Kellerbier!

I'm new here, but not to HB. I started brewing back in 1992 and stopped in 94 brewing 23 batches in that time. Last year I finally got started again when a friend of mine gave me all of his equipment, and now I'm on batch #31.

On to the subject of this post, which is my kellerbier. I was recently on vacation in Germany and while in Dresden I found this awesome beer at a restaurant there called the Shankhaus. It was cloudy and unfiltered so I wanted to take some home with me in order to harvest the yeast. It just so happened that they sold some for take-out, but only in these giant 2-liter bottles. I was thinking, well that's going to be pretty heaving carrying it in my luggage to the next city (which was Prague). I bought it and took it back to my hotel, where my buddies of course convinced me to open it so they could taste it and one of them gave me money to buy a new one. I now had two of the rather large bottles (see the attached image) in my suitcase one empty and one full.

On to Prague where the locals were glad to tell me that bringing beer to Prague is kind of like bringing "wood to the forest"! Of course I told them I'm just bringing it "through" the forest. Ha ha.

In any case, after Prague, I packed up everything carefully in my now oversized bag. Luckily I didn't have to pay extra to fly with it although it was 2 kilos over! The sad part was that when I got home and opened my suitcase I found my full bottle smashed and all clothes reeking of kellerbier. Luckily however, I had also brought the empty one and had sealed it and not rinsed it out (I did this just in case). I took the little bit that was at the bottom of this bottle and pitched it into a yeast starter and voila! I now had the yeast cultured. Using this yeast I've now brewed my first batch of kellerbier, of course I had to guess about the rest of the ingredients.

The attached pic is after moving it to secondary. It was a bit full because I started in a 6 gallon carboy and moved to the 5. I've been brewing it at lager temps. I tasted some the other day and I think it's going to be pretty good! I plan to keg it probably in a week or so. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Cheers!

Wow those bottles are awesome and great story. I hope the beer turns out how you wanted it.

"Skankhaus"?

Sounds like a strip klub.

Oh, that's too bad about the broken bottle. I've taken bottles from the US to Germany in my suitcase a couple of times and so far, no accidents (knock on wood).
Kellerbier has become popular in Germany over the last few years, I've seen a couple of the local breweries adding it to their selection.

Vellum said:

Wow those bottles are awesome and great story. I hope the beer turns out how you wanted it.

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The bottles are pretty nice. I bottled my christmas farmhouse ale in the surviving bottle.

Cpt_Kirks said:

"Skankhaus"?

Sounds like a strip klub.

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It's Shank not skank, but either way... I'm sure I wouldn't know anything about German strip clubs.

skw said:

Oh, that's too bad about the broken bottle. I've taken bottles from the US to Germany in my suitcase a couple of times and so far, no accidents (knock on wood).
Kellerbier has become popular in Germany over the last few years, I've seen a couple of the local breweries adding it to their selection.

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I had quite a few bottles in there, so fortunately only one broke. I was surprised it broke, the glass was really thick on the bottle, like nearly a centimeter. They must have been pretty rough with my bag!

-puts on best Sean Connery accent- "shank you for correcting him my shon"

I kegged it last night and am happy to say that it turned out pretty good! I can taste the similarities to the original (due to the yeast) but certainly it's no copy. The original was more straw colored, more yellow, and mine is more orange. Although I chose the lightest pilsner malt I could find. Also mine is less cloudy with yeast than the original. Mine is also decidedly hoppier than the original.

I can always try again!

Does anyone know where I can get a malt extract that is more yellow in color? For this batch I used NB pilsner malt (6 lbs) along with some pilsner steeping grains. For hops I used Select Spalt, Hallertauer and Hersbrucker, a total of 4 oz and IBU's were calculated in iBrewMaster to be 35. Next time around I want to reduce the hops down into the 20's I think. OG was 1.050 and FG was 1.010. Does anyone have experience with this style of beer?

stubrew67 said:

Does anyone know where I can get a malt extract that is more yellow in color? For this batch I used NB pilsner malt (6 lbs) along with some pilsner steeping grains. For hops I used Select Spalt, Hallertauer and Hersbrucker, a total of 4 oz and IBU's were calculated in iBrewMaster to be 35. Next time around I want to reduce the hops down into the 20's I think. OG was 1.050 and FG was 1.010. Does anyone have experience with this style of beer?

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Extra light and pilsner extracts are about as light as it gets, for extract.

With any extract, you are going to have a darker color than you can get with grain alone. The process of malting, mashing, concentration and drying is going to produce darker malt. With LME it is usually worse.

This is from Brew Your Own from back in November 2005:

Kellerbier by the numbers

OG 1.056 (14 °P)
FG 1.014 (3.5 °P)
SRM 10–20 (rarely lighter or darker)
IBU 35
ABV 5–5.5%

Caveman Kellerbier (5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)

OG = 1.056 FG = 1.014
SRM = 15 IBU = 35 ABV = 5.4%

Ingredients

8.0 lbs. (3.6 kg) Weyermann Bavarian Pilsner malt (2 °L)
3.75 lbs. (1.7 kg) Briess Munich malt (20 °L)
2 cups French oak chips (light toast)
8 AAU Hallertauer Mittelfrüh or Hersbrucker hops (bittering) (2 oz./55 g of 4% alpha acid)
1.5 oz. (42 g) Hallertauer Mittelfrüh or Hersbrucker hops (flavor/aroma)

3-step infusion mash (122-148-156, then sparge at 170°)

1 pkg. Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager), Wyeast 2308 (Munich Lager), White Labs WLP838 (Southern German Lager), or White Labs WLP920 (Old Bavarian Lager) yeast.

On the day before brew day, make an “oak chip tea” as follows: Mix about two cups of oak chips in hot but not boiling water (180 °F or 80 °C), in a tightly seal-able jar. Seal the hot jar, let it cool off, and then keep it in the refrigerator overnight. Before steeping, toast the oak chips on a cookie sheet in a 250 °F (121 ºC) oven for about an hour. Use the tea at pitching time."

JonGrafto said:

This is from Brew Your Own from back in November 2005:

Kellerbier by the numbers

OG 1.056 (14 °P)
FG 1.014 (3.5 °P)
SRM 10–20 (rarely lighter or darker)
IBU 35
ABV 5–5.5%

Caveman Kellerbier (5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)

OG = 1.056 FG = 1.014
SRM = 15 IBU = 35 ABV = 5.4%

Ingredients

8.0 lbs. (3.6 kg) Weyermann Bavarian Pilsner malt (2 °L)
3.75 lbs. (1.7 kg) Briess Munich malt (20 °L)
2 cups French oak chips (light toast)
8 AAU Hallertauer Mittelfrüh or Hersbrucker hops (bittering) (2 oz./55 g of 4% alpha acid)
1.5 oz. (42 g) Hallertauer Mittelfrüh or Hersbrucker hops (flavor/aroma)

3-step infusion mash (122-148-156, then sparge at 170°)

1 pkg. Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager), Wyeast 2308 (Munich Lager), White Labs WLP838 (Southern German Lager), or White Labs WLP920 (Old Bavarian Lager) yeast.

On the day before brew day, make an “oak chip tea” as follows: Mix about two cups of oak chips in hot but not boiling water (180 °F or 80 °C), in a tightly seal-able jar. Seal the hot jar, let it cool off, and then keep it in the refrigerator overnight. Before steeping, toast the oak chips on a cookie sheet in a 250 °F (121 ºC) oven for about an hour. Use the tea at pitching time."

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I can't leave this thread to sit here forever like this.

The oak chip tea thing is utterly ridiculous. These beers have NO oak flavor; not ever. The "oak" barrels that you sometimes see Kellerbier and Alt bier in Dusseldorf served from are stainless on the interior and are just covered with wood on the outside to make them look cool.

Even in the lager brewing traditions that did actually use oak barrels (see old-school Pilsner Urquell) they went to extreme lengths to prevent the beer from actually contacting the wood; they'd cover the inside of the barrels in pitch to prevent the beer from contacting the wood and picking up wood flavors or infections from microorganisms that would setup camp in the wood. (Brettanyomyces can survive on the cellulose in a barrel almost indefinitely.) -Watch the old school episodes of Michael Jackson's "The Beer Hunter" on Youtube to see what I mean. Or read up on historical London porter where the same practice was in place for the same reason.


The use of oak chips or oak tea is an abomination; this recipe should be renamed "Dof Americaner Kellerbier".

If I could destroy all traces of this recipe from all search engines everywhere I would be doing a great service to kellerbier. Add this post to the end of threads that contain this recipe is the best I can do, though.


Adam

biertourist said:

I can't leave this thread to sit here forever like this.

The oak chip tea thing is utterly ridiculous. These beers have NO oak flavor; not ever. The "oak" barrels that you sometimes see Kellerbier and Alt bier in Dusseldorf served from are stainless on the interior and are just covered with wood on the outside to make them look cool.

Even in the lager brewing traditions that did actually use oak barrels (see old-school Pilsner Urquell) they went to extreme lengths to prevent the beer from actually contacting the wood; they'd cover the inside of the barrels in pitch to prevent the beer from contacting the wood and picking up wood flavors or infections from microorganisms that would setup camp in the wood. (Brettanyomyces can survive on the cellulose in a barrel almost indefinitely.) -Watch the old school episodes of Michael Jackson's "The Beer Hunter" on Youtube to see what I mean. Or read up on historical London porter where the same practice was in place for the same reason.


The use of oak chips or oak tea is an abomination; this recipe should be renamed "Dof Americaner Kellerbier".

If I could destroy all traces of this recipe from all search engines everywhere I would be doing a great service to kellerbier. Add this post to the end of threads that contain this recipe is the best I can do, though.


Adam

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Actually I didn't use that recipe at all. I could tell it wouldn't be close to what I had in Germany. I'm glad you revived this thread as I forgot to add an update.

Here's the extract recipe I used:

6 lbs NB pilsen malt syrup
0.5 lbs Briess pilsen DME (added at 30 minutes)
1 lbs German pilsner malt (steeped and removed before boiling)
5 oz corn sugar (45 minutes)
(60 minute boil)

hops:
1 oz Spalt (60 mins)
1 oz Hallertauer (45 mins)
1 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker (30 mins)
1 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker (5 mins)

yeast was Kellerbier yeast from a yeast starter

brewed as a lager at ~45F, racked to secondary and lagered at 40F after a short diacetyl rest at 56F

SRM was 3.3

This turned out to be a really good beer. One of my friends thinks this is the best beer I've brewed yet. I don't really agree with that, but it is pretty darn good. It's not really like the original, as it was just my best guess at it and I have no idea what their malts or hops were. The original Kellerbier also was very cloudy with yeast, but mine ended up being clear. All in all this turned out great though and I have the yeast in case I want to try it again.

biertourist said:

i can't leave this thread to sit here forever like this.

The oak chip tea thing is utterly ridiculous. These beers have no oak flavor; not ever. The "oak" barrels that you sometimes see kellerbier and alt bier in dusseldorf served from are stainless on the interior and are just covered with wood on the outside to make them look cool.

Even in the lager brewing traditions that did actually use oak barrels (see old-school pilsner urquell) they went to extreme lengths to prevent the beer from actually contacting the wood; they'd cover the inside of the barrels in pitch to prevent the beer from contacting the wood and picking up wood flavors or infections from microorganisms that would setup camp in the wood. (brettanyomyces can survive on the cellulose in a barrel almost indefinitely.) -watch the old school episodes of michael jackson's "the beer hunter" on youtube to see what i mean. Or read up on historical london porter where the same practice was in place for the same reason.


The use of oak chips or oak tea is an abomination; this recipe should be renamed "dof americaner kellerbier".

If i could destroy all traces of this recipe from all search engines everywhere i would be doing a great service to kellerbier. Add this post to the end of threads that contain this recipe is the best i can do, though.


Adam

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+1