Amber/Dark Kolsch-Kolschtoberfest type beer - help

I am a huge fan of kolsch and I make a pretty good one. I am now planning a ten gallon batch, based on a kolsch recipe, with WLP029, but I want to give it an octoberfest style color and malt bill. I am assuming I add some extra munich, and maybe some carafa for color, but what about a touch of caramel malt? Maybe some caramunich? I was thinking something like this.

18# Pilsen
2# munich
1# wheat
1# Caramunich
4 oz carafa II
4 oz pale chocolate
2 oz magnum at 90
2 oz willamete at FO
WLP029
Ferment at 65 for 6 weeks
Mash at 149

Kind of like an altbier I guess....let me know what you think

Octoberfests usually are pretty malty, so i would get most of your color from additional Munich and Vienna rather than roasted malts. Not to say that what you have there doesn't look like a tasty beer, it just won't be especially fest-y.

I'm about to do a kolsch followed by a biere de garde and a smoked blatic porter, if I can find a few days to brew.

Oldsock said:

Octoberfests usually are pretty malty, so i would get most of your color from additional Munich and Vienna rather than roasted malts. Not to say that what you have there doesn't look like a tasty beer, it just won't be especially fest-y.

I'm about to do a kolsch followed by a biere de garde and a smoked blatic porter, if I can find a few days to brew.

Click to expand...

Maybe go with 50% pilsen, %25 Munich, %25 vienna for my base grains, and leave the rest as is?

Man, smoked beers/malts just don't do it for me. I just did a baltic porter with pacman yeast, mollases and licorice root...turned out great.

I'd also mash at a higher temp than you do for the kolsch to add more fullness to the body. For malty beers I like to do a step mash and mash in at around 147F for 20 min. and then up to 158 F for another 20 min.

Maybe Altbier recipes?

JerD said:

Maybe Altbier recipes?

Click to expand...

I have never had an altbier, but I understand that they can be firmly bittered and even dry hopped.

I brew a fair bit of Kolsch, Alt and O'fests, and in actuality, the grains bills are pretty similar. I do change up the yeasts and ferm. temps. of course and also how I mash.

I make an "Alt like" O'fest, and a "Kolsch-like" one.

My Alt is roughly half Pils half Munich, smidge of wheat and debittered black malt. My "dark" O'fest just substitutes some caramunich for the black.

My Kolsch is also roughly half Pils half, but then use Vienna in place of Munich. Another smidge of wheat and that's it. I pretty much use the same for my "light" O'fest with just the addition of some caramunich.

Both O'fest use more grain to get the OG up to around 1.060 versus 1.046-050 for the Alt/Koslch. As mentioned above, I do step mashes. For the Ofest, I will hold the mash at the first saccharification step shorter to give me a higher final OG and more dextrins to add to the body.