First Lager

Well I will be brewing up my Oktoberfest AG kit from Northernbrewer next week and i just want to double check my process.

First i will be making a 2L starter 3 days out, fridge overnight and decant pitch.

Second I plan on doing a decoction to get real malty flavor (from what i've read) so will mash in to get 122* pull out some grain/wort and boil for about 25 minutes mash back into tun 155 for 60 minutes. Take runnings like normal. Boil for 90 minutes.

Third I plan to chill my wort to about 45* before pitching and holding at 48* for 4 weeks or so. Do i need to rack to secondary to lager or can i just keep it in primary like my ales? Lager for 4 weeks 37*. Bottle condition and should be ready by mid-late October. Now i know the real Oktoberfest is in Sept but I would like to drink this stuff through the cool fall months here in Colorado.

Anythoughts would be great!!

Here is recipe

5 lbs. Durst Pilsen
5 lbs. Durst Munich
1 lbs. Durst Dark Munich 40 EBC
0.5 lbs. Weyermann Caramunich II

1 oz. Sterling (60 min)

Saflager W-34/70

I've never used that yeast, so I'm no help at all with that.

As far as after primary is over, taste the beer for diacetyl. You may not have a need for a d-rest, depending on whether or not that yeast produces much. If you do need a diacteyl rest, do that while the beer is still in primary. After that, the beer should be racked off of the yeast cake, and lagering can begin.

Primary might take about 2 weeks or so, and then the diacetyl rest can be completed in two days (if doing) and then the lagering. I'd probably want to lager it for 4-6 weeks if it's being lagered at 37 degrees. Then bottle conditioning, of course. My only advice is to not rush the schedule- it might not be ready for 4 months but it'll be a good beer!

Edit- why the rest at 122? I'd probably mash at 156, then do a decoction to mash out.

That would work to......how would i do the decoc from there?

Same way- pull a thick part of the mash out and bring to a boil and add back to the mash. It's easier if you have some software for the calculations.

I was just glancing through some recipes of mine, and it looks like I did a beta rest at 140, then an alpha rest at 158 for my last Octoberfest. I'm certain that Kaiser is the one who recommended this to me- I'm not at all a chemistry person, but I remember asking him about it, and he's the resident "go-to" German beer expert around here. They were each 30 minute rests, and it was done by decoction.

kaiser also has posted some videos on decoction- very interesting reading! Maybe that would be more helpful than I can ever hope to be! https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=59872

A mashout decoction works the same way as a primary one, only accuracy is less critical. Mash in at 155, hold for an hour, pull out a thick third of your mash, raise to a boil for 15m, add back in to raise temperature of mash to ~170 for sparging. Same melanoidins as the other single decoction you suggested, but if you miss temperature no biggie.

Also, it seems to me that considering the time and effort you're putting into this, it deserves the $5 for a genuine German lager (liquid) strain. Just my tuppence.

I thought about the liquid yeast but did some reading and they say its the same strain. So my thought is that once i do the starter it will be liquid yeast strain before i pitch it, right?

lynwitte said:

I thought about the liquid yeast but did some reading and they say its the same strain. So my thought is that once i do the starter it will be liquid yeast strain before i pitch it, right?

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I don't know. I've always used liquid yeasts for lagers, never a dry.

If you're going to do that protein rest, consider doing a "protein/saccharification" rest instead... at the low 130s. According to Durst's website, they're malt seems well modified and a protein rest at 122 could hurt head formation/retention.

A decoction from the low 130s to the upper 150s will get the most maltiness out of this recipe and still get a good head.

lynwitte said:

Well I will be brewing up my Oktoberfest AG kit from Northernbrewer next week and i just want to double check my process.

First i will be making a 2L starter 3 days out, fridge overnight and decant pitch.

Second I plan on doing a decoction to get real malty flavor (from what i've read) so will mash in to get 122* pull out some grain/wort and boil for about 25 minutes mash back into tun 155 for 60 minutes. Take runnings like normal. Boil for 90 minutes.

Third I plan to chill my wort to about 45* before pitching and holding at 48* for 4 weeks or so. Do i need to rack to secondary to lager or can i just keep it in primary like my ales? Lager for 4 weeks 37*. Bottle condition and should be ready by mid-late October. Now i know the real Oktoberfest is in Sept but I would like to drink this stuff through the cool fall months here in Colorado.

Anythoughts would be great!!

Here is recipe

5 lbs. Durst Pilsen
5 lbs. Durst Munich
1 lbs. Durst Dark Munich 40 EBC
0.5 lbs. Weyermann Caramunich II

1 oz. Sterling (60 min)

Saflager W-34/70

Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of decoction mashing but would have to say that the method gets you a "real malty flavor" is perhaps a stretch or misinterpretation. The malt in the recipe is the source of the flavor IMO, however, a decoction will give it the most support especially in a style such as this one. A decoction will also help maximize yield. That said this recipe looks to have some good malt so I think you are going in the right direction.

Menschmaschine beat me to it but I agree that if you do choose to do a decoction mash move the first rest temp up to 130F or so for the reasons he has already stated. The typical temperature rise with a decoction in also in the vicinity of 20F so you would find that starting at 122F you would not get to the 150F+ range in one step. FWIW my steps for this beer would be 20 minutes @132F and 60 minutes @ 152F with another decoction to mashout temp.

My thoughts on the fermentation and yeast are similar to previous posters YooperBrew and Kai. Don't try and rush a lager. A little more time is not going to hurt. If you are not sure about a diacetyl rest, better safe than sorry. I would lean heavily in the use of a liquid yeast strain here. I have seen mixed reports on dry lager yeasts and suspect there is more of a gap between dry and liquid with lager strains compared to ale strains.

Well perhaps i could spare $7, which would you suggest the straight german or the actual Oktober strain?

That Octoberfest strain works well- I've used that several times.

Ok so i picked up the Wyeast 2206, figured i could use it later...more so than the Oktoberfest. ALso decided i would do the 130 rest for 20 min bring to sach 155 for 60, then do my decoction. Plan on pulling about 50% for my first one boil for 20 minutes then go ahead and mash out. Sound about right?

lynwitte said:

Ok so i picked up the Wyeast 2206, figured i could use it later...more so than the Oktoberfest. ALso decided i would do the 130 rest for 20 min bring to sach 155 for 60, then do my decoction. Plan on pulling about 50% for my first one boil for 20 minutes then go ahead and mash out. Sound about right?

Click to expand...

On your first decoction, bring it to 155dF and hold for 15 minutes, then boil for 10. The mash out decoction can go straight to boil.

lynwitte said:

Ok so i picked up the Wyeast 2206, figured i could use it later...more so than the Oktoberfest. ALso decided i would do the 130 rest for 20 min bring to sach 155 for 60, then do my decoction. Plan on pulling about 50% for my first one boil for 20 minutes then go ahead and mash out. Sound about right?

Click to expand...

2206, good choice. Your described mash schedule confuses me a bit. The decoction is what you will use to go from 130 to sach rest, correct? Then you are going to do a second decoction to mashout? A 50% pull is too much, IMO. The old ROT is 33% although something closer to 40% probably works better for most of us. If you really want to jump to 155 I would do it in two stages. A typical decoction will raise the temp about 20F so from 130 you would get closer to 150 than 155F. A 150/152F sach rest is what I prefer although if you want more chew go with the 155.

Maybe im a little confused by the decoction....I was going to do the decoction after my sach rest of 60min to bring it up to 169 to mash out temps. as Kai suggested

lynwitte said:

Maybe im a little confused by the decoction....I was going to do the decoction after my sach rest of 60min to bring it up to 169 to mash out temps. as Kai suggested

Click to expand...

Yes, but you said you are going to start the mash with a rest at 130F. What method were you going to use to raise the mash temp from that stage to the sach rest? If you are going to employ a decoction mash you would want to do it here too. That step in fact is where it will be more advantageous.

lynwitte said:

Maybe im a little confused by the decoction....I was going to do the decoction after my sach rest of 60min to bring it up to 169 to mash out temps.

Click to expand...

Greg Noonan (New Brewing Lager Beer) gives 3 different types of decoction in his book: Triple, Double, and Single. The Single Decoction mash schedule is not decocting from Sacch/Dextrin rest to Mash-out. It is from Protein/Sacch to Sacch/Dextrin rest.

My point here is that if part of the reason you're decocting is to get maltiness from the grain (in this case you should because it is an Oktoberfest and you're not using any melanoidin malt), the key decoction is from the Protein/Sacch rest (low 130s) to the Dextrin rest (mid to upper 150s). When you decoct from dextrin rest to mash-out, you need to use a thin decoction. This thin decoction will not produce much maltiness from malliard reactions. You're main purpose of the decoction here is to get the whole mash to mash-out temps. You'll get the most maltiness from a thick decoction going from Protein/Sacch rest to Dextrin rest.