Delaney Octoberfest Lager

Partial Mash
I will be using a Wyeast Kolsch starter for this.
Primary at 50F for 30 days
Secondary at 55F for 7 days
Added 3 Teaspoons of irish moss at 15 minutes of boil.

Day 1
Mash @ 150F for 60 minutes
Mashout @ 170F for 5 minutes

I will add 2 lbs of pale liquid extract to boil at 60 minutes, and the remainder at 10 minutes.

There's a 5 inch high krausen on this mama!!

Day 2
Mash @ 152 for 95 minutes
Mashout @ 170F for 30 minutes
I added half the pale liquid extract at 60 minutes, and the other half at 10 minutes.


Before aerating, I siphoned ~1.5-2 gallons of Day 2's wort into 10.6 gallons of Day 1's wort, which was already fermenting well.

Measured OG: 1.049
Yeast pitched @: 65F
Fermenting vigorously after 12 hours.



The total cost of my ingredients is about 40 bucks.
Input is welcome.

Does that say 23#s of grain? That can't be right, can it? Shouldn't the secondary be colder than the primary, like around 35-40 F? If that's a 5 gallon batch, that's a little expensive - but you guys pay high taxes on brewing supplies, right?

BrewMU said:

Does that say 23#s of grain? That can't be right, can it? Shouldn't the secondary be colder than the primary, like around 35-40 F? If that's a 5 gallon batch, that's a little expensive - but you guys pay high taxes on brewing supplies, right?

Click to expand...

It says 23 lbs because it is calculating the liquid malt extract into the grain bill. It is more expensive in Montreal, Canada. We're a city of 5 million with two competent brew shops. Keep in mind this will produce 11 gallons of beer.

I am only mashing 12.5 lbs of grain. this is a partial mash

I thought it was a 5 gallon batch - 11 gallons makes the price tag sound more reasonable. I still don't understand your secondary temp - isn't lagering usually done at a lower temp than primary ferm.?

BrewMU said:

I thought it was a 5 gallon batch - 11 gallons makes the price tag sound more reasonable. I still don't understand your secondary temp - isn't lagering usually done at a lower temp than primary ferm.?

Click to expand...

Yes ideally secondary should be colder, if anything.

I'm doing this because the beer will be fermenting in my wine cellar. Right now, the temperature is 50F, but the weather should be less cold in March so I'm assuming my temperature will go up to 55F-60F. I also plan to cold crash the beer for a couple of days prior to bottling.

It's all personal choice, but I would recommend upping the Munich and Vienna substantially (and lowering the Pils). Especially since you're adding a large portion of malt extract, you want to get as much bready and malty flavor as you can.
For example, my Oktoberfest recipe is basically 1/3 Pils, 1/3 Munich, 1/3 Vienna.

Zaphod said:

It's all personal choice, but I would recommend upping the Munich and Vienna substantially (and lowering the Pils). Especially since you're adding a large portion of malt extract, you want to get as much bready and malty flavor as you can.
For example, my Oktoberfest recipe is basically 1/3 Pils, 1/3 Munich, 1/3 Vienna.

Click to expand...

Well I decided to heed this advice. I purchased some extra grain and divided my bill in half, for two brews. I will be doing one brew with 1 pound dingemans Special B Malt, the other without.

I mashed @ 150F for 60 minutes
Mashout at 170F for 5 minutes
Boil 65 minutes

OG: 1.052

Okay so the brews have both been pitched, some changes were made along the way. Assuming I used 2 gallons of Day 2 wort, My mix of day 1-2 should have an IBU of 16.2 by my calculations, is that correct?

Day 2 Lager FG measured at 1.0075

Total of 9 gallons of Oktoberfest Day 2.
I bottled 5 gallons at a carbonation volume of 2.75
I bottled 4 gallons at a carbonation volume of 2.5

You are aware that Kölsch yeast is an ale strain, right?

yeah...I'm doing a lager ale I suppose I should say...

I fermented the kolsch at 55F...the fermentation produce a very clean crisp profile and tastes very much like a lager.