AG #6 - German Altbier

Brewed this on Thursday night. It should be roughly speaking an ale version of an amber kellerbier. I don't have the temperature control to brew lagers but this should be the sort of thing I can readily drink in their place when I fancy a break from hoppier stuff.

Recipe (20L batch):
2kg Munich Malt
2kg Vienna Malt
300g Crystal 60L

Mashed at 67C for one hour

50g Hallertauer Mittelfruh (3% alpha) for 60mins
20g Hallertauer Mittelfruh for 5mins
65g Saaz (2% alpha) for 5mins

Irish Moss at 10mins

K-97 German ale yeast

SRM 10.1
IBU 24
OG 1.047
Target ABV 4.58%

It was right around freezing so I brought my boiler/mash tun inside for the mash and wrapped in blankets, which meant I lost minimal temperature over the hour. The pre boil volume and gravity were pretty much spot on. Took ages to get to the boil, predictably enough 2.4kw element and a few blankets vs freezing temperatures is a good battle! It was nearly 11pm when the boil ended and in my desire to get finished I didn't cover myself in glory. I didn't really allow a long enough settling before I started running off so I have a lot of the trub in my FV, and in the haste plus only outside lights I smashed my hydrometer and thermometer! No big deal, easily replaced the next day at wilko. When I tested I was way over target gravity and way under volume. I topped up with 4 litres of bottled water and brought both in line. I need to adjust my BeerSmith default settings because I've missed low on volume and high on gravity both times with my new boiler.

I no chilled in my FV sealed with sanitised cling film. By the time I got home from work the next day I actually had to let the wort warm up a little inside before pitching at 10C, bottom end of the yeast's range. It's now at 16-18 inside, top end of the range and bubbling away nicely. I'm planning to move it outside into cooler temperatures for a pseudo lagering phase at some point, need to decide precisely when.

Should be an interesting beer, looking forward to it and will try to dial it in for future brews so will definitely be keen to offer it up for a bottle swap for feedback when it's ready.

Bottled this tonight. After ten days inside it had seemingly more or less stopped at around 1.012. I racked it off the trub which had made it into the FV and it's been outside getting a pseudo-lagering for just over a week. It's looking pretty clear and interestingly there wasn't much gunk in the bottom of the secondary, so there's either still yeast in suspension or it all fell out in primary while at ale temperatures. I'd be surprised if it was the latter, so hoping it will carb up fine. Primed and filled one mini keg and batch primed the rest to a fairly highly level for bottles.

Sounds great. Only had one altbier to my knowledge, a Schlösser Alt, but liked it. Any others you can recommend?

I've had the Zumrige Alt I think it's called. And I had a London brewed interpretation once. But that's it!

They're hard to get your hands on over here. I've only seen Schlosser and had another at a beer festival. Lovely beers, I'd love to go to Dusseldorf to try them.

I'm interested in how that K 97 yeast is. Have you used it before?

Munich as a base with a little caramunich makes a good Alt too. I'm pretty sure you could just use Munich on its own too.

Ive been to Dusseldorf many times and drunk gallons of the stuff, and jolly nice it was too...recommended

serum said:

They're hard to get your hands on over here. I've only seen Schlosser and had another at a beer festival. Lovely beers, I'd love to go to Dusseldorf to try them.

I'm interested in how that K 97 yeast is. Have you used it before?

Munich as a base with a little caramunich makes a good Alt too. I'm pretty sure you could just use Munich on its own too.

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First time I'd used this yeast. I always use dry yeast largely because I'm never 100% sure when I'm going to be brewing and I don't like the idea of potentially having liquid yeast sat in the fridge for extended periods of time. It seemed a good performer, got going quickly and fermented out pretty well. It gave a big thick krausen which didn't drop away at all until I lowered the temperature. I asked this on another thread and a fellow forumite did some searching and discovered this is characteristic. In terms of taste, I've only had samples so far but the yeast doesn't seem to be contributing a huge amount of flavour, I've read some things that Kolsch should have an element of ester flavour in it but if I'm honest I'm not particularly attuned to it.

Just browsing Beers of Europe and see they have quite a few altbiers, might get some the next time I do an order.

First taste tonight. It's a pleasing colour though not as clear as I'd hoped. Could use more time perhaps. It's a nice clean dry beer with a slightly fruity aroma and aftertaste from the malt. No idea if it would be considered a 'classic' altbier but it's hitting the spot I hoped it would.