Octoberfest Recipe Critique

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histo320

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After the urging of a good friend who has consistently been bothering me to make an Octoberfest/Marzen, I decided to take the jump and attempt one from scratch. The first issue is that I do not have the space or time to lager so after some research I came up with the following.

I'm a bit lost as to how to achieve the malt flavor so after research I came up with a bunch of different malts and I fear that it may be too many and might clutter the flavor.

I will be using my 10g Mash Tun setup and plan on a 60 min mash at 152F.

Octoberfest Ale
1.061 OG 24.8 IBU 5.60 gallon batch
32.7% Munich (#4.25)
23.1% Pilsner (#3.00)
23.1% Vienna (#3.00)
5.8% Carapils (#.75)
5.8% Aromatic (#.75)
5.8% Carared (#.75)
3.8% Caramel/Crystal 30L (#.25)
Saaz 1 oz @ 60
Tettnang 1 oz @30
Wyeast 1099 Whitbread

Please let me know your thoughts.
 
histo320 said:
I'm a bit lost as to how to achieve the malt flavor so after research I came up with a bunch of different malts and I fear that it may be too many and might clutter the flavor.


Octoberfest Ale
1.061 OG 24.8 IBU 5.60 gallon batch
32.7% Munich (#4.25)
23.1% Pilsner (#3.00)
23.1% Vienna (#3.00)
5.8% Carapils (#.75)
5.8% Aromatic (#.75)
5.8% Carared (#.75)
3.8% Caramel/Crystal 30L (#.25)
Saaz 1 oz @ 60
Tettnang 1 oz @30
Wyeast 1099 Whitbread

Please let me know your thoughts.
Click to expand...

You've pretty much answered your own question. Yes, that's too many ingredients. Good malt flavor here is achieved by using high quality German malt. Munich, Vienna, and Pilsner form the base of the beer. Modern fests are fairly light and Vienna would be the majority of the grist. "Old style" fests (my choice) are darker and use a large portion of Munich malt. You don't need all those accessory malts and if you were going to use any go with German. A little CaraPils is OK if you want to add some dextrins but dump the Aromatic and CaraRed. If you start with the right base malts you won't need any help with flavor or color.

For a lighter color, modern version I'd try 75% Vienna and 25% Pilsner. If you want to go old-fashioned try 70% Munich II, 20% Vienna, and 10% Pilsner. You can sneak in 3-4% CaraPils and/or CaraMunich if you want to do some tweaking.

I'm not much of an Oktoberfest Ale fan. They always disappoint me after having a true lager. That said, I know they are popular and not everyone is able to lager so if you have to, you have to. I might do some searching or asking about other yeast strains, however. A British ale yeast doesn't seem like the best choice to me.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

So I guess I overdid it on the malt bill but I was going off of various other recipes I've seen on the web.

I look into see other yeast possibilities.

I've only had a handful of Octoberfest with Sam Adams being the only option in my area. Sad to hear many of the Octoberfest Ales are up to the standard of the Lager but I'll keep doing my research.
 
histo320 said:
Thanks for the feedback.

So I guess I overdid it on the malt bill but I was going off of various other recipes I've seen on the web.

I look into see other yeast possibilities.

I've only had a handful of Octoberfest with Sam Adams being the only option in my area. Sad to hear many of the Octoberfest Ales are up to the standard of the Lager but I'll keep doing my research.
Click to expand...


The Sam Oktoberfest is a good drink but it's definitely an "American" version in that it uses a blah 2-row pale malt base and then loads up on crystal malt to bump up the color and flavor. Don't let me talk you out of an ale version. I don't care for them but there are many who do. Jim Koch has been bragging from the beginning about the time, effort, and money he expends to get his German hops for the Sam Lager. I wish to hell he spend a few bucks to buy some decent malt for their Oktoberfest.
 
As a possible substitute for German lager yeast for an ale, I would recommend WLP001 California Ale Yeast.
I've used it before in stronger malt forward beers and it does well.
You can get away with a Vienna/Briess Munich 10 mix around 66/33. If you'd like a lighter but comparably strong festbier version substitute the Vienna with German or Belgian Pilsner and use German Light Munich.
Go with your choice of noble hops around 20-25 IBU for about 5 gallon batch and you're good.
 
I took the grist down to
6 # Munich
3.5# Pilnser
3.5# Vienna

Changed the yeast to Wyeast 1056 or may use Dennys Special as I have heard some good things about that yeast and how it brings forward the malt characteristics.
 
Someone tipped me off to using a kolsch yeast rather than an ale yeast the other option I was given was safale 34/70 at a low ale temp. I'm doing a 10G split batch and using kolsch yeast on 5G that I can't ferment at lager temps due to space. I can get the temp on that to low 60s.

Good luck with the brew!
 
I've seen the Kolsch yeast option as well. I am going to look into using it but the lowest I can get my temps is typically the low 60s with a swamp cooler.
 
Glad you paired down that grain bill. I would switch the times on your hops. You can run it through a calculator for the IBU and make any adjustments. Tettnang is dual purpose and Saaz is an aroma hop, often people just use one hop perhaps 2 additions.

Kölsch yeast used on the cool side should come close to lage. Are you going to keg or bottle?
 
Last edited:
histo320 said:
After the urging of a good friend who has consistently been bothering me to make an Octoberfest/Marzen, I decided to take the jump and attempt one from scratch. The first issue is that I do not have the space or time to lager so after some research I came up with the following.

I'm a bit lost as to how to achieve the malt flavor so after research I came up with a bunch of different malts and I fear that it may be too many and might clutter the flavor.

I will be using my 10g Mash Tun setup and plan on a 60 min mash at 152F.

Octoberfest Ale
1.061 OG 24.8 IBU 5.60 gallon batch
32.7% Munich (#4.25)
23.1% Pilsner (#3.00)
23.1% Vienna (#3.00)
5.8% Carapils (#.75)
5.8% Aromatic (#.75)
5.8% Carared (#.75)
3.8% Caramel/Crystal 30L (#.25)
Saaz 1 oz @ 60
Tettnang 1 oz @30
Wyeast 1099 Whitbread

Please let me know your thoughts.
Click to expand...
i would cut the bill down a bit, leave out the aromatic, carared and caramel/crystal....
adjust your amounts to (pounds each)approximately...
Vienna-4
Munich-3
Pilsner-2
Caramunich-1
my last Maerzen... awesome.
 
Soulshine2 said:
i would cut the bill down a bit, leave out the aromatic, carared and caramel/crystal....
adjust your amounts to (pounds each)approximately...
Vienna-4
Munich-3
Pilsner-2
Caramunich-1
my last Maerzen... awesome.
Click to expand...

That'a similar to my recipe, it comes out really nice
 
Last edited:
Randy Mosher says you cannot expect to create a good beer recipe until you are familiar with all the ingredients. The flavor profiles they impart and a what amounts and how each one affects the others. I gave up trying to create something on my own about 15 years ago after making several batches of mud. There are so many good recipes already in the world that I came to the conclusion there is no sense trying to reinvent the wheel.

If you do not have the capabilities to make a traditional lager (which for you Marzen should have been made in March) then you can always make a Mocktoberfest. Here's a search result from this forum: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/mocktoberfest-brew.103229/#post-1131348
 
kevin58 said:
Randy Mosher says you cannot expect to create a good beer recipe until you are familiar with all the ingredients.
Click to expand...

Absolutely true but that doesn't mean you can't (or shouldn't) experiment, that's half the fun! If you have a recipe you like try tweaking one thing about it next time you brew and see if you like the change. Or if you find a recipe that has something in it you know you don't like then replace it with something you do and see
 
kevin58 said:
Randy Mosher says you cannot expect to create a good beer recipe until you are familiar with all the ingredients. The flavor profiles they impart and a what amounts and how each one affects the others. I gave up trying to create something on my own about 15 years ago after making several batches of mud. There are so many good recipes already in the world that I came to the conclusion there is no sense trying to reinvent the wheel.

If you do not have the capabilities to make a traditional lager (which for you Marzen should have been made in March) then you can always make a Mocktoberfest. Here's a search result from this forum: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/mocktoberfest-brew.103229/#post-1131348
Click to expand...
Dont give up. Several batches of mud...what were you doing?? What were you trying to make?
Try it again. Get a base malt. Add 2 character malts and pick a hops and yeast for the style. Are you consulting any kind of book or reference as to what you were trying to brew. It shouldn't be too hard to make something drinkable.
Base malt 80%
2 character malts the other 20%
Pick any one of the C or noble hops .mosaic ,saaz, or go with hallertauer.
 
Soulshine2 said:
Dont give up. Several batches of mud...what were you doing?? What were you trying to make?
Try it again. Get a base malt. Add 2 character malts and pick a hops and yeast for the style. Are you consulting any kind of book or reference as to what you were trying to brew. It shouldn't be too hard to make something drinkable.
Base malt 80%
2 character malts the other 20%
Pick any one of the C or noble hops .mosaic ,saaz, or go with hallertauer.
Click to expand...


Yep, the Keep It Simple Stupid applies to almost everything in life. A lot of great beers are actually quite simple recipes at their core. It's the same with cooking, you don't usually need 20 ingredients to make something delicious, you need 4 or 5 things in the right proportions that complement each other and you've got a winner
 
Soulshine2 said:
Dont give up. Several batches of mud...what were you doing?? What were you trying to make?
Try it again. Get a base malt. Add 2 character malts and pick a hops and yeast for the style. Are you consulting any kind of book or reference as to what you were trying to brew. It shouldn't be too hard to make something drinkable.
Base malt 80%
2 character malts the other 20%
Pick any one of the C or noble hops .mosaic ,saaz, or go with hallertauer.
Click to expand...

Lol. Not looking for suggestions. I've become quite proficient at recipe design (no need to spell out the nobles for me). I was merely trying to point out that you can make some duds until you have a a working understanding of the ingredients. Thanks for the rudimentary instruction though.
 
kevin58 said:
Lol. Not looking for suggestions. I've become quite proficient at recipe design (no need to spell out the nobles for me). I was merely trying to point out that you can make some duds until you have a a working understanding of the ingredients. Thanks for the rudimentary instruction though.
Click to expand...
sorry, apparently I wasnt the only one that thought you were hinting at needing help.
 
Soulshine2 said:
sorry, apparently I wasnt the only one that thought you were hinting at needing help.
Click to expand...

I thought the same...the part where he said "I gave up trying to create something on my own about 15 years ago after making several batches of mud. There are so many good recipes already in the world that I came to the conclusion there is no sense trying to reinvent the wheel." made me think he just threw up his hands and said '**** it' and started buying kits again :D
 
For what it's worth to yah my Oktoberfest Ale is listed below. I used Wyeast 1007 last year and was pleased with the results. I'm going to try K97 this year due to my local homebrew shop closing. No liquid yeast this time of year.

48% Munich Light
40% Vienna
8% Dark Munich
4% Caramunich

1 oz Tradition @ 60
1 oz Hallertau @ 10
 
tegman said:
For what it's worth to yah my Oktoberfest Ale is listed below. I used Wyeast 1007 last year and was pleased with the results. I'm going to try K97 this year due to my local homebrew shop closing. No liquid yeast this time of year.

48% Munich Light
40% Vienna
8% Dark Munich
4% Caramunich

1 oz Tradition @ 60
1 oz Hallertau @ 10
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I am now looking at with the exception of the Dark Munich. I've heard from various people (especially here on HbT) to use the Kolsch yeast.
 
Pilsner , munich and crystal 40 and WLP Oktoberfest yeast . Brewed it in march and its lagering as we speak. I tried it to make sure it's not going bad and its delicious.
 

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