Have you ever NOT done something because you thought you couldn’t?  Me too.  I always wanted a lager on tap in the summer - honestly, more than one.  But summers for us are CRAZY BUSY.  Until recently, we were beekeepers, and maple syrup producers plus we have always been big gardeners.  All while working full-time! 

That faithful day…

I heard a fellow homebrewer and BJCP Judge say… 

Once a month, we meet with a bunch of fellow home brewers, and we discuss one of the BJCP styles and a process. This month (September) we were told the style for October would be, well, Oktoberfest, and we were also told that if we didn’t have one brewed by now, we wouldn’t have enough time.

Let’s take a look at what happened…

The equipment - the process - the ingredients:

Today I’ll be brewing on a Grainfather G30. I’m starting with four and a half gallons of water, or 17.034 liters. I’m starting with a mash temperature of 149 degrees Fahrenheit, or 65 degrees Celsius. My grain bill consists of six pounds of pilsner malt, two pounds of Munich malt, one and a half pounds of Vienna malt, and one pound of wheat malt, or 2.722 kilograms of pilsner, 0.907 kilograms of Munich malt, 0.68 kilograms of Vienna malt, and 0.454 kilograms of wheat malt.

Our 60-minute mash is complete. Now we will mash out at 167 degrees Fahrenheit, or 75 C for 10 minutes. While that’s going on, I will start up the sparge water. We will be using 1.5 gallons of sparge water at 167 degrees, or 75 C.

Our 60-minute hop additions include half ounce of Hallertauer, or 14 grams, and a half ounce of Hersbrucker, or 14 grams.

We moved the chilled wort to a sanitized fermenter. Pitched one pack with L17 Imperial Harvest at 64 Fahrenheit, or 18 C. The starting gravity was 1.061. By day eight, gravity dropped to 1.010. We did a forced diacetyl test and cold-choked the beer. On day 10, we gelatin fined. Day 14, force carbed the beer. And on day 15, beer was ready for consumption.

All right, so here it is. It’s October 13th, 15 days later, and we are on our way out to our home brew meeting. Now I want to give you a sneak preview of what our 15-day-old Oktoberfest looks like.

All right, so it has a nice white foamy head. It’s pretty darn clear. And flavor profile. So I get a lot of bread-y, lightly toasted notes in the aroma. A little bit of floral hop. All of those are following through into the flavor. So, I think we got a pretty darn good festbier-style Oktoberfest. So I’ll bounce back in when we get the report from the other people at the club.

Feedback from Homebrewers:

So here’s what happened at our gathering yesterday, last night, with our fellow home brewers. One person said that the flavors were a bit sharp. Another person said that it brought him right back to his trip to Germany during Oktoberfest and that he could drink pint after pint. So that was kind of fun. Another person said it was too bitter, but also identified that he’s sensitive to hop bitterness. There’s a couple BJCP judges in this group, and one said that he would give it a 35 to 40, which I was super excited about.

Oh, another person said that they kind of got the same flavor profile that I did, so they could smell the bread-y pilsner. They got some toast. It looked beautiful in glasses. So, I think this was a successful test, and one person said, “That was really fun to know that you could get it done this quick.” So I think it was successful.

The inspiration

The inspiration from this or for this video came from several places.  One, a group of fellow home brewers who told me it couldn’t be done. Thanks, guys. And  Denny and Drew over at Experimental Home Brew Podcast, Episode Number 36, Speedy Brewing. If you haven’t checked them out, you should because they’re doing a lot of great things and sharing a ton of great information about home brewing. Thanks, Denny and Drew. And until next time, thanks a pint for watching.