the boil off amount. So I tested it out and found out it was about 1.75 gallons per 60 minute boil.
Thus I had to tweak the recipe a bit. Plus I figured with the conical it would waste close to a gallon with trub and yeast dumps.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.74 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.24 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated Color: 14.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 42.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes





Ingredients:
------------

2 lbs Light Dry Extract [Boil 60 Mins]
1 lb Munich Liquid Malt [Boil for 60]
2.00 oz Spalter [3.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.25 oz Spalter [3.30 %] - Boil 45.0 min
5 lbs Munich Liquid Malt [Boil for15 min]
1.5 lbs Caramunich II
1.0 pkg German Ale (Wyeast Labs #1007) in 1 liter starter



Steep Grains for 20-30 mins at 155F in a smaller side pot filled with 1 gallon. While steeping start to boil 6.75 gallons in pot outside. Once steeping is done add it to the full pot.

Add DME and 1# of LME and Hops at 60,
Hops again at 45.
Last 15 minutes of boil add rest of LME.

Once boil is done, cool with wort chiller. Hook up hose and aerator attachment to ball valve and drain wort into conical (I need to get an oxygenation kit ). Place conical in freezer with temp control and let hit ferment temps before pitching and have starter at same temps. After 20-30 minutes drain the settled trub from bottom valve on conical and then pitch yeast.

Primary for 2 weeks or when FG is reached at 58F.
1 day at 62-65F (for a dicytal rest).
Bulk Cold Condition for 4 weeks at 45-50F.
Batch prime, Bottle, let carb at room temp(60F-68F) for 2-3 weeks.
Bottle condition at celler temps ( 55-60F)

:rockin:

My only problem now is I can't seem to locate a dang upright freezer without cooling coil on the shelves. Craigslist has been a huge let down for that last few weeks. I already have a dual stage temp controller. I'm so close now I can taste it.

Again if any tips are out there I would be appreciative.

One thing I never understood is when people cold condition to crash out the yeast and then repitch yeast when you bottle. If you want to crash yeast out, do it after you carbonate in the bottles because once you add that priming sugar you are just going to cause yeast to go back into solution.

I don't have a ton of experience with brewing but this just never quite made sense to me.

Does cold conditioning also crash out a lot of things besides yeast?

Im not pitching yeast at bottling anymore since i've been told there still should be enough yeast left in suspension due to the alt yeast being very low flocculation.

I also have a stir plate and a 2l flask. Im thinking about making a 1L starter. What i need to know is if I should let this starter complete at the ferment temps of 58-60F? Or should i just let it sit out at room temps 72-75? I dont want to get the yeast use to the high temps because this will be cold fermenting for primary and cold conditioning for 30 days. Will it matter much at the high temps if I cold crash the starter and decant of the liquid?

Finally craigslist came through for me and I found a huge and cheap freezer. Ready to brew this Alt this Saturday.

Keep in mind, many alt's have high attenuation (+~80% if I remember correctly), so I would definitely make the yeast starter to avoid under-pitching and incomplete fermentation (I would just go with the fermentation temps your going to use when making your starter).

I thought your original recipe was very good, although 40 IBUs is pretty much the norm.

Good luck!

So I brewed it up on Friday the 15th. So far its going great. I made a 2L starter for it and just let it ferment out at cellar temps which was around 63-65 degrees. I cold crashed the stater and pitched just the slurry and small amount of the spent wort since there was still alot of yeast in suspension still.

I just checked it today which is 10 days fermenting. I'm right around 1.014 from 1.050 at the temp of 56-57 degrees. Im going to let it sit until this Friday and see if it goes down any. Then comes the bulk cold lager phase. Im thinking around 45 degrees should be okay for 3 weeks. The yeast is still in total suspension, ( Wyeast 1007) so I know these low temps are not hurting it at all. Ill see if 3 weeks is enough to clear the beer and clean it up. The taste so far it spot on from what I remember while in Dusseldorf. I am so pumped to knock one of these back!

Very Nice !

Keep us updated on how this progresses. I have my first Dusseldorf Alt in primary right now (WY2565 Kolsch @ 58F). Used German Pils, Dark Munich, CaraMunich I, and just a hint of Roasted Barley for malt. I bittered to 43 IBU with a 60 minute addition of Perle, and some 20/10/1 minute additions of Spalt. I'm also pretty excited.

solbes said:

Keep us updated on how this progresses. I have my first Dusseldorf Alt in primary right now (WY2565 Kolsch @ 58F). Used German Pils, Dark Munich, CaraMunich I, and just a hint of Roasted Barley for malt. I bittered to 43 IBU with a 60 minute addition of Perle, and some 20/10/1 minute additions of Spalt. I'm also pretty excited.

Click to expand...

Yum, you may wanna lock up your fermentation chamber, Ramsey's not all that far.

OP, your recipe looks great. I agree with making sure you solidly bitter that beer, a good Alt is nice and bitter.

I made a PM with Munich malt and a little crystal & choc malt. Bittered with Hallertau and then... I added some spruce needles! (I really wanted to try a spruce beer). It's just been racked to secondary, smells and tastes pretty piney, but good/smooth overall. I only had American US-05, re-pitch, so it should be very clean tasting and attenuate well.

I am waiting to make a temp-controller to lager this bad boy, it just came in today, should be lagering tonight/tomorrow !

So my parents just got back from Düsseldorf and they brought me a few Diebels bottles to enjoy. I didn't remember it having so much of a caramel and roasted flavor to it before, but I like it. My alt has been at 37F for the last week so 2 to 3 more weeks and Ill be bottling.

Wish I had a real Alt to compare to. Good catch there.

Just dropped mine to 40F for a 3 week cold period too.

As a word of caution, this is the beer that got me to cease brewing for nearly 8 years before coming back to it. I did, what I thought was a very meticulous job brewing. I was certainly more careful and controlled than with previous brews. This was probably my 10th brewing session maybe a little more. All the previous had turned out great. The alt looked good going into the fermenter. I did notice that fermentation seemed a bit slow or uneven, but it did seem to finish. The result, perfectly good looking beer that was undrinkable. Off flavors galore. I think, coming back to it now, the problem was that I fermented at too high a temperature. I'm sure it was much closer to over 70 than over 60. So, there is my cautionary tale of woe....lol.

So I am in the process of making up the recipe for 10g now.

I thinking about going with more of a pilsner base this time. The batch will be 11g into the conical. Bottle 10 when its all said and done.

5# DME Pilsen Light
9.3# LME Munich (50% Munich, 50% Base)

That should be okay for extract I'm thinking. Where I have trouble is the steeping grains. I think I over did the Caramunich (1.5# in a 6g batch) last time as it has to much sweetness for an alt.

I have so far,

1# Caramunich III
.5# Melanoden
.5# Carafa Special I

Would these work for an 11g batch?

I will also stick with Spalt hops at 60 and 30 additions to get around 45 IBU's.

GNBRennes said:

So I am in the process of making up the recipe for 10g now.

I thinking about going with more of a pilsner base this time. The batch will be 11g into the conical. Bottle 10 when its all said and done.

5# DME Pilsen Light
9.3# LME Munich (50% Munich, 50% Base)

That should be okay for extract I'm thinking. Where I have trouble is the steeping grains. I think I over did the Caramunich (1.5# in a 6g batch) last time as it has to much sweetness for an alt.

I have so far,

1# Caramunich III
.5# Melanoden
.5# Carafa Special I

Would these work for an 11g batch?

I will also stick with Spalt hops at 60 and 30 additions to get around 45 IBU's.

Click to expand...

Ugh is that still to much caramunich? I really don't want this one to turn out to sweet but then again it is 5 more gallons this time around and less munich LME too.

When I re-brew this style I am going to use pale DME, Munich malt, a little black malt, and just a touch of light crystal/cara (0.25lb/5gal). From what I've learned pils, munich and black malts are usually the only things to go into the commercial brews.

The Melanoden seems fine, as does the Carafa Special I, but you could possibly do with less Caramunich III. How sweet was the original, you are cutting down 1.5lb/batch to 0.5lb per batch (5gal)... maybe that is enough?

If you don't like sweet beer at all you could just get rid of it, but maybe throw in 0.5lb of Caramunich III, so you don't leave yourself hanging.

I don't mind a mild sweetness. I am thinking about maybe just cutting it to the .5lb per 10g just to be safe and have at least some in it. I think my original just had enough Munich that I didn't need all the caramunich unless I cut more Munich out(which I don't want to do at all).

I just brewed a 5 gallon batch for my ale pale. I wanted to see if there was much of a taste difference in the two before I brew the 11g batch.

I had,
3# DME Pilsner
3.3# LME Munich
.25# caramunich III
.15# black patent

1.5Oz Spalt AA 4.4 60 mins
1 Oz Spalt AA 3.9 30 mins

White Labs 036 that I had to stepped up once on the stir plate, since I got it with the 1007 I used on my last batch.

OG was 1.051

I got it in my basement that's 64*F, in a bucket with a little bit of water and a wet towel warped around it. I read that white labs alt strain likes it warmer than the wyeast 1007, plus the freezer is being used to cold condition the alt in the conical.

Yeah, good idea to test it out before you end up with 10gal of Alt you don't like.

Just bottled both batches today. That took a while hah.

Anyways, am I good with throwing in some carapils to get a little bit more body in the beer? It seemed like it needed more of a mouth feel to it. Although its not carbed so it could be hard to tell. But when I drank the Diebels it had more of a thicker feel than mine but its got to be a pils heavy base I think. With hints of faint caramel and a roasty finish.

I was thinking something like this for the 11g batch,

8oz Melanoidin (Weyermann)
8oz Caramunich III (Weyermann)
8oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine?
6oz Carafa Special I (Weyermann)

7# Briess Plisen DME
6# Munich LME (50%munich/50%Base)

2.25oz 60min Spalt AA4.4
2.25oz 30min Spalt AA4.4 for 36.5 IBUS

Possible 1oz Hallertauer AA4.8 at 5 minutes for 38.5 IBU's but not sure yet.

Going with Wyeast 1007 again. I have two smack packs to make a starter with.

Anyways I don't think cara pils will cause any problems with flavor right?

From Wyerman website Caramunich III -
"Adds increased fullness, heightened malt aroma, mouthfeel, deep saturated color. Use up to 5% in lighter beers,
up to 10% in Darker Beers. Recommended for Oktoberfest, Bock, Porter, Stout, Red Ale, Amber Ale etc.
This one is the darkest of the CaraMunich Malts."

So for an Alt you could get away with ~1.5lb in a 10gal recipe (~10%), which would take care of the mouthfeel/fullness and give it some extra maltiness. BTW I think it's supposed to be mashed, but a steep will work jut fine.

Alts don't have much in the way of flavor or aroma hops, so if you want to add them go for it (i love hops). Otherwise I would add the majority of spalt at 60min, and add a reduced amount for flavor, just make sure you hit your IBUs.

The only thing I know about Alt fermentation is that you want high attenuation, so make a BIG starter (especially for 10gal).

I don't think carapils will cause any flavor problems, but I also think upping the caramunich is the way to go.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

GNBRennes said:

Just bottled both batches today. That took a while hah.

Anyways, am I good with throwing in some carapils to get a little bit more body in the beer? It seemed like it needed more of a mouth feel to it. Although its not carbed so it could be hard to tell. But when I drank the Diebels it had more of a thicker feel than mine but its got to be a pils heavy base I think. With hints of faint caramel and a roasty finish.

I was thinking something like this for the 11g batch,

8oz Melanoidin (Weyermann)
8oz Caramunich III (Weyermann)
8oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine?
6oz Carafa Special I (Weyermann)

7# Briess Plisen DME
6# Munich LME (50%munich/50%Base)

2.25oz 60min Spalt AA4.4
2.25oz 30min Spalt AA4.4 for 36.5 IBUS

Possible 1oz Hallertauer AA4.8 at 5 minutes for 38.5 IBU's but not sure yet.

Going with Wyeast 1007 again. I have two smack packs to make a starter with.

Anyways I don't think cara pils will cause any problems with flavor right?

Click to expand...

I think you could ditch the carspils. With the caramunich and carafa, there's really no need, IMO. Maybe up the caramunich just a touch in place of it. Munich malt, or in your case Munich extract, can add to the malty goodness of a beer, so keep that in mind. Maybe more Munich, less Pils. Just a thought.
I totally agree that an Alt should have a nice malty character and good body/mouthfeel. Seems like you have a good base recipe, just keep toying with it til it's perfect for you.

Ok well I did go ahead and brewed up the 11g batch and this is what I used.

8oz Melanoidin (Weyermann)
1lb Caramunich III (Weyermann)
4.8oz Carafa Special I (Weyermann)

5# Briess Plisen DME
9.3# Munich LME (50%munich/50%Base)

3oz 60min Spalt AA4.4
1oz 45min Spalt AA4.4 for 37.6 IBUS

The first two batches have been officially tasted by me now. I must say I really like the second batch that I did with 3# Plis and 3.3# Munich. The first batch is still way to sweet for an alt, it taste more like and american amber but even to sweet for that. Ill let the sit and see if the flavors mend some more but its already spent a month in bulk cold conditioning.

According to yeastcal I pitched 550 billion cells for 11g hybrid, fermenting at 57 degrees. There was a 24-48 hour lag time due to the starter being cold crashed for at least 2-3 days before brew day, also I didn't use more wort to wake them up either. The air lock is now bubbling away, I'm hoping, due to the low temps that I don't need a blow off tube. Also this time around I let my wort cool in the ferm chamber over night to the pitching temp of 57, after I got it as cool as possible with my chiller.

All in all both beers taste very much like an alt should with a lager style clean taste to them. I'm now on a craigslist hunt to find cheap lager fridges for my ale pales and bottle conditioning. Also a BIAB for my 15g morebeer kettle.