Festbier Oztoberfest (1st place with score of 43!)

Ran this one yesterday. No chill cooling overnight and pitched this morning. Moving to ferm chamber @ 52 degrees once i see signs the fermentation has started.

I used dark Munich malt (on purpose) and twice the amount of carapils (on accident).

Used a little bit longer mash schedule in my brewzilla. Love the easy temperature control.

doug in -> 140 @ 40 minutes
ramp-> 150 @ 40 minutes
ramp -> 159 mash out

Ended up at 7% potential acohol, so i guess my conversion ratio was pretty good.

Just brewed this on Sunday. 12 gallon batch and pitched onto a yeast cake from a pilsner that was kegged the day before.

My mash was: 145 for 40 min then 157 for 30 minutes. Hit all my numbers and it's chugging away at 50 degrees!

oops, mistake

For my lagers I shoot for 14 days at 50F, ramp up to room temp for 7 days or so. Then if I need the fermenter for something else and a keg hasn't opened up the lager will go into secondary at room temp until a keg opens. After kegging it gets 48-72 hours at serving temps on gas, fined with gelatin, then I'll pull a sample every week or so until it's right where I want it. With this beer it seems to take a good 7-8 weeks in the keg to smooth out. It's really good once it does though! As a matter of fact this is the annual Oktoberfest beer in our household. It'll be fermented with the Augustiner strain (Omega Bayern) this year.

WileECoyote said:

CONGRATZ ! ! !

Cheers

Click to expand...

Love your sayings. Do you have any issues if I put a few of these on my beer labels? Thanks

Just spun up the yeast from the freezer bank for this brew. Should be brewing this next Friday/Saturday. Made a few tweaks to the recipe from years past. First attempt used w34/70. Second attempt used 2124. I wanted a yeast with a little less bite this go around so I chose Omega Bayern (Augustiner supposedly). I used that on a helles a few months ago and it worked out great! The Great Western Pure Idaho was a bit busy for my tastes but everything else was great! Anywho I also nixed out the melanoidin malt (my deviation from the op's recipe) and am removing the carapils. Here's what I got

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Märzen
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 7 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.047
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

Hop Utilization Multiplier: 1

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.059
Final Gravity: 1.014
ABV (standard): 5.92%
IBU (tinseth): 23.9
SRM (morey): 8.02
Mash pH: 5.78

FERMENTABLES:
4 lb - BEST Heidelberg (31.9%)
4 lb - BEST Munich (31.9%)
4 lb - BEST Vienna (31.9%)
0.52 lb - Caramunich Type 1 (4.2%)

HOPS:
0.35 oz - Magnum, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: First Wort, IBU: 20.58
0.5 oz - Hallertau Mittelfruh, Type: Pellet, AA: 3.75, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 3.32

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Strike, Temp: 125 F, Time: 15 min, Amount: 13.48 qt
2) Infusion, Temp: 147 F, Time: 75 min, Amount: 5.4 qt
3) Fly Sparge, Temp: 170 F, Amount: 3.78 gal
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.5 qt/lb

YEAST:
Omega Yeast Labs - Bayern Lager OYL-114

Kegging this up today! Now can say this version is a good bit smoother than the op recipe. 2124 tends to be a tad "bitey" to me. Works great in accentuating hops in Pilsners but I was looking for something a tad smoother here. The Bayern (rumored to be Augustiner) strain has worked wonderfully! The brew is right where it should be prior to lagering. The toast/roast is already a background note and the maltiness compliments the brew nicely! I used the Munich water profile from Bruinwater and aimed for a 5.25 mash ph. Really curious to see how this tastes/looks after 7 weeks of lagering and fining with gelatin. It should be nice and bright

Made some minor tweaks this year and its even better to my tastes! Next year may just ditch the 15 min addition and go with a bittering charge only at fwh. Used Omega Bayern. I like it better as it accentuates the malt more than the Weinstephaner strain. Rumor has it Omega Bayern is the Augustiner strain. Anywho prost!

Will be brewing another rendition of this in 2 weeks. Here's what's going in the Brewzilla


Title: 2023 Oztoberfest

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Märzen
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 6.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.056
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

Hop Utilization Multiplier: 1

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.060
Final Gravity: 1.015
ABV (standard): 5.95%
IBU (tinseth): 23.88
SRM (morey): 9.43

FERMENTABLES:
3.95 lb - Weyermann Pilsner (30.4%)
3.95 lb - BEST Munich (30.4%)
3.95 lb - BEST Vienna (30.4%)
0.5 lb - Caramunich Type 1 (3.8%)
0.65 lb - Melanoidin (5%)

HOPS:
1.65 oz - Hallertau Mittelfruh, Type: Pellet, AA: 3.75, Use: First Wort, IBU: 22.35
0.25 oz - Hallertau Mittelfruh, Type: Pellet, AA: 3.75, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 1.53

YEAST:
White Labs - German Lager X Yeast WLP835

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Strike, Start Temp: 140 F, Target Temp: 140 F, Time: 30 min, Amount: 5.85 gal
2) Infusion, Start Temp: 140 F, Target Temp: 150 F, Time: 30 min
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.8 qt/lb

Forgot to say I made this last fall and it was fantastic.

Highly recommend doing an alpha rest (at least 20 minutes at 162F) and pressure ferm for a nice pillowy head.

deadwolfbones said:

Forgot to say I made this last fall and it was fantastic.

Highly recommend doing a beta rest (at least 20 minutes at 162F) and pressure ferm for a nice pillowy head.

Click to expand...

Just to clarify you would recommend adding a 20 min rest at 162F on top of the currect mash schedule? I do not have a pressure ferm setup yet but that's way down the line of things to add to the homebrewery

rtstrider said:

Just to clarify you would recommend adding a 20 min rest at 162F on top of the currect mash schedule? I do not have a pressure ferm setup yet but that's way down the line of things to add to the homebrewery

Click to expand...

Personally I'd do about 45mins @ 145 and then 20 each at 154 and 162, but it depends on how patient you want to be.

The alpha rest at 162 does a lot to build dextrins and promote lacing/head retention.

deadwolfbones said:

recommend doing a beta rest (at least 20 minutes at 162F)

Click to expand...

deadwolfbones said:

The alpha rest at 162 does a lot

Click to expand...

Does this seem confusing to anyone else?

The late, great George Fix was a proponent of an additional rest at 160o for 10 minutes. This helps develop glyco-proteins which are polymers of dextrins and middle to high molecular weight proteins. They promote foam stability. 162o for 20 minutes will do the same thing. I've done this many times and it works.

Beekeeper said:

Does this seem confusing to anyone else?

Click to expand...

Yeah, mistake by me on the first one. It's an alpha rest.

MicroMickey said:

The late, great George Fix was a proponent of an additional rest at 160o for 10 minutes. This helps develop glyco-proteins which are polymers of dextrins and middle to high molecular weight proteins. They promote foam stability. 162o for 20 minutes will do the same thing. I've done this many times and it works.

Click to expand...

I've done up to 60 minutes, and at that length (and with pressure ferm, 25PSI for me), I get mousse-like head.

Brewing the recipe this evening. Using the following Mash rests

140F 30min
150F 30min
162F 20min
168F 10min (mashout)

rtstrider said:

Brewing the recipe this evening.

Click to expand...

Small world ... I brewed the same last night using one of your versions.

Single 90min infusion at 148-150F.

I'm trying some new techniques to see how they pan out, mainly because I really want to streamline my brewing process.

I chilled to 85 F and then let sit overnight to get down to room temp and let the wort settle. I could have gotten it to room temp if I baby sat the chiller for a much longer time and passed a lot more water through the immersion chiller; groundwater is so warm right now it takes a while to get down in to the mid-70s. Since I figured I was going to let it settle overnight 10 min to 85 F was good enough.

This morning I drained mostly clear wort into a corny keg. The first few ounces were cloudy but then got brilliant immediately. I boiled off a little too much so I came up about two pints short of the weld line. I had the option of dumping in cloudy wort or just living with it. I figured taking a note for next time was the best course of action. It's now sitting in my lagering chamber to get it a bit cooler.

I'll be pitching Wyeast 2124 and will pressure ferment in the keg at 60 F/15 psi.

Keg has a floating dip tube so I will serve right from it without racking.

Would love this process to work because it would eliminate my need for cleaning a fermentor, purging a keg, and racking for serving. I did the pressure ferment once before successfully. This is the first time I let it settle overnight though to keep as much trub out of the keg as possible.

Thanks for sharing this! I tried a wonky variation this year that really didn’t pan out the way I had hoped, so I’ll be brewing your recipe in the hopes of having the experience I originally intended to! I like how simple and sensible this is, and I’m especially excited for the more sulphuric bohemian lager yeast.