Festbier World's Best Oktoberfest

[shelly_belly]

That should be fine. I just happened to brew mine at the end of March and drank it in September and October.

 

[hbr2547]

Can I bottle, carb then lager? Will it have the same impact ?

 

[Ply318ci]

I hope so that is what I am doing.

 

[laughingboysbrew]

I am going to give this a recipe a shot... 10gal batch, half the batch will be lagering schedule then kegging, the other half partial lagering, then cask conditioning. I am planning to rack to cask after the diacetyl rest as the temp is coming back down around 54F. Then I'll re-prime with some slurry/DME and go through my normal ale routine for a cask. Condition for 2-3wks.

Curious, for those who have done a similar short clearing phase... and had a good product. Any thoughts on a good fruit/spice adjunct to infuse in the cask? would a citrus be good? coriander?

 

[KingBrianI]

I am going to give this a recipe a shot... 10gal batch, half the batch will be lagering schedule then kegging, the other half partial lagering, then cask conditioning. I am planning to rack to cask after the diacetyl rest as the temp is coming back down around 54F. Then I'll re-prime with some slurry/DME and go through my normal ale routine for a cask. Condition for 2-3wks.

Curious, for those who have done a similar short clearing phase... and had a good product. Any thoughts on a good fruit/spice adjunct to infuse in the cask? would a citrus be good? coriander?

Oh god. Please don't go through all of the trouble of making this beer, a beer intended to showcase the flavor of the base malts combined with a decoction mash and careful fermentation, and then cover up those flavors with fruit or spices! Save that **** for a belgian or wheat beer. This beer needs no doctoring up.

 

[hbr2547]

Oh god. Please don't go through all of the trouble of making this beer, a beer intended to showcase the flavor of the base malts combined with a decoction mash and careful fermentation, and then cover up those flavors with fruit or spices! Save that **** for a belgian or wheat beer. This beer needs no doctoring up.

Although only about a month lagered, cracked first bottle last night...amazing cheers kingbrian

 

[laughingboysbrew]

don't get me wrong...I am not intending to ruin the recipe with a cover up. When trying a new recipe, I do half of every batch in a cask and keg the other (untouched). For the cask, I like doing a little experimentation with spices, etc. I don't want a "fruit beer", but something VERY subtle that will be unique.

 

[idigg]

Brewed 10.5 gallons of this on 9/15, used W34/70 in one carboy, and wyeast 2124 in the other. I did a 2L starter for the wyeast batch, that took off within 12 hours, the W34/70 took a full 36 hours to krausen. Both look healthy! Only my third lager, love watching the slower fermentation happen. Chest freezer is at 47*F carboys are at 51-52*F, should be perfect.

Once I nearly reach FG, I'm going to do a 48 hour D-rest. I'm then going to rack to corny kegs and then lager for 2-3 months. Is it advisable/can I serve out of that keg, or would I need to transfer to a separate serving keg? My other 2 lager experiences was when I was bottling.

 

[laughingboysbrew]

Oh god. Please don't go through all of the trouble of making this beer, a beer intended to showcase the flavor of the base malts combined with a decoction mash and careful fermentation, and then cover up those flavors with fruit or spices! Save that **** for a belgian or wheat beer. This beer needs no doctoring up.

this is my first lager and first decoction recipe so I'm looking to simplify for this first go-round. thinking about a simplified decoction, like:

10 gallon batch:
1. dough in target temp ~100F, wait for 20 min
2. pull decoction (~22 qrts)
3. bring decoction up to a boil and boil for 10-20 min
4. add decoction back to main mash to get mash to 133 then protein rest for 20 min
5. continue to boil decoction
6. add more decoction back to main mash to get mash to 154 then sacc rest for 60 min

--OR--

Should I reverse it? Do my protein/sacc rests only in the decoc and then once reaching boiling raise main mash to sacc rest? Thoughts either way?

 

[Tarks]

I finally have a ferment chamber set up so I can now lager. I have everything I need to brew this recipe this weekend. I did a 3 step yeast starter to get me sufficient cell count so I am good to go. This is going to be my 1st decoc mash and Im trying to wrap my head around all this. For the like of me I can't figure out how to input the info into Beersmith so I made some notes for my brew day. Can you tell me if this looks right? Should I add 20% to these decocs or was that already taken into account? Cheers.

Step 1 - Add 4.72 Gal @ 101F for a step temp of 97F.

Step 2 - After 20 min pull 11.32 qt of mash and heat to 133F. Hold for 20 min (protein rest).

Step 3 - After protein rest heat mash to 160F. Hold for 20 min (saccharification rest).

Step 4 - After saccharification rest heat mash till boil. Boil for 15 min.

Step 5 - Slowly add boiled mash back into mash tun until mash temp of 150F is reached. Rest for 60 min. (Saccharification rest)

Step 6 - When 15 min is left in the saccharification rest pull 7.1 qt of mash and boil. Add boiled mash to mash tun until 170F is reached. Rest for 15 min.

Step 6 - Vorlauf

Step 7 Fly sparge with 4.7 gal of 168F water.

 

[Tarks]

Anyone? I'm looking to brew this tomorrow and would appreciate the help. Cheers

 

[laughingboysbrew]

Anyone? I'm looking to brew this tomorrow and would appreciate the help. Cheers

This was my first decoction, so here's my lessons learned:
1. I repeatedly missed my step temps by about 5-10F, I think because I could have used a bit more quantity in my decoctions. My calculations appeared to be spot on, just needed more at higher temp
2. 10 gallons takes a long time to heat on gas and cool. Started 8pm, ended 5:30 in fermenter.

I ditched BeerSmith per recommendation from the BeerSmith forum. I only used it for Dough in and Sparge calcs. Manual calculations:

MashVolume = GrainWeight x (water/grain ratio + 0.32)

Then, for each decoction, I used the following forumula:
DecocVolume = MashVol x ( (target temp end - temp start) / (decoction temp - temp start) )

for example, with MashVolume of 48.72qts to calc mashout
48.72 x ((168-154) / (212-154)) = 11.76qts + 20% = ~14qts

For my water ratio, I had:
1. Dough In 34qts to hit 100F, rest 20min
2. Decoc 1 20qts, raise temp to 154, rest 20min
3. Added decoc back to raise mash temp to 133, rest 20min
4. Decoc 2 15qts, bring to boil, boil 20min
5. Added decoc back to raise mash temp to 154, rest 40min
6. Decoc 3 13qts, bring to boil
7. Added decoc back to raise mash temp to 168, rest 20min
8 Fly sparge at 168

I hit 1.056 on pre boil quantity of 12.5gallons.

Hope this helps.

PS. mash schedule calls for lots of resting...but my back is sore today.

 

[laughingboysbrew]

SUPER excited to taste this... especially out of the cask. The 3 day sample tastes/smells great. For those contemplating, DO the decoctions. Great learning experience and besides...it's tradition.

 

[Urkelbot]

Brewed this 2 weeks ago the enhanced double decoction went well. Too well... I over shot my usual efficiency of 60-65% and ended up with a og of 1.07.

 

[TrickyDick]

I brewed without doing decoctions and was a mistake to do so.


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[asco]

Hi...

did make this beer with singel infusion, now the taste will then be abit less complex BUT the somthing went wrong with the hop boiling. I did taste lke sh... very grassy!

did use the the recomended boling time and hop. Then decided to read about the hop Hallertauer Hersbrucker, its not recomende for bittering (60 min)

anyone else experins this problem?

 

[Swifty]

So, first off I want to thank brewers like you who share their recipes... Much appreciated.

I read the whole thread and had a few questions.

There was some talk about adding melinoiden malt to compensate for the concoction mash.. Has anyone done this and would you share your experience with it? What amounts and what would you do differently?

What was your water profile? I have dreadful water here and will likely build my water off of distilled from the store..

I'll think up some more but that'll get me started..

Thanks again everyone,

Swifty

 

[KingBrianI]

So, first off I want to thank brewers like you who share their recipes... Much appreciated.

I read the whole thread and had a few questions.

There was some talk about adding melinoiden malt to compensate for the concoction mash.. Has anyone done this and would you share your experience with it? What amounts and what would you do differently?

What was your water profile? I have dreadful water here and will likely build my water off of distilled from the store..

I'll think up some more but that'll get me started..

Thanks again everyone,

Swifty

Hey Swifty. I actually enjoy sharing my recipes. I get lots of pleasure from seeing other people brew them and have good results. It's a nice boost to the ego when people say that a recipe of mine they brewed is the best beer they've made, though I think recipes are less than half the equation. To get any recipe to make good beer, the brewer has to be doing a lot right in the first place. Anyway... to answer your questions, I've never made this beer using melanoidin malt, I always do the decoction mashes. So I can't help much there, though I would say less is probably more in this case. I'd say somewhere around half a pound would probably do the trick. But, I'll defer to those who have tried melanoidin malt. As for the water question, I have pretty soft water here. All I usually do is adjust the calcium above 50 ppm, usually somewhere around 100. Then I'll adjust the sulfate/chloride ratio to something that fits with the recipe, in this case I'd go somewhere between balanced to a slight chloride slant to help the maltiness. Good luck!

 

[surprise]

Do you think this would be possible to do in a step mash? I'd still hit all the rest temps but without the decoction boil.

 

[TrickyDick]

Don't do this! I did a step mash and the results are NOT what I was wanting. I called my beer a September-fest because it was definitely NOT an Octoberfest. It was tasty, but lacking in depth of flavor and maltiness. I will be doing another octoberfest soon, but this time WITH a decoction mash.

TD


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[TrickyDick]

Don't do this! I did a step mash and the results are NOT what I was wanting. I called my beer a September-fest because it was definitely NOT an Octoberfest. It was tasty, but lacking in depth of flavor and maltiness. I will be doing another octoberfest soon, but this time WITH a decoction mash.

TD


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[Urkelbot]

Awesome beer I brewed in April lagered for 9 weeks. I'm going to have trouble saving it for the fall.

 

[bd2xu]

Brewed this as my first lager and decoction this monday. Went well, took about two hours longer than usual. Wort sample smells and tastes awesome, and hit close to numbers, 1.055 og with 5.5 gallons collected and about an extra 1/2 gallon. I did up the recipe a little for a 70% efficiency and I got that pretty close. Just added 1/2 lbs to the Vienna and Munich.

Yeast is my concern. Didn't plan well and started a two liter starter on brew day. My usual store had no German lager yeast at all (just out) so I got the only 2 packs of wyeast Czech Pilsner yeast, but they were 4 months old. Bags did not swell after 6 hours. Did a 2 liter starter on stir plate and put in the un swollen yeast. First day on stir plate looked like no action, a little condensation at top. I used a drop of fermcap so there won't be any foam to show yeast activity. Second day in stir plate and I see more signs, looks like swirling bubbles in liquid, more condensation, and lighter color. Going to let it go another day.

I didn't want to wait more than a day with my wort in the ferm chamber waiting, so found a place that had the wy2633 oktoberfest I wanted, 2 packs. I smacked those and they blew right up, brought them down to 50f where the wort temp is at, and pitched. Tomorrow I plan on crashing, decanting and adding the Czech pils from the stir plate.

So to summarize, brewed monday night, added two packs of fresh wyeast oktoberfest Tuesday night, and will add 2l starter of Czech pils yeast thursday afternoon. First signs of fermentation after first pitch in about 18 hours. (Aerated well with o2 before)

Any thoughts on if this is ok? Rate should be right, according to yeast calc, I need 404 billion, the 2 packs of 2633 get me 168 billion, and the Czech starter should be 261, for a total of about 429. But I've never added yeast in stages like this. I also hope the Czech Pilsner yeast doesn't dry it out too much.

Happily fermenting at 50F ;-)

Check out the tieg!




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[bunt1828]

This was my first lagger and full decoction as well. Came out great! Cheers. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1423791587.497220.jpg

 

[BigGoat]

Phone is dumb. Sorry for the double post

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[BigGoat]

,

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[finsfan]

Planning to try this soon as my first lager and first decoction mash. Cheers!

 

[smit70136]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431304362.302963.jpg Really happy with this one! Took extraordinary patience but decided to lager for six months. Not sure if that much time made a difference but the final product is really good. Only my second lager but this is definitely a brew again. Thanks for sharing!

 

[poptarts]

Came to say thank you for the recipe. I ended up doing a kesselmaisch decotion but out side of that everything was the same. Brewed on 4/4/2015 and it took first place in oktoberfest/marzen on 5/30/2015 with a 36. I still have it lagering and am refusing to take any more samples till September but as is its already on my to brew again list.

 

[bondra76]

Probably going to make this in the next 1-2 weeks.

Definitely going the decoction route. I made a so-so Octoberfest last year. I learned the hard way that if you want a kick ass Octoberfest, you need to stay true to the style - so decoction IT IS! Anything less and you might as well just go buy some Sam Adams.