30 Gallon North German Alt Brew Day! (Photos!)

Hey guys! I went over to a friends house, and we brewed a 30 gallon batch of North German Alt! It was a ton of fun, especially with the 50 gallon kettle that we borrowed!

We crushed our grains the night before, with only a minor mishap (we rain the mill backwards, so we had to re-crush :cross

Here is a picture of part of our set-up:


That is a picture from our mash, we did an over night mash at 156:


Sterilizing one of our fermenters:


Yours truly next to the kettle:


Here are the BJCP Guide Lines for North German Alt:

7A-Amber Hybrid Beer-North German Altbier

Minimum OG:-----1.046 SG---------Maximum OG:-----1.054 SG
Minimum FG:------1.010 SG---------Maximum FG:-----1.015 SG
Minimum IBU:-----25 IBU------------Maximum IBU:----40 IBU
Minimum Color:---13.0 SRM---------Maximum Color:--19.0 SRM

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We decided to go with this recipe right here:

Ingredient---------------------------Amount-------%MCU
German Pilsner Malt--------------35.00 lb--------67.0 %
US Munich 10L Malt----------------13.00 lb-------24.9 %
US Caramel 40L Malt--------------3.00 lb---------5.7 %
Belgian Debittered Black Malt----0.75 lb--------1.4 %
US Chocolate Malt------------------0.50 lb--------1.0 %

Hops
Variety------------Alpha-----Amount-IBU------Form-----------------When
US Vanguard-----5.8 %----8.00 oz -25.5-----Whole Hops-------60 Min

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OG: 1.057-------FG: Pending

We are fermenting with SafeAle SO-4 inside of a fermentation chamber with we are fermenting at 60F to start with, then we will slowly raise the temp up to 67F starting halfway through fermentation, so we should
get a really clean fermentation.

Before we pitched at 60F, we oxygenated the wort heavily, this morning the airlocks on our converted kegs were bubbling with much vigor with the only smell being the hop aroma!

Looks like a lot of fun, hope everything turns out well!

It was a lot of fun for sure! We ran into some problems though, the refractometer told us we were at 14 brix, being 1.057 OG, but when I took a hydro reading on a sample the OG was only 1.040, which is kinda of a bummer.

On the fermentation side of things right now, we are having a very vigorous fermentation even at the cooler temperatures! The airlock smells clean too, only hops, no estery smells which is great!

Update!
1st Place Lager and Hybrid Category in Local Home Brew Competition
36/50 BJCP Score

FG was very low on the beer 1.005, resulting in a bit of a thin mouth-feel, but with a very clean flavor profile. I am still stoked about doing well in my first BJCP competition!