Oktoberfest - Finished Fermentation, Now Lagering

To start, I am very happy with how this beer is turning out. It will be one of the best if not the best beer I have made. Despite the low efficiency, I still ended up with an FG of 1.009, giving me an ABV of 5.8%. This is lower than the style's typical FG, but it still tastes exactly like an oktoberfest. Plus, in recent years, breweries have started making Oktoberfest beers lower on gravity/drier so that they are in turn more universally accepted and easier to down at a festival.

My fermentation schedule ended up being:

5 days at 53℉ (to ~50% attenuation)

.5 days at 58℉

.5 days at 63℉

4.5 days at 68℉ (diacetyl rest)

3 day at 31℉ (cold crash/gelatin fining)

10 weeks for lagering in a keg in my keezer

The sample taken for the FG was a light amber gold and had an incredible malt character while still being clean tasting and refreshing. No signs of diacetyl or any other off flavors.

I can't wait to see how this one turns out. Just have to wait..

My First All Grain Batch - Oktoberfest

So this was my first all grain batch ever. I definitely learned some things. I did not get the efficiency that I had hoped for and I think that this is mostly due to mashing at ~151℉ for only 60 minutes. The next batch, I will do the same temperature but for 75-90 minutes. I also rushed the batch sparge, I poured the water in and did not let it sit long enough (a couple minutes). Next time I will let it sit for 10+ minutes before vorlauf.

Other than the lack of efficiency, I am super impressed with my mash tun's performance. I lost less than a half degree of heat throughout the mash. I did get a bit to much wort from the sparge, so I boiled it for 15 minutes before the first hop addition.

Here is the beer:
5lbs Pilsner
5lbs Munich I
1lbs Munich II
.5lbs Caramunich II
2oz Tettnang hops (2% AA)
2L starter of  2x WLP820 (Oktoberfest/Märzen yeast)

 I pitched the yeast at 53℉ and will let it stay there for 5 days, check the process with my refractometer and if it's 50%+ attenuated, I will raise the temp 5℉ every 12 hours until it hits 68℉. and let it finish fermenting. I will then cold crash it to 33℉, gelatin it for a few days and then transfer to keg to lager in the keezer until October.

The color is beautiful. It's a nice light orange, like I wanted. I was originally aiming for an OG of 1.062 but ended up landing at 1.052 due to my lack of efficiency. This will still give me a really easy to drink ~5% ABV beer. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Sex & Candy - Brewed, Fermented, Change of Plans

So I actually did the boil for this one two weeks ago (06/23). I was successful at getting within a point of my target OG, 1.090.Unfortunately I had to head to LA right after pitching the yeast, so I was not able to witness the fermentation starting and when we got back 2 days later, the airlock was not bubbling. I immediately took a hydrometer reading and saw that it was about half way done (1.050). However there was no visible signs of fermentation so I was concerned that the olive oil trick did not work this time around.

I decided to just be patient and wait until Friday to check it again. I did slowly raise the temp up to 70℉ throughout the week and gave the fermenter a little swirl every day. The reading I took on 06/30 was 1.031. So it was obviously fermenting, just super slowly and without any visual tells. I kept it at 70℉ and kept swirling it every day. Today, I took a hydrometer reading of 1.022 which I'm satisfied with, seeing that my goal was 1.017. The sample tasted AMAZING. A nice blend of nuts, toffee and caramel.

Since Quadrupel Threat got bottled instead of the planned keg; I am kegging this beer. Which means it switched places with the Quad as a Winter beer. Now its a late summer, early fall beer.

I added the Mezcal and Oak Cubes into the Primary Fermenter today as well.

Which by my calculations, makes the ABV ~10.32%. I'm going to let it sit for the next two weeks like this and then keg it. Telling by the sample I had today, I really does not need to age to be very good. I'm sure age would make it better, but I am happy with the way it's turned out.

Gear Update - All Grain Build

I decided randomly yesterday to get setup for All Grain brewing. I headed to Home Depot to check out coolers and sink return lines (for my pseudo false bottom) to start. I ended up finding this nice 60 quart Rubbermaid cooler and 10 feet of 1/4" return line that should work perfectly for a mash tun. This will give me plenty of room to do very high gravity 5 gallon batches and in the future, maybe normal gravity 10 gallon batches. I have an old Coleman cooler that I haven't used for along time and figured it would make a perfect Hot Liquor Tank.

After getting all of this stuff together and doing some measurements, I headed to the local brew shop (Doc's Cellars) to get the rest of the hardware I needed. Fortunately they had full stainless steel valve setups that didn't require many other parts to get them installed. I did have to use a couple couplers on the Mash Tun to get it to reach through the incredibly thick insulation. Also, I bought 2x 3 foot 1/2" ID tubes, a simple sparging end, some hose clamps and a barbed end for the false bottom.

In an ideal world, everything would have gone together without issue. But of course that was not the case.I struggled big time with leaks at the valve on both tanks. Long story short, the rubber washers that came with the valve kits where not working for me, the rubber washers that were on the coolers' OG valves were perfect. Once I put those on, I had no more issues with leaks.

So here are the final results. I am planning on doing my first all grain batch this Friday. It will be my Oktoberfest lager.

Mash Tun:

Hot Liquor Tank: