82 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

After much snorting and pawing at the ground, I am going to make this beer on Wednesday with 1007 that is sitting in a starter right now. I went back and found a recipe of Andy's (Blktre) that I made years ago but messed up by either fermenting too warm or using yeast that was sub-par healthwise. I reformulated the recipe based on that recipe and everything that we discussed in this thread.

Otto's Altbier

6 lbs Pilsner Malt
3 lbs Munich
8 oz Crystal 80°L
8 oz Wheat
4 oz Melanoidin Malt (mash temp ~148°)
½ oz Magnum 14.4% for 60 minutes (7.2 AAU)
½ oz Hallertau 3.7% for 20 minutes
Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast

OG: 1.054, FG: 1.012, IBU: 35, SRM: 11, ABV: 5.2%

After the discussion here about the Yakima Magnums, I decided to try it here. I know you guys said to scratch the wheat, but I LOVE to add some wheat for head stability so I'm using a half pound. I also may be short on Pilsner so the 6 lbs of pils may actually be pils and some American 2-row. Looking forward to brewday. Thanks for the guidance and cheers!

[Big Nake]

Started the mash on this at 6:45 this morning and it's looking good. I opened these Magnums and measured out ½ an ounce... they smell awesome and now my whole brewing area smells like them. Hit my mash temp of 148°, my 1007 starter is foaming & active and I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Cheers.

[siouxbrewer]

Just curious if there would be any issues substituting vienna for munich and maybe adding a touch of aromatic? I'm guessing that the malt flavors would be subtle enough to pull off. I could be wrong having brewed only einem Altbier. BTW I have vienna and no munich which is why I'm asking. SB

[Humperdink]

Just curious if there would be any issues substituting vienna for munich and maybe adding a touch of aromatic? I'm guessing that the malt flavors would be subtle enough to pull off. I could be wrong having brewed only einem Altbier. BTW I have vienna and no munich which is why I'm asking. SB

I see no issue at all with that. It's common for me not to use munich malt but only Vienna and 2-row in an alt. I prefer Vienna malt myself, and the brewing styles book on alts states that munich, vienna and pils malt are the most common ingredients in the alt styles. I say go for it. C

[Big Nake]

I agree... Vienna is one of my favorite malts and I think it would be fine here. The aromatic will add a smidge of reddish color and some maltiness too which is consistent with the whole recipe. Good luck and cheers!

[siouxbrewer]

Thanks for the reassurance. It feels good to know I'm not headed down the wrong track. Blktre's Alts are some of my favorite beers I've tasted. Hopefully I can get something that's maybe in the same ballpark. My last Alt tasted like a boring american amber with german hops. Thanks for the input!

[Big Nake]

I'm headed out to a beer gathering tonight at one of the local's houses and I bottled some of this Altbier this afternoon. I know that I will be drinking some beer tonight so I really need to stop drinking this beer... but it's hard because it came out really, really nice. The Magnums did a nice job on the bittering and I think I would even go a little higher next time. Hard to believe that low-floccing 1007 ended up making such a clear beer. Cheers and thanks for the guidance, gentlemen.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

looks delish ken. nice work

[ncbeerbrewer]

Awesome looking ALT Ken. Looks like another great beer of yours. I plan to brew an ALT here in the next month of so, one of my favs. Enjoy and is that snow in the background?

[djinkc]

Nice, is that a Stange? I need a few of those.I have the hops and malts. There are going to be a lot brewed here in the next few months. The plan is to hit both ends of the SRM and for both Dus and NG - then Sticke or 2...........

[ncbeerbrewer]

Nice, is that a Stange? I need a few of those. I have the hops and malts. There are going to be a lot brewed here in the next few months. The plan is to hit both ends of the SRM and for both Dus and NG - then Sticke or 2...........

No hijack intended here since this is an ALT beer question. Can someone explain what a Sticke ALT is? I would be interested in brewing something new as well. Thanks!!

[VolFan]

Nice, is that a Stange? I need a few of those.

A stange is what Kolsch is served out of. It's taller than the glasses they use for an Alt. Both are .2L

No hijack intended here since this is an ALT beer question. Can someone explain what a Sticke ALT is? I would be interested in brewing something new as well. Thanks!!

Sticke Alt is "Secret Alt". It's a higher gravity than the regular Alt. I suppose you could think of it like a "Double" Alt. It's put on tap unannounced at some places and I think there are a few breweries that have the dates set when they serve it. I couldn't find any Sticke Alt when we were in Dusseldorf. It was a slight bummer. Nice looking beer Ken.

[BlKtRe]

Pretty daym nice looking. I wish that sucker was in my pint!

[Joe]

That looks awesome Ken.If one wanted to brew a maltier version of this beer, could they up the munich malt and decrease the pils malt without changing anything else? How much would you all recommend (if at all)? Would the AAU need to increase to balance out the maltier profile? I would like to brew this but have been wanting a 'maltier' brew and I'm not ready for lagers quite yet (bocks/dunkels).

[Big Nake]

This beer came out very well, but it's in the style of N. German so it's pretty malty. The hops are there but really just for balancing out the malt (typical for my beers). Northern German Alt is maltier, Münster Alt is lighter in color (and I think in OG too), Dusseldorf Alt is hoppier and Sticke (as mentioned) is higher ABV. I brought this beer to a gathering last night and it was well-received. I thought it would seem tasteless next to all of the giant 9% beers, but it stood up. Joe, post a recipe that you're considering and then it could be tweaked... or not. Cheers guys.

[Humperdink]

This beer came out very well, but it's in the style of N. German so it's pretty malty. The hops are there but really just for balancing out the malt (typical for my beers). Northern German Alt is maltier, Münster Alt is lighter in color (and I think in OG too), Dusseldorf Alt is hoppier and Sticke (as mentioned) is higher ABV. I brought this beer to a gathering last night and it was well-received. I thought it would seem tasteless next to all of the giant 9% beers, but it stood up. Joe, post a recipe that you're considering and then it could be tweaked... or not. Cheers guys.

That's a beautiful thing Ken! What would you change if anything next time?

[VolFan]

Here is the recipe I got from the brewer at French Broad.


Sorry it has taken so long. Here's a rough idea of the alt. Let me
know if I don't make any sense or you have any questions. Here we go.

Malt bill:
Pilsner 54%
Munich dark 36%
carapils 6%
Melanoidin 4%

Hops:
Perle 90mins 5.2 ibus
Perle 60mins 14.3 ibus
Spalt 60mins 4.8 ibus
Crystal 30mins 1.7 ibus
Spalt and crystal at knock-out roughly the same quantity as the 90 and
30 min pitches.

Ferment with kolsch yeast at 56 degrees.

[Big Nake]

That's a beautiful thing Ken! What would you change if anything next time?

Chris: I might add a little more hops later in the boil. I think the beer's bitterness is okay for my own (maltier beer) tastes. The later addition of only ½ an ounce could have been a little higher. The other problem is that most of my short experience with this beer was at this gathering last night where there were A LOT of 80+ IBU beers hanging around including Barleywines, Big Red IPAs and other hoppy beers... so this Alt tasted really tame. I don't think I have it in me to drink any beer today, but eventually I will have another one of these as my first beer of the day and then I can re-review it. Other than the later hops, I won't change anything.

[jayb151]

Ken,I remember it being good, but up against all the other malt and hop bombs yesterday, it did seem pretty tame. I do remember it being pretty well balanced, which I guess is another one of your trademarks.