Alt Beer Time!

[D-brewmeister]

Anybody brewed a great ALt style brew lately? I have my German Ale yeast in the mail, a pound of Tettnanger hops in the freezer, some new all grain equip., and a basement that is sitting at about 52 degrees. If I were to stray from a pretty traditional forumulaion, I would be inclined to up the gravity slightly (shooting for 5.5. 6% ABV) and add a bit more of a late boil hop addition to give it a bit of hop aroma. Any suggestions for a grain bill, or general technique tips?

 

[Rhoobarb]

Anybody brewed a great ALt style brew lately?

I did an extract / partial grain recently. The bottles are conditioning now. I tasted one last weekend and I thought it turned out pretty well. I'm at work right now, so I don't have the recipe that I came up with. But I gleaned most of it from this article in BYO: http://***********/feature/856.html

I love Alt! Good luck!

 

[D-brewmeister]

Thanks for the link, I look forward to hearing how your brew turned out!

 

[D-brewmeister]

Any body else? I'm sure there are others out there who have tried to make an ALT. What about fermentation temps? I am going to use the Wyeast german ale, and am curious about how it has performed under different conditions. As I stated in my first post, my basement is staying at a nice 52 deg. or so, but was wondering if I could do my primary in my appartment, which is probably closer to 67-68 degrees. (I had the hairbrained idea of setting my primary in a tray of water, wrapping the carboy with a towel that reaches down to the water, and facing a fan toward it, to get some evaporative cooling. Would that work?)

 

[Janx]

Sorry I can't say I remember ever making an Alt.

As far as your evaporative cooler idea, that will work great. I have done that same thing many times. If you add a fan blowing across the fermenter to accelerate the evaporation, you can lower the temp 10 degrees or so.

But do you need to in this case? Isn't Alt an ale that pre-dates lagering? So it would probably want ale temps, right?

Again, I have no experience with Alts in particular, but your chilling idea works great if you keep the water full. Cheers!

 

[jscott]

I put this one together on one of those long insomnia nights. It is my next brew.

6 Lbs German Pilsner
5 Lbs German Munich
1.5 Lbs Cara-Munich

3 oz. spalt 60 minutes

Wyeast 1007 German Ale

 

[homebrewer_99]

I have a Kolsch-style in the secondary now. I haven't tried an Alt yet.