Historical Beers East German Kottbusser

[unionrdr]

Recipe Type

Partial Mash

Yeast

WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch

Yeast Starter

800ml with .17lb LME & one packet yeast

Batch Size (Gallons)

5 USG

Original Gravity

1.054

Final Gravity

1.010

Boiling Time (Minutes)

1 hour

IBU

20.1

Color

5.2 SRM

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

About 21 days

Tasting Notes

Clean, lager-like balance betweenmalts/hops with a little tartness on the finish. Ver

3lbs) Bohemian pilsner malt
3lbs) German wheat malt (Weyermann's)
12ozs) Flaked oats (Briess)
4ozs) Carared (Weyermann's)
4ozs) Acidulated malt (Weyermann's)
4ozs) Rice hulls
3lbs) Pilsner LME (Briess)
1/2) Whirlfloc tablet
.6oz) Unsulphured gold molasses
1.3ozs) Honey
.65oz) Magnum hops @ 60 minutes
.60oz) Haulertauer @ 3 minutes
1oz) Czech Saaz @ 3 minutes
*****************************
Style: (BS2)- specialty Beer
Est OG-1.061
Actual OG- 1.054
Est FG- 1.015
Actual FG- 1.010
IBU- 20.1
Est ABV- 6.1%
BIAB, Medium body, batch sparge
Ale, single stage
****************************
I made a starter of 800ml out of the odd .15lb of LME in the jug for one packet of WLP029 yeast. With that finished & cold crashed, brew day commenced. Crushed the grains & added the rice hulls. I added them, thinking the oats might gum things up a bit? I used a 5 gallon nylon bag in my 5G SS BK/MT to hold the 7.5lbs of crushed grains. 2.25 to 2.5 gallons of spring water was heated to 155F before stirring in the grains. Covered & wrapped in quilted hunting coat to hold mash temp for 1 hour mash. Heated 1.5 gallons spring water in another kettle to 168F for the dunk(read batch) sparge. Drained grain bag & pressed out as much wort as possible. Stretched grain bag over lip of sparge kettle to stir well & let soak 10 minutes. Wort then got a 7 minute saccharification rest mentioned in BS2 @ that temp. Strained sparge into main wort & heated on HIGH to a boil. Got about 1/2 gallon hot break right before the boil that didn't last long.
Add bittering hops & start timer @ 1 hour. @ 15 minutes left, add 1/2 Whirlfloc tablet. @ 3 minutes left, add the Haulertauer & Czech Saaz. At flame out, add the 3lbs LME & stir well, but off the heat source! Chill in ice bath down to 75F. Strain into clean, sanitized fermenter & top off to 5 gallons recipe volume with jugs of spring water that chilled in the fridge a day or two before brew day. This adds oxygen & brings temp down some 120 degrees to 65F or so. Happens so fast, it can give a nice little cold break as well. Stir roughly 5minutes to mix wort & water, also aerate a little more. Take hydrometer sample in clean, sanitized tube/hydrometer & note reading. This is your OG. Decant excess liquid from starter, leaving just enough to swirl up the yeast. Pour yeast into primary fermenter, along with hydrometer sample if everything was indeed clean & sanitary. Seal up fermenter, adding airlock filled with Starsan to the line on the side. Ferment temp was 65-69F, typically 68F.
Allow to ferment about 21 days, or until a stable FG of 1.010 is had. It should be settling out nicely by this point. Weigh out molasses & honey in clean, sanitized cup or the like, thinning with a little wort to make it pourable. Add to primary fermenter & allow to ferment out a second time. Then prime to 2.3 Vco2 with 3.73 ounces Dextrose (corn sugar) dissolved in 2C water boiled for a couple minutes. Cover & cool. Sanitize bottling bucket & use sanitized tubing on sanitized primary spigot (if used) to rack beer into bottling bucket. Tubing around the bottom of it will induce a swirl. Add priming solution now while column of beer is rising.
I got some 53.5-12ounce bottles from this batch straining the hop/grain gunk out of the chilled wort going into primary. Let them sit at room temp 3-4 weeks before 2 weeks fridge time. The two weeks in the fridge simulates lagering time, which I don't have the equipment for. Here's a pic of it in the glass;

 

[HardyFool]

That looks like a great beer, and I'm somewhat surprised to see even a single Kottbusser on here! I've read, though, that they're something of a prototypical Berliner Weisse, having been the supply of souring bacteria to Berliner Weisse brewers before the colony stabilized for those brewers; have you ever tried souring this recipe? And the flaked oats have always interested me, did this have a noticeably larger or rounder body vs, say, a Kölsch or Helles Lager?

 

[RPh_Guy]

The OP hasn't been on the forum since 2017 (tap/click on his name).

It does look interesting. I've never heard of the style.

Nothing I read says this style was sour. A healthy amount of hops and consuming it quickly would prevent souring. However, whatever you want is good

I haven't had good luck fermenting molasses. The metallic/minerally taste it adds isn't very good to my palate from the particular product I used (regular unsulfured molasses, not blackstrap).

 

[HardyFool]

The OP hasn't been on the forum since 2017 (tap/click on his name).

First, thanks for the heads up - I don't use this site a ton, and if I'm digging as deep as a '16 thread, that kind of info will definitely help moving forward

Nothing I read says this style was sour. A healthy amount of hops and consuming it quickly would prevent souring. However, whatever you want is good

I haven't had good luck fermenting molasses. The metallic/minerally taste it adds isn't very good to my palate from the particular product I used (regular unsulfured molasses, not blackstrap).

here's a quote from the (admittedly obscure) book Historic German and Austrian Beers for the Home Brewer, p80:
"[Kottbusser] also seems to have been very sparkling and forming a large amount of foam. The beer also most likely was sour to a certain extent, probably just like a Berliner Weisse, and there is strong evidence for this: in fact, Berliner Weisse brewers received regular shipments of yeast from Cottbus well into the 19th century. Only later in the 19th century, a stable local mixed culture had formed in Berlin so that brewers could repeatedly repitch their own yeast. Before that, the used yeast had to be refreshed, otherwise the brewed Berliner Weisse would have turned out to be too sour"

 

[RPh_Guy]

I don't know whether kottbusser was or wasn't sour, but that doesn't sound like "strong evidence" to me. It's all good though.

The act of shipping yeast in the 19th century, before modern knowledge of microbiology and sanitary practices, would probably lead to bacterial contamination (if it wasn't present already) and high temps in transit would favor bacterial growth.
Berliner weisse also has a much lower hopping rate, allowing the beer to sour much more easily.

Try souring a beer after adding the amount of hops used in this recipe and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Cheers

 

[HardyFool]

So, a few points on that legitimate claim:

1. The two recipes from the book I referenced both clock in at 10 IBU, more than friendly enough for lactobacillus
2. I wouldn't be shocked if Lacto could even survive the 20 IBU environment given warmth and time, as discussed on Milk the Funk, wherein certain strains were claimed to have operated at even 60 IBUs, though I readily grant, this is more of a side note than a serious argument (it's possible, but I suspect the hop rate would have to be reduced for this to produce a sharp lactic tartness and, better yet as the claim above makes, happy enough cells for reliable repitching)
3. Speaking of that book, if your german is sharp (mine's just fine, but the book is terse), you can check out the Handbuch der praktischen Bierbrauerei, page 228 (of which edition? No idea) for the legitimacy of the shipping claim, or better yet, email the author! Andreas Krennmair
4. Commercially, in the US craft beer scene, both sour and non-sour versions are brewed
5. To that end, as a general note, the modernization of malting and fermentation has led to the reduction of the smoke and bacterial quality of all beers (white beers excluded on the former), a point made in Daniels & Larson's Smoked Beers, wherein their focus is on the lack of documentation of "smoke character" in beers, as it was a given that that character would be there. Similarly, it is no surprise that some modern brewers would brew the Kottbusser cleanly, even if they were tightly following historical documentation (to the degree to which that's possible in that era)
6. The point of 4 and 5 being, perhaps, that I doubt a conclusive historical brewing record exists to settle the question, and that the flavors of the base are amenable to either interpretation

In summary, I could see an argument for either side - I think a funky character, even potentially a sharply sour character, is entirely plausible. Were I trying to brew my safe bet version of this style, I'd probably include Brett in the yeast pitch, and perhaps blend in a small amount of Berliner Weisse (or soured Kottbusser) at packaging to suggest the presence of tartness

 

[RPh_Guy]

That all sounds about right.
I completely agree with points 5 & 6. That's all I was trying to say.

Try this on for size:

The two recipes from the book I referenced both clock in at 10 IBU, more than friendly enough for lactobacillus [lactic acid bacteria from that time period]

This probably isn't a style I would brew because of the weird combination of adjuncts.

If you're interested in light tartness, you could use a substantial amount of acidulated malt added later in the mash or sauergut in the boil to add light acidity without needing to blend.

Cheers

 

[HardyFool]

Super fair, it sounds like an odd bird - my book cuts all but the pils, wheat, flaked oats, and honey, but even then it's almost a funhouse mirror hybrid between a berliner weisse and a low gravity british beer, perhaps a pale mild (flaked this-and-that, sugar addition)

Those are solid suggestions, and definitely waaaay easier than a tiny side-batch, with its own pitch, so thanks!