Kottbusser - A style deserving of revival!

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I have more left of the first batch for some trades. Gotta get the barleywine version of my Burton ale going soon too. And the Cooper's English bitter so I can use a gallon of it for malt vinegar. Maybe re-brew next month?
 
I checked it yesterday morning and all was good. The yeast blowoff was so thick, that it was all contained on the top slope of the carboy. The carboy stopper was found in the exact location as in the photo. Some clothes soaked in StarSan made for easy clean-up. I should have known with 5.5 gallons of wort and 029 yeast that this would happen. I added some anti-foam drops last night, soaked a new stopper in StartSan along with the freshly cut and soaked end of the blow off tube, and all looked good this morning.

That was at 60 degrees.
 
I'm too lazy to look through the whole thread to answer this question myself, but has anybody mentioned Pattinson's recipe for 1850 Kotbusser? I can share if anyone's interested.
 
I have to look through my research files to see which recipes I took an average of. Go ahead & post it Gerry. I'm sure we'd all like to see it! :mug:
 
Here ya go!

1850 Kotbusser from Pattinson's "The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer", which I recommend buying if you're interested in historic beer recipes.

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

7.5 lbs. Pils malt
4 lbs. pale wheat malt
1 lb. oats
.10 lb. honey
.10 lb. sugar

1 oz. Spalter, 90 min.

OG 1057
FG 1016
ABV 5.42%
Apparent attenuation: 71.93%

IBU 13
SRM 5
Mash at 150F (mash time not specified)
Sparge at 165F
Boil Time 90 min.

Pitching temp. 64F
Yeast: Kolsch and lactobacillus

Notes: The original "historic" mash method consisted of an initial mash with water at 113F, followed by a second mash with boiling water. Hops were boiled separately in a small amount of water for 8 to 10 hours, then added to the wort just before it was cooled. When fermentation reached its peak, the wort was transferred from fermentation vessels to barrels with open bungs. When yeast stopped coming out of the bunghole (heh heh...heh), the barrel was bunged and left to condition for 3 to 4 weeks.
 
Gerry_P said:
Here ya go!

1850 Kotbusser from Pattinson's "The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer", which I recommend buying if you're interested in historic beer recipes.

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

7.5 lbs. Pils malt
4 lbs. pale wheat malt
1 lb. oats
.10 lb. honey
.10 lb. sugar

1 oz. Spalter, 90 min.

OG 1057
FG 1016
ABV 5.42%
Apparent attenuation: 71.93%

IBU 13
SRM 5
Mash at 150F (mash time not specified)
Sparge at 165F
Boil Time 90 min.

Pitching temp. 64F
Yeast: Kolsch and lactobacillus

Notes: The original "historic" mash method consisted of an initial mash with water at 113F, followed by a second mash with boiling water. Hops were boiled separately in a small amount of water for 8 to 10 hours, then added to the wort just before it was cooled. When fermentation reached its peak, the wort was transferred from fermentation vessels to barrels with open bungs. When yeast stopped coming out of the bunghole (heh heh...heh), the barrel was bunged and left to condition for 3 to 4 weeks.
Click to expand...
Looks like you used more wheat malt & oats than I did. And instead of souring the mash, I added 4ozs acidulated malt. This gives that slight tartness that seemed to have been mistaken for souring in my opinion. I used 12ozs flaked oats & 1.3 ozs honey. Sugar was sometimes used, rather than the bit of molasses I did. I used unsulphured golden molasses in mine, .6oz. Also in my case, I used bohemian pils malt, while the regular pils malt was 3lbs of LME, being the pb/pn biab style I do. Rehydrated WL029 yeast along with the acidulated malt gave the bit of tartness the ale was said to have. You can look back at barley-bob's comparison of the flavors, etc of mine vs his for some good descriptions. I thought he described them quite well! :mug: Further comparisons would be nice, but I gotta re-brew this one!
 
unionrdr said:
Looks like you used more wheat malt & oats than I did. And instead of souring the mash, I added 4ozs acidulated malt. etc.
Click to expand...

I haven't brewed this myself, this is just the recipe Pattinson came up with after researching the style. I'd be interested to hear how it turns out if anyone tries it.
 
Thanks for sharing that, Gerry. It's such a good beer. The more I read these, the more I want to tinker. I wish more people would try this if for no other reason than to see how versatile this beer can be. It deserves so much more attention.
 
I'd be real surprised if the 4 oz of acid malt made any sort of noticeable flavor contribution.

I use 3-5 ounces of acid malt in every batch for mash pH adjustments without affecting the flavor or aroma.
 
hunter_la5 said:
I'd be real surprised if the 4 oz of acid malt made any sort of noticeable flavor contribution.

I use 3-5 ounces of acid malt in every batch for mash pH adjustments without affecting the flavor or aroma.
Click to expand...

Exactly. a few oz of acid malt is just to adjust mash pH. I also use it in almost every brew to get pH where it should be. No flavor difference using a few oz.
 
beergolf said:
Exactly. a few oz of acid malt is just to adjust mash pH. I also use it in almost every brew to get pH where it should be. No flavor difference using a few oz.
Click to expand...

As do I. Amounts like this are by and large not detectable. I suppose some super-tasters may be able to pick it out but not I, that's for sure.

Kai has done some interesting examination of this very topic. At higher levels (over10%) tasters were not able to pick it out.
 
If that's the case, it was one hell of a lucky infection. Turned into a really nice, if surprising, beer! Thanks for chiming in on that, guys. I suppose once in a great while chance really does turn out in your favor.
 
There was no visible infection in the bottling bucket or primary. As of now the flavor that gives that tartness is going away, so it's definitely not infected. some kind of yeast ester mixing with flavors from the beer?...
 
It would be interesting to hear from some of our resident experts on sours. I did a berliner last year and did a three way split. One of the three was not as good, but a year later had become much more palatable. I don't really know how I'd describe the change, but it certainly was different. Someone on here can help.
 
Well, like i found with mine, the malts used, the process with adding the honey & molasses had something to do with the tart quality. It's becoming smoother with age. Still there, but to a lesser degree. A soured beer wouldn't do that. I gotta get some more ingredients for a few batches Tuesday on retiree pay day. Then I'll brew it the same way again & see what happens. It could well be a part of my process versus ambient conditions?...
 
Well, I was watching this video on Youtube, & the answer may be @ 1:08:00 or so...

Specifically, the yeast may've been stressed. I brewed this beer & fermented it starting 2/11/15. I made a starter for the WL029 kolsch yeast in 800ml spring water with .17lb pilsner LME @ 85.1F. Developed a finger of krausen the next morning. Cold crashed 2/5/15. Mashed 7 1/2lbs of grains in 2 1/2 gallons spring water @ 154F. Batch sparged 10 minutes with stirring @ 168F.
Having said all that, it was a hard winter & I had trouble getting the fermenting wort much over 63-64F. The range for WL029 is 65-69F. So the yeast was cold stressed till I could warm the fermenter, which produces certain phenols that could be responsible for the tartness. Obviously, in a good way. Something to consider next time. :mug:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
unionrdr said:
Specifically, the yeast may've been stressed. I brewed this beer & fermented it starting 2/11/15. I made a starter for the WL029 kolsch yeast in 800ml spring water with .17lb pilsner LME @ 85.1F. Developed a finger of krausen the next morning. Cold crashed 2/5/15. Mashed 7 1/2lbs of grains in 2 1/2 gallons spring water @ 154F. Batch sparged 10 minutes with stirring @ 168F.
Having said all that, it was a hard winter & I had trouble getting the fermenting wort much over 63-64F. The range for WL029 is 65-69F. So the yeast was cold stressed till I could warm the fermenter, which produces certain phenols that could be responsible for the tartness. Obviously, in a good way. Something to consider next time. :mug:
Click to expand...

That could very well be. I think my starter was closer to 2000 mL. The temperature range for 029 is well below 65F, as I ferment at around 59-60F, though as you point out, I am providing a good amount of yeast.

One thing I have started to do with my starters is on brew day, is I decant off the starter wort from the yeast. I then collect 500 mL or so of my wort, do a stove boil for 15 minutes, cool it down to 70F and add it to the yeast on the stir plate. By the time I am ready to pitch my yeast into the carboy, I have a vigorous fermentation going with a nice krausen that goes straight in.

Probably why I had boom goes the Kotty, but I am sold on the technique after a half a dozen batches.
 
The temp can go a bit below 65F, but the ideal range in the PDF is 65-69F as listed. The large amount of yeast would do better at lower temps though. But the tartness & my pitch size seems the likeliest culprit.
 
Finally stopped pushing this back on my "to brew" list and will be picking up ingredients tomorrow. A couple questions for those who have made this:

1) Any thoughts on late hop additions? It seems that there's not much standard on this. I don't mind a little noble hop flavor/aroma in my beers.

2) Barley Bob, did the version you brewed end up being with rye or did you end up brewing without it? I want to brew the original recipe before I tinker, but man I want to toss a bit of rye in this recipe so badly...
 
I used .65oz magnum @ 60 for bittering, & .60 oz hallertauer @ 3 minutes. That seems to be what hop was used, due to the beer allegedly coming from that region of Germany. But it seems to me that German tradition hops could also be used, as they grew wild in those days & were commonly used. Gettin' about time to brew some more myself.
 
unionrdr said:
I used .65oz magnum @ 60 for bittering, & .60 oz hallertauer @ 3 minutes. That seems to be what hop was used, due to the beer allegedly coming from that region of Germany. But it seems to me that German tradition hops could also be used, as they grew wild in those days & were commonly used. Gettin' about time to brew some more myself.
Click to expand...

Well, German Tradition hops are a recent invention (1991), so I'm not sure about that. I've seen Spalt thrown around as a hop for this.

I was mostly just trying to figure out whether or not to even use a late hop edition. The original literature seems to point to some kind of hop extraction method, so it's hard to know what would be authentic here.

But I mostly just want to make good beer and am not sure if I want a late addition here :).
 
Drinking my second version of Kotbusser right now. Only change from the Zymurgy recipe (extract) this time was that I primed with honey. Holy crap is it good. I'll make this once or twice a year.
 
After some searching to replace links lost in a hd crash some months ago, I found the hops, according to one source, to be tettnang & hallertau. I think I gave my recipe someplace in this thread?
 
Currently mashing at the moment. I think I'm going to use some Santiam I have laying around and toss some of it in at 10 minutes for a pinch of flavor.

I'll be using a 1007 slurry and putting my honey in the primary. Looking forward to this brew!
 

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