I might have a case of IPA fatigue. I’m finding myself gravitating more and more towards more “classic ” styles these days when available in stores – lagers, stouts and porters particularly. I really loved Sierra Nevada’s Oktoberfest brewed in partnership with Weihenstephan this past September. Delicious! Problem is beer is long gone. So after racking the helles off the yeast cake I kept an inch or so of beer on the yeast instead of racking it off to a growler to let settle for sampling. I then decided to brew something a bit darker than another helles seeing that there was a lot of trub in the yeast and fearing that it wouldn’t be “clean” enough for a helles where there is no place to hide any discrepancies in recipe.

Next was deciding on a recipe. Look up Oktoberfest or Marzen on the internet and you’ll see a huge variation on recipe formula. There was no way I was going to use crystal malt which a lot of recipes called for. So went with I hope a more Gereman recipe consisting of pils, munich, vienna blend.

The beer on top of yeast left at 45F in fermentation chamber for a week smelled a bit oxidized but I hoped for the best using a sanitized wet measuring cup to pull 250ml of slurry. Fermentation started within 8 hours and smelled clean so I think that was a success but next time I’ll rack some slurry to a sanitized growler instead to keep oxidation and chance of acetobacter to a minimum.

6 gallons

Estimated OG: 1.053
Estimated FG: 1.011
Estimated Color: 6.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 36 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
ABV: 5.6%

Grain
5 lbs Wyermann Pilsner(1.7 SRM) 38.5%
5 lb Wyermann Munich (7 SRM) 38.5%
3 lb Wyermann Vienna (3 SRM) 23.1%

Schedule
60 minute Boil
14.00g Perle [8%] –  60 min 12.1 IBUs
28.00g Perle [8%] – 30 min 18.6 IBUs
14.00g Perle [8%] –  15 min 6 IBU

Whirfloc or Irish Moss 20 min
1tsp yeast nutrient 15 min

Mash and Sparge
100% RO water
2g Calcium Chloride added to mash water
1g Gypsum added to mash water
2g Calcium Chloride added to sparge water
1g Gypsum added to sparge water
Mash in 5 gallons water 157F and let stabilize to 148F for 30 min
Bring mash up to 160F and let rest 30 min
Mashout 170F
Batch sparge 4.75 gallons cold

Yeast
250ml slurry Saflager S-189 Dry Yeast (Hürlimann strain)

Fermentation
Ferment at 54F 5 days
Raise temp to 60 1 day
Raise temp to 63 1 day
Lager at near freezing as possible at least 2 weeks
(Optional) force transfer to new keg
Force carbonate