I can't find a good extract Oktoberfest recipe

[petep1980]

I don't want to AG it because I can't chill enough in this weather a full boil to pitching temps. I am getting a keezer and since I have nothing to keg now, I plan to make an Oktoberfest in it, I figure I still have enough time.

Does anyone have a good extract recipe though? I know w/o the DD mash it may be difficult to imitate a real O-fest, but a good malty, crisp lager with noble hops will just about do.

Standard Gravity please.

 

[SevenFields]

I cant find a good one either, hopefully someone can recommend one!

 

[petep1980]

I cant find a good one either, hopefully someone can recommend one!

I'm just going to frankenbrew one.

 

[ChrisS68]

Not sure if you want to stick with a pure extract recipe or not, but I've formulated a partial-mash Octoberfest I'm going to try. Unfortunately, I don't have the recipe in front of me, but it's basically:

5.25 Gallons
Grain:
2 lbs 2-row
2 lbs Munich
2 lbs Vienna
.25 lbs Crystal 10L *
3 lbs Pilsner DME

Hops:
Mix of Hallertauer, Saaz, and Spalt (happen to have on hand) to reach about 25 IBUs.

* I originally had half a pound of crystal in the recipe, but the calculations show I should be able to hit my color with 1/4 pound. Don't want to over-do the crystal. If I can get to the LHBS before I brew this up, I might see if they have some Melanoidin to use, rather than the crystal.

 

[rayg]

There doesn't appear to be any need for a triple decoction according
to Jamil's show on Oktoberfest/Marzen:
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Jamil-Show/Oktoberfest-The-Jamil-Show-03-27-06

These guys also don't think you need the 3 decoctions:
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=375&start=0

There are Munich extracts available, you can mash a couple of pounds
of Vienna by itself if you want.

Just use the guidelines at wikipedia and the recipator at
hbd.org/recipator to make your own recipe.
Ray

 

[uwjester]

Brewmasters Warehouse has some munich extract. From there go with

4.5# munich LME
4.5# pilsner LME
1# caramunich for steeping
1.5 oz. hallertau @ 60min
.5 oz. hallertau @ 20 min

For yeast, I've always gone with wlp820, but I have heard that the saflager w-34/70 is pretty good too.

 

[abbot555]

Not sure if you want to stick with a pure extract recipe or not, but I've formulated a partial-mash Octoberfest I'm going to try. Unfortunately, I don't have the recipe in front of me, but it's basically:

5.25 Gallons
Grain:
2 lbs 2-row
2 lbs Munich
2 lbs Vienna
.25 lbs Crystal 10L *
3 lbs Pilsner DME

Hops:
Mix of Hallertauer, Saaz, and Spalt (happen to have on hand) to reach about 25 IBUs.

* I originally had half a pound of crystal in the recipe, but the calculations show I should be able to hit my color with 1/4 pound. Don't want to over-do the crystal. If I can get to the LHBS before I brew this up, I might see if they have some Melanoidin to use, rather than the crystal.

Looks like a good recipie

 

[petep1980]

I ended up with

3.3# Munich LME
3.75# Pilsner DME
1.5# Caravienne
.75 oz Tettnager @ 60 min
.75 oz Hallertauer @ 30 min
Wyeast 2206

Question, I'm shy on IBUs and I don't feel like spending another trip to LHBS to get a noble hop. Any issue throwing in .25 oz cascade @ 60 min, or is there really no point to get from 20 IBU to 25 IBUs?

 

[NHBeerDude]

I ended up with

3.3# Munich LME
3.75# Pilsner DME
1.5# Caravienne
.75 oz Tettnager @ 60 min
.75 oz Hallertauer @ 30 min
Wyeast 2206

Question, I'm shy on IBUs and I don't feel like spending another trip to LHBS to get a noble hop. Any issue throwing in .25 oz cascade @ 60 min, or is there really no point to get from 20 IBU to 25 IBUs?

I would leave your recipe as is. 5 IBU isn't a big difference and I don't think you would want any cascade taste or aroma in your oktoberfest.

 

[petep1980]

I would leave your recipe as is. 5 IBU isn't a big difference and I don't think you would want any cascade taste or aroma in your oktoberfest.

Okay, thought so.

I'm at 21 IBUs, so within style.

 

[uwjester]

If you want to up the IBUs with what you have, just boil a little longer. Out of curiosity, what is the AA of the hops you are using. When I plug in your recipe in beersmith, I am only getting 16.7 IBU using the Rager formula. The default is 4.5% for the tett and 4.8% for the hallertau.

 

[petep1980]

If you want to up the IBUs with what you have, just boil a little longer. Out of curiosity, what is the AA of the hops you are using. When I plug in your recipe in beersmith, I am only getting 16.7 IBU using the Rager formula. The default is 4.5% for the tett and 4.8% for the hallertau.

The Tett are 4.5, the Hallertauer 4.0. I get 20.9 from ProMash.

 

[uwjester]

Fair enough. Regardless, if you wanted a few more IBUs out of the hops, you could still boil them a little longer.

 

[petep1980]

Fair enough. Regardless, if you wanted a few more IBUs out of the hops, you could still boil them a little longer.

I checked the settings and it is supposed to use the Rager formula. I didn't account for boil volume though, so I definitely needed to add another hop.

So I got another ounce of tett

So I am:
3/4 Oz Tett 4.80% @ 60
1/2 Oz Tett 4.50% @ 60
1/2 Oz Tett 4.50% @ 30
3/4 Oz Haller 4.00% @ 30

With a 2.5 gallon boil that gets me to ~27 IBUs

 

[73Drvr]

When are you adding your extract? You could also lower the boil gravity to up the IBUs and add the rest of your extract at the end of the boil.

 

[rayg]

I checked the settings and it is supposed to use the Rager formula. I didn't account for boil volume though, so I definitely needed to add another hop.

So I got another ounce of tett

So I am:
3/4 Oz Tett 4.80% @ 60
1/2 Oz Tett 4.50% @ 60
1/2 Oz Tett 4.50% @ 30
3/4 Oz Haller 4.00% @ 30

With a 2.5 gallon boil that gets me to ~27 IBUs

It'll be interesting to see how this beer turns out bitterness-wise.
Supposedly with extract, the gravity doesn't affect the per cent utilization.

Ray

 

[73Drvr]

Hop utilization is dependent on time and gravity. It doesn't matter where the gravity comes from. True you can also boil longer, with extract that may affect color somewhat. IBU-wise the end result is probably the same either way.

 

[remilard]

Hop utilization is dependent on time and gravity. It doesn't matter where the gravity comes from. True you can also boil longer, with extract that may affect color somewhat. IBU-wise the end result is probably the same either way.

Hop utilization appears to be unrelated to gravity and somewhat related to break material (which is strongly related to gravity in all-grain batches).

 

[petep1980]

Well this thread just went completely over my head. I hope to get this done in the next week or so, so look for end of August early September for results.

 

[73Drvr]

Hop utilization appears to be unrelated to gravity and somewhat related to break material (which is strongly related to gravity in all-grain batches).

Can you cite a source for this?

"How to Brew" by John J. Palmer has a chart and a nomograph (pp. 58-59) that give you the hop utilization with the two inputs being boil time and boil gravity. He cites several sources for his info.

Not trying to be argumentative, I consider myself a beginning brewer and I'm wondering if there's new evidence that contradicts this book.

I just brewed an extract Kolsch and I wanted to get it as light as possible to stay close to style guidelines. I wanted a 5-6 L color, but figured I couldn't get that if I put all the LME in at the beginning. So I used the utilization chart and IBU formula listed in that book to calculate how much hops to add for the 60 min boil in order to keep the IBU the same while reducing the amount of LME that would be boiled for the whole 60 mins. I got my 6 L color that I wanted. But, of course I have no way of knowing for sure what my IBUs came out to except for just trusting the calculations.

 

[remilard]

Can you cite a source for this?

"How to Brew" by John J. Palmer has a chart and a nomograph (pp. 58-59) that give you the hop utilization with the two inputs being boil time and boil gravity. He cites several sources for his info.

Not trying to be argumentative, I consider myself a beginning brewer and I'm wondering if there's new evidence that contradicts this book.

I just brewed an extract Kolsch and I wanted to get it as light as possible to stay close to style guidelines. I wanted a 5-6 L color, but figured I couldn't get that if I put all the LME in at the beginning. So I used the utilization chart and IBU formula listed in that book to calculate how much hops to add for the 60 min boil in order to keep the IBU the same while reducing the amount of LME that would be boiled for the whole 60 mins. I got my 6 L color that I wanted. But, of course I have no way of knowing for sure what my IBUs came out to except for just trusting the calculations.

Sure, here is a quote stating that utilization is worse in higher gravity all malt (and since this is from commercial literature, all grain) wort because hop acids get caught up with break material. If you live in a universe where every beer is all grain (and all malt) like commercial brewers and probably the guys who promulgated the home brewing formulas, then most beers are all grain and all malt. In those beers, higher gravity means more break material.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Q1...&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Where this all breaks down is with extract beers which do not produce much hot break at all. In this case you can increase the gravity but the mechanism for reduction of utilization (break material) does not increase much. This is where the mechanism becomes important and the fallacy of saying "high gravity always means poor utilization" becomes apparent.

Here is a thread on this site with references to two Basic Brewing Radio podcasts. On one of them, John Palmer states that it is break material and not gravity per se that is important and that extract batch gravity does not matter much. In the other, extract beers of varying gravity were brewed and submitted to lab analysis and the utilization did not vary much.

The most important point in hop utilization is this: commercial brewers don't ever really use formulas to estimate utilization. They brew a beer and either taste or test it and make it more or less bitter the next time. Ultimately this is what you have to do at home too, although the formulas can help you get in the ballpark the first time if you have not brewed a similar beer before.

ETA: Here is that second link I promised.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/partial-boils-latest-basic-brewing-radio-podcast-166353/

 

[73Drvr]

Haven't got to listen to that episode of bbr yet. I'm going to try to get to it this weekend. It definitely sounds like new information though, as I just found another old article in byo that talks about hops utilization being based on time and gravity. Looking forward to learning something new.

 

[samie85]

I checked the settings and it is supposed to use the Rager formula. I didn't account for boil volume though, so I definitely needed to add another hop.

So I got another ounce of tett

So I am:
3/4 Oz Tett 4.80% @ 60
1/2 Oz Tett 4.50% @ 60
1/2 Oz Tett 4.50% @ 30
3/4 Oz Haller 4.00% @ 30

With a 2.5 gallon boil that gets me to ~27 IBUs

Was this a 5 gallon batch or 2.5?

 

[Bil]

@remilard very cool, thanks for posting that info!