Altbier recipe

Definitely not traditional, what are you going for?

 

Altbiers are usually very simple grain makeup if you are looking for something in the traditional sense. It is one of those beers that has been reinterpreted for good or bad. The base malts are typical, not generally roasted or carmel malts though.

As far as the different gravities, I would check both assumed efficiencies and see how they compare to what you expect from your system. Unless you already corrected that in your software. If everything checks, I would lean towards the increase in base malt while not touching any of the specialities.

 

What yeast are you using? Since it's from a kit I imagine dry yeast...

 

Not necessarily omit them completely, the original altbier tends to shy away but you can find them in some other examples. It's just one of those are you trying to replicate something or use it as a model type of decisions. I'm not sure what they will give you in this particular recipe. I personally wouldn't increase any of them if you up the grain bill. I'd also lean a little heavier on the Munich and try to keep it ratio'd a little higher than the pilsner.

Altbier is one of the styles that the yeast will be incredibly important too, as the previous poster may be hinting at.

 

Now hold on..

Here is what the German beer brewing bible has to say about Altbier recipes.



So what does this mean?

There are 4 recipe variants:

99% pils/1% carafa
90% munich/10% pils
85% pils/15% caramunich
50% munich/50% melanodian

So this style as are many of the german styles, can use much larger %'s of darker/cara malts than people think. The reason they can get away with this is because of the low oxygen brewhouses. Hot side oxidation is VERY real, and when you make wort in a way oxygen does not interact ( deoxygenated water, purged grists with nitrogen, mash in a sealed environment under nitrogen, etc) caramalts do not oxidize and turn sickly sweet, they become malt enhancing, which is why most of these styles are malty.

 

but I thought hot side aeration was a myth on the homebrew level

 

I understand the wink, but what people fail to see is that due to things like the square cube law, HSA on the homebrew scale is exacerbated something like 10 fold.

Embrace science, resist ignorance!

 

I do a little bit off your website. Lighter boils, freshly milled grain, reduce splashing draining to boil kettle. I don't think I could ever take the time to be completely lodo but I give you credit for trying.

 

Not sure I'm a believer in that Bible for Altbier!

 

https://www.vlb-berlin.org/en/technology-brewing-and-malting

https://www.amazon.de/Die-Bierbrauerei-Band-Technologie-Würzebereitung/dp/3527325336


You are more than welcome to disagree with these folks, but you'd still be wrong

 

Freshly Milled Grain... one of my favorite repeated posts on this forum (and other forums) is that crushed grains are "fine" for months after crushing, because a maltster's web site says so.

 

I mill right before I mash. I used to mill the day before and then after I heard the term "staling" and thought about bread being hard and ruined by oxygen after a few hours it all clicked. I can't imagine ordering grains milled from more an online site and using ingredients that weren't fresh.

 

"As soon as the malt grain has been crushed,
it is subject to oxygen uptake. Oxygen uptake
during mashing in already leads to considerable
oxidation reactions (Sect. 3.2.1.6)
Lipoxygenases thereby play a particular role
through the breakdown of unsaturated fatty
acids into hydroxy fatty acids and other precursors
of the ageing substances (see Fig. 3.44).
The lipoxygenases are in the peripheral parts
of the malt grain, particularly concentrated in
the acrospire. Furthermore, as well as cellulose,
the husks also contain polyphenols and other
components which create an unpleasant bitter
taste and have a negative effect on the colloidal
stability of the beer."

"Through milling, the lipoxygenases (LOX)
present in the acrospire are quickly activated
and at the still frequent low mashing temperatures
and high pH value of the mashing water
are able to split the unsaturated fatty acids in
a relatively short time and thereby produce autooxidation
products, which can later lead to
ageing carbonyls."

Altogether, the amount of hydroxy fatty acids
in the brewing process is influenced by the
following factors [256, 349]:
• barley variety and location affect the hydroxy
fatty acids of the malt,
inert gassing of the grist casing and the
distribution screw leads to low LOX activity
during mashing,
• high mashing in temperatures and high
mashing temperatures as well as short
mashing duration reduce the hydroxy fatty
acid content,
• malt conditioning with hot water at 80 °c
causes an effective deactivation of LOX,
• the grist fineness affects the LOX activity;
there is an increase in LOX act ivity with increased
grist fineness,
• milling temperature and grist storage have
an effect on LOX activity,
• short mashing in time and low mash pH
value of 5.1-5.2 reduce the LOX activity.

During mashing, however, other saturated
fatty acids are dissolved, not least the 5 -7 %
fat which is contained in the amyloplasts.
Cloudy lautering and poor trub excretion lead
to large amounts of free fatty acids in the wort,
which the yeast cells require to produce new
cell substances, but which can also contribute
to a reduction in flavour stability.
Moreover, fatty acids are also formed during
fermentation which the yeast cell requires to
form the cell membrane. For the formation of
fatty acids the yeast requires oxygen.

-Kunze Chapter 3

So much for "crushing till your scared" as well

 

I was watching a video where they said a German brewer added hydrogen peroxide to his mash to help reduce Polyphenals and improve clarity. This would be a neat test for Brulosophy.

 

Your grist looks pretty good to me.

I need to make this style more often. This grist resulted in one of my best beers ever, though I cheated and used a lager yeast...

5 gal
12 lb Pilsner
5lb Munich dark
1lb Caramunich 2
5oz Pale Chocolate