First AG Lager - Oktoberfest

[DJDBrew]

Hi all,

Just brewed my third AG batch this weekend and it happened to be my first lager based off of Yooper's Oktoberfest recipe. I used the same grain bill but compensated a bit due to the lowerish efficiency I had seen in my first two AG batches.

I modified the mash schedule a bit and planned my beta rest at 147 and my alpha at 158 as it called for. But for mashout, I did a decoction just to try it out., which was planned for 168.

I was a bit low on all my targets by about 2 degrees (still trying to dial in my system) but was able to get full conversion. I then batch sparged in two steps and got the grain bed up to 170.

I was aiming for a pre-boil gravity of 1.055 but hit 1.071!!!! According to beersmith, I hit about 90% efficiency which is a good 20-25 points higher than my first two.

I believe the reason is down to a few factors. First is I milled my grain twice at my LHBS. I was able to get a much better crush and did not get a stuck sparge. I also paid more attention to the temp of the grain bed when I was sparging. That seemed be helpful. And lastly the decoction probably helped give me a few points.

All in all, I felt it was a good brew day. Learned A LOT. I unfortunately did not taste before fermentation started (one too many home brews ) so I will give it a try when I taste for Diacetyl. Hopefully I didn't over extract and get any tannins, but we shall see in a week or two.

As always, any comments are welcome!

Cheers.

 

[tootal]

Sounds good to me. I like the idea of decocting at the end for a mash out. I really believe it helps with mouth feel and flavor. Having the grain milled twice helps a lot so I believe that's the reason for your efficiency, that and the fact that you compensated for a low efficiency. I'd take your recipe back to what it was, unless you don't like Oktoberfest and prefer Festbier!

 

[QuercusMax]

Whenever I go a lager I almost always do a mash-out decoction. I just run out the whole first runnings (no vorlauf), boil for 10 minutes, and dump back into the mash tun along. If I'm mashing at 148, 1.25 qt/lb, it brings it right to 170 degrees. Not sure it really makes a whole ton of difference, but I get to say I did a decoction.

 

[DJDBrew]

Thanks for the comments. I actually didn't mind doing the decoction. It didn't really add too much time to the mash and it saved me some water for the sparge which in part I think helped with the efficiency.

I just wasn't expecting my efficiency to be THAT high so came in way over OG. But oh well, a little extra ABV never hurts .

Definitely learned a lot. I like the idea of just emptying the Mash Tun and basically gather all the thin mash and using that for the decoction. May have to give that one a try next time!

 

[DJDBrew]

Just took my first FG sample and started my Diacetyl rest and came out to 1.014. Gonna be some Potent stuff! But my word did it taste fantastic. Great malt body with a perfect hit of hops and really no taste of Diacetyl but hey, the rest can't hurt can it? After a couple of days I'll rack to secondary and begin lagering.

This is gonna be a GREAT beer around the end of September. Just happy it's turned out so well so far.

 

[tootal]

One of our local micros does decoction mashing on certain beers. He pumps the liquid off the mash, boils the mash and then pumps the liquid back in. This way you really are doing a decoction. It does make a difference as his Alt beer was wonderful the first time he made it but the second batch was missing something. I found out he didn't decoct the second one. It truly makes better beer.