Oktoberfestish Ale

[SkiNuke]

I know there are many threads on Oktoberfest Ales, but I really didn't feel like finding which one would be th best to reply to. So I figured, whats the harm in starting another.

Well I have decided to join the big leagues and do an All Grain brew. It would be my first, I have made 2 extract brews before this (Scottish Ale, Pale Ale). However, I was hoping I could get my recipe critiqued. I am aiming for an Oktoberfest/Marzen recipe, but I don't want to jump in and do a lager quite yet. As such, I just was planning on making an Oktoberfest Ale (I know there really isn't a category for this). The recipe I was thinking of doing is below.

7 lbs Vienna
4 lbs Munich (20L)

.5 oz Perle (60 min)
.5 oz Perle (30 min)

Mash at 148 for an hour
then Batch sparge at 165

I was thinking of using a German Ale yeast, but I wasn't sure if that was clean enough.

OG: 1.055
FG: 1.013
IBU: 21
Color: 12

I wasn't sure if I should replace 2 lbs of the vienna for some pilsner. I thought that it might add some complexity, but I have heard that Vienna is maltier than Pilsner malt, and I do like malty beers.

Any and all advice is welcome. Especially on the Mash. I just put it into brewtarget and played around, but I really don't know what I am doing. My backup plan when I brew this is to just follow Palmer's book.'s suggestions

 

[slotish]

Hi
Maybe you should add some carahell ( or some similar malt ) to your mash? In my octoberfest recipe such addition works well - 10 ounces should suffice. It will give you a little more complexed sweetnes.

German ale turned out to be very clean in my lager-like brew so I can truly recommend it to this recipe.

 

[SkiNuke]

What is carahell. One post I found said it was just caramel 10.

 

[slotish]

Carahell is a Weyermann's pale caramel malt ( 20-30 EBC = 10-15L). This malt is very popular in Europe, but I think Caramel 10 is something very similar.

 

[HokieBrewer]

Any reason you're mashing so low?

 

[King of Cascade]

I know there are many threads on Oktoberfest Ales, but I really didn't feel like finding which one would be th best to reply to. So I figured, whats the harm in starting another.

Well I have decided to join the big leagues and do an All Grain brew. It would be my first, I have made 2 extract brews before this (Scottish Ale, Pale Ale). However, I was hoping I could get my recipe critiqued. I am aiming for an Oktoberfest/Marzen recipe, but I don't want to jump in and do a lager quite yet. As such, I just was planning on making an Oktoberfest Ale (I know there really isn't a category for this). The recipe I was thinking of doing is below.

7 lbs Vienna
4 lbs Munich (20L)

.5 oz Perle (60 min)
.5 oz Perle (30 min)

Mash at 148 for an hour
then Batch sparge at 165

I was thinking of using a German Ale yeast, but I wasn't sure if that was clean enough.

OG: 1.055
FG: 1.013
IBU: 21
Color: 12

I wasn't sure if I should replace 2 lbs of the vienna for some pilsner. I thought that it might add some complexity, but I have heard that Vienna is maltier than Pilsner malt, and I do like malty beers.

Any and all advice is welcome. Especially on the Mash. I just put it into brewtarget and played around, but I really don't know what I am doing. My backup plan when I brew this is to just follow Palmer's book.'s suggestions

Everything looks good except the Ale yeast. I like the grail bill and the mash temps and the hop selection.
I have tasted all these oktoberfast ales and have never had one that tasted like a real oktoberfest beer. Sure they come out very drinkable but never the same as a traditional oktoberfest. It very hard to get it clean and crisp with an ale yeast.
Maybe try a scottish ale or something for your first all grain beer. then try the octoberfest when you move on to lagers.

 

[King of Cascade]

Any reason you're mashing so low?

Probably to get the attenuation required for the style….

 

[SkiNuke]

Yeah, I was thinking of mashing at a lower temperature because I had read that the lower temperatures give better attenuation, and I had seen that Oktoberfests should have a drier finish.

Does the Scottish Ale yeast just give a cleaner profile to the beer than German Ale yeast? I was kind of leaning towards all "German" ingredients, but if the Scottish Ale yeast will be better suited for this task than German Ale yeast then so be it.

 

[Dang]

What temperature can you ferment at?

 

[TwoGunz]

IBUs seem low for the style.

 

[SkiNuke]

well i have a slightly modified mini fridge for a fermentation chamber. So theoretically I could do lagering, but I wanted to avoid needing to worry about a diacetyl rest (which I still don't fully understand when to catch), and I figured its better to start off with ales (even if its a modified lager) so that I can get a better feel of the fermentation process. But in summary, I can ferment at any temp I need.

As to the IBU's I was aiming for a malty beer. The beer software I am using (brewtarget) was saying this brew with those IBU's would be considered slightly malty. Not sure necessarily what that means since I feel maltiness would be hard to actually quantify. I don't want the Hops to overwhelm the flavor, but I don't want something too sweet. What would you suggest for a hop schedule instead?

 

[Dang]

If you don't want to use a lager yeast, go with US05 at 50F.

 

[SkiNuke]

A question towards the hop schedule. Will using purely perle like this be a good idea? I have seen a bunch of recipes using a combination of hallertau and tettnang. I was just wondering if I should combine the Perle with something else like the above 2, or if this hop schedule is fine.

I'd like to brew this today, so any and all suggestions are welcome

 

[Dang]

Perle is great for bittering...but I have not a clue what it is as a flavor/aroma hop. Intuition says it will be fairly close to a noble hop, but that could be wrong. If you have tettnang/hallertau on hand, the safe road would be to go with them for flavor.

Sorry...maybe someone who has used perle as a flavor/aroma addition will chime in.

 

[SkiNuke]

Well I brewed this today. I threw in a half a pound of caramunich (30L) to add a bit more complexity. I used Tettnang/Hellertau for the hops. Unfortunately, I had a bit of an issue obtaining the mash temp so I used more water than I had planned for the mash and didn't compensate for less water in the sparge. As such, I ended up with a OG of 1.048, as opposed to 1.056. What will this do? Will it just purely be less alcohol, or will it taste thinner and weaker?

 

[Dang]

You'll have more beer

 

[TwoGunz]

Not a huge difference so don't sweat it

 

[SkiNuke]

So I have been drinking this for about 3 weeks and its going fast. It turned out surprisingly well for my first AG. However, it seems a lot darker than a typical oktoberfest, almost as dark as a munich dunkel. Its got kind of a garnet hue to it. The only difference I have noticed between this and munich dunkels is that most people put chocolate malt in their dunkels, and this has none.

One thing I found very interesting is that it was at its best at week 2 after bottling; and by the time the flavor reached a steady state, the hops had come back and messed up the awesomely malty flavor. It also finishes a tad on the sweet side. So when I brew this again, I will probably dial back some of the finishing hops and up the bittering hops.