Oktoberfast

That's not a typo in the title.

I'm sure my large audience has been quietly wondering why I never posted my annual March/April Oktoberfest brewday blogpost.  Answer: I didn't brew my Oktoberfest this year until just yesterday.

Early August (at least in the US Southeast) is not an ideal time to be outside brewing.  But with Oktoberfest 2015 just over 2 months away I had to do something.  I had to brew something.  And I had to brew something FAST.  Enter: Oktoberfast.  It will be a Marzen/Oktoberfest style very similar to my previous year's batches.  But with the heat of August bearing down I wanted it to be as fast a brewday as possible.  I also need to turn this traditional lager around pretty fast.  So the name works.  And the brewday went swimmingly.

Process: BIAB (Brew-in-a-bag) 10 gallon batch.  No decoctions, no sparging, no extended 90 minutes boils.  Just full volume mashing, squeezing the grain bags and a regular 60 minute boil.  My brewdays for 10 gallon batches usually take 7 to 8 hours (including cleanup).  Yesterday I got it done in 5.5 hours, with a small amount of prep work the night before.  I'll get to the recipe shortly but let me share a pic first:

This is a 32 qt electric canner (I've posted about it before but haven't really employed it in my brewery).  Friday night I filled this with 7 gallons of water and plugged it into a mechanical timer so it kicked on at 3.30am.  By the time I woke up and got to the garage at 6.45am, the 7 gallons was at a gentle rolling boil.  I was able to drain this water into my boil kettle and add room temperature water to get to my desired strike water volume and temperature.  This shaved a solid 45 minutes off my brewday as I didn't have to wait for the water to heat up.

I got out to the garage around 6.45am (again, I had to beat the heat so I started earlier than usual too) and I was already set to dough in.  Here's the recipe:

8# Weyermann German Pils
7# Weyermann Munich I
5# Weyermann Vienna
1# Weyermann Melanoidin

4 grams CaSO4 and 6 grams CaCl added to mash to boost Ca levels and bring pH to ideal range.

45 minutes at ~146F (I had to goose this a little) and then a steady 30 minute rise up to 168F with about 10 minutes spent at 156F.

At mash-out I simply removed the grain bags and squeezed them over a bucket to extract extra wort, put the wort back in the kettle and added about 2.5 gallons of make-up water.  This lack of sparging again shaved about 45 minutes off my brewday.

1.6oz of 6.8% Tradition at 60 minutes
0.6oz of 6.8% Tradition at 20 minutes
Yeast Energizer and Whirlfloc at 15 minutes.

Chill to 55F, hit with O2, and repitch a washed slurry of WLP820 (from a large 'zwickelesque' starter I made two weeks ago) and set in a fermentation chamber set at ~55F.

Clean-up was pretty simple and at 12:15pm I closed down the brewery and got into the house.

With 21# of grain it was much easier to have two grain bags going in the mash..made for a tight squeeze but I hit 80% efficiency so it works.

At mash-out I simply removed the grain bags and squeezed them over a strainer/bucket.

Boil

This Arkansas heat puts chilling to the test.  With ground water temps around 75F, I could only chill the wort to about 90F without wasting a ton of water.  At this point I employed my pond pump inside an igloo cooler with 36 pounds of ice and a couple gallons of water.  This 40F water bath got my wort down another 35F to 55F.  Total chilling time was about 40 minutes.

Humidity, condensing on the side of chilled boiled kettle. 

Dats the color.  Not bad but it's honestly a bit lighter than I expected...

A butterfly came to visit on brew day.  We like to think our little daughter, Everly, will grow to love butterflies so I like to think this a good omen.

Taken by my beautiful wife while I was brewing.  All the Oktoberfast excitement wore out our sweet Evie B

24 hours after pitching there are still not signs of fermentation but I have a smaller jar of wort in the house for a fast ferment and it has achieved high krausen.  So I know the wort is fermentable and I know the yeast is viable.  Things should start moving here in the next few hours.

Oktoberfast for Oktoberfest.  Who will be here to share this beer with us?

Zwickel Split Batch to German Ale and Belgian Pale

Split batch.  Somewhat sadly it came off my Zwickel batch.  I'll end up with a keg of Zwickel and a half keg of a German Ale (semi-zwickel) and a half keg of Belgian Pale.  And let me tell you why:

A local brewing house is having a brewing competition for our local homebrew club.  Members of the club can brew any beer they wish using an extensive list of malts and hops and then inoculating with one of their 3 house strains.  I want to compete.  I want to put my brews up against my comrades and see how they fair.

My zwickel batches are a convenient way to build up my yeast culture for my Oktoberfest brew session (happening in a couple weeks) but if truth were to be told I get as excited for the zwickel as I do for any of my other beers throughout the year.  Anyways....

My Zweet Zweet Zwickel recipe is essentially unchanged from last year:

16# German Pils
2# Crystal 20L (Carahell)
1# Carapils (Carafoam)

60 minute addition of Hallertau to 20 IBU
15 minute addition of Hallertau to 3.5 IBU (essentially 1/3 of the 60 minute addition by weight assuming the same AA of hops)

Mash at 128F for 20 minutes, 149F for 30 minutes, 158 for 30 minutes and then 170F for 20 minutes.  I didn't hit my 158 or 170 steps and I don't know why.  Some weird thermal phenomenon with the mash tun.

Chilled to 55F pretty easily with the ground water temps being in the 40s.

OG: 1.050

5.5 gallons got hit with a 2 liter starter of WLP833 German Bock Lager Yeast
2.5 gallons got hit with WY1007 German Ale yeast from Apple Blossom Brewing Company
2.5 gallons got hit with WY3522 Belgian Ardennes yeast from Apple Blossom Brewing Company

I will have a taste-off between the two 2.5 gallon batches to see if either are worthy of the competition (in late-April).  I think the German Ale will have some Zwickel character and the Belgian will turn this recipe into a classic Belgian pale ale.

Every good brew day should involve previous brew days' beers.  This is some of the last of the mild I made for Christmas 2014 and had to drink by myself.

These hallertau hops were smelling really legit.

The ying and the yang.  Hops getting to know the malt juice.

Back to Brewing 10 Gallons of American IPA, Again

You may be saying to yourself, "I've already read a blog of this title from Matt".  And with the exception of the ", Again" you'd be correct.  But the truth of the matter is that this is my first brew session since I damaged my foot back in mid-November.  It's been a lot of sitting around on couches, eating more than I should, sleeping with my foot elevated, and being patient while my wounds heal.  I had a doctor appointment last week and he was happy with the progress.  Gave me the green light to essentially resume normal activity.  Let's brew.

This recipe is very similar to the IPA I brewed nearly a year ago.  My local HBS doesn't offer floor malted Marris Otter so I got creative there and the only other subtle differences are from changes in hop availability and AA%.

16# American 2-row
8# Golden Promise
1# Carapils

Target OG was 1.060 but I only hit 1.055.  Whatevs.  I didn't adjust my hops to account so this batch of IPA will likely be a little more bitter and hop-forward than my last batch.  Of course the golden promise may bring the final gravity up or at least the perceived maltiness.  So it may all be a wash.

2oz Northern Brewer  9.6%AA at 60 min
0.3oz Chinook 11.6% at 60 min

1.7oz Chinook 11.6% at 15 min

1oz Willamette 7.8% at 5 min
1oz Mosaic 11.6% at 5min

2oz Simcoe 12.7% at 0min

Had my first ever hop boil over!  It was exciting too!  Gotta picture down below.

Groundwater is still really cold so had no issue getting my 10 gallons to 62F in about 20 minutes.

23g (2 packets) of S-05 Safale American Ale Yeast rehydrated per Dr. Clayton Cones advice.

Every good brewday involves drinking previous batches of homebrew.  I'm still working through the porter and mild I brewed for Christmas.  Wish I had some brewthers nearby that could help.  This is the Mild and I think it's delicious.

My janky sparger.....does the trick though.

More of a background photo than a foreground photo.   The camera doesn't do justice to the view.

Holy Hops, Batman!

My first boil-over with my 60 minute addition.  Pretty crazy....

I will dry hop this baby with another 2oz of Simcoe 12.7% after primary has finished.  Can't wait to try this one on the first day of Spring!  I shall call it 'Fussy IPA' in honor of Budweiser.

Up next is a brew I know will be an annual tradition.........Zwickel!