Altbier recepie help

[Jesse93]

So, my water calls for amber colored beers. I am a pretty new brewer and I've heard that Altbiers are pretty easy to brew. I'm looking towards a more balanced altbier, not a bitter one. I will use Southern Cross Hops because I have them in my freezer (also have some Dr. Rudi if they are better... )
Help is much appreciated.

 

[theheroguy]

I would recommend using an alt or kolsch strain and not nottingham. Fermented @ 60 nottingham will be lager like but so will the genuine german ale strains. If you can ferment at about 54F for day one and ramp up to 60F 2 degrees a day. Hold that for about two weeks then cold crash or lager and you're done.

EDIT

Im also not a fan of using malts for coloring. I would rather reduce the pilsner to like 25% and add some dark munich in there with more light munich also.

 

[giraffe]

If your water is going to give you a good mash ph, leave out the gypsum and the salt. "a half a teaspoon of gypsum" is a dubious instruction, unless you put it there for good reason ( i dont know your water, but i wouldnt go sulfate heavy over chlorides).

Alts are a wide style , but id disagee with the above. I prefer alts with less munich malt and more pils. Debittered dark malt like midnight wheat is fine for color correction. But i prefer a crisper alt. Some prefer a almost all munich malt alt, that ends up more munich dunkel-y.

Yeah, an alt strain such as 1007, would be better if you can use liquid yeast.

 

[Gavin C]

Some suggestions

Water additions.
Make none without knowing what your starting point is.

Adding random salts is a very very bad idea.

Yeast
Nottingham = Not an Altbier
WLP036 is a good choice.
WLP029 would be my second choice.

Fermentation temperatures
Mid to high 50's is not a bd idea with an Alt yeast

Hops
Use Spalter (Very distinctive flavor and typical of the style)

Here is my Altbier recipe if you want to read more.

Altbier. Yum

 

[Jesse93]

Hi guys and thanks for your replies.
The water I have lacks a bit of both calcium and sulphates, there's where the gypsum comes in. I tried brewing a beer with 2 teaspoons of gypsum, it came out WAY to bitter. If I use 0.5tsp it becomes quite balanced, it just enhances the hops a bit. Salt (NaCl) just makes the beer sweeter, which I guess is OK in this case. I checked the adjusted water profile in brewers friend and using NaCl it gives me a balance between maltiness and bitterness, rather than highly bitter.

I'll consider another yeast strain