Monday, April 8, 2013

Beer 4 - Oktoberfest 2012

This post is well overdue. Last summer I made my first lager, an Oktoberfest. It was easily the best beer I've made yet. The recipe is:
5 lbs Munich I (Weyermann) grain (7.1 SRM)
1 lb Vienna Malt (Briess) grain (3.5 SRM)
12.0 oz Caramunich I (Weyermann) (51.0 SRM)

Mash in at 162.1 F with 8.44 qt of water
Step temperature 150.0 F for 75 minutes
Fly sparge with 2.70 gal water at 160.8 F

Add water to achieve boil volume of 4.0 gal
Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.079 SG

3 lbs 4.8 oz LME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM)
1.0 oz Hallentauer hops - 60 minutes
0.5 oz Tettnang hops - 30 minutes
0.5 oz Tettnang hops - 15 minutes

Estimated post boil volume: 3.25 gal and est post boil gravity: 1.058 SG

I fermented with Wyeast Octoberfest Lager yeast at 55 F for 3 weeks. After three weeks, the SG wasn't down to the final 1.014, rather it was around 0.022. It was sweeter than the recipe called for but I thought it tasted good. At this point I lagered it for two months, kegged it, and tapped in mid October. It came out great! As expected, it was on the sweet side but the flavor was otherwise crisp, clean, and malty, exactly as an Octoberfest should be. This was my first lager, my first partial mash beer, and I was very pleased with the results.

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