In order to not confuse the Bavarian focus of the other thread I figured I would start a separate thread for notes that I've found on Austrian beer from the 1800s. First off some notes from one of JC Jacobsen's letters, discussing brewing at Dreher's brewery in Steinbruch, in Budapest Hungary: An article from "Der Bayerische Bierbrauer from 1871 written by a student of Weihenstephan (who practised at breweries in both Vienna and Pest for "several years") has this to say about "The Vienna brewing method. In particular that followed by Mr Dreher in Steinbruch at Pest.": In the same issue there's an article by the author "L" (Lintner, the editor of the publication?) under the heading "From our travel files" which describes the malting, brewing and fermenting process of one of Austria's "first" breweries. Of the beer being produced the author writes: Alot of interesting tidbits I thought which is why I felt like combining them into a thread. For one thing the use of differently kilned malts, and the slight difference inbetween Märzen and Doppelmärzen (as well as in original gravity and hop addition). Somebody with better understanding of the malting and kilning process might be able to make out to what extent the descriptions correspond with modern day malts such as Pilsner, Vienna or Munich (there's more details to be found as it pertains the malting process in the texts, but I thought the drying temperatures to be of most interest here).
The link for the Bayerische Bierbrauer seems to have gotten lost in my post so here it is (the first part about Steinbruch starts at page 114, the second part about an Austrian brewery at page 34).
Patrik, Maybe the BJCP Beer Study on Malting is of interest to you: http://www.bjcp.org/course/Class7Lesson3Malting.php The paragraph on base malts: “Kilning, or roasting the malt, combined with the degree of modification, determines the type and character of the grain. Vienna malts are low-kilned at around 145 °F, British and American pale malts at between 130 and 180 °F and Czech malts are raised slowly from 120 to 170 °F to dry, and then roasted at 178 °F. Dortmund and Munich malts are first kilned at low temperatures before the malt has dried, then the temperature is slowly raised to 195-205 °F for Dortmunder malt, and 210 to 244 °F for Munich malt. This process creates flavor and body-building melanoidins from amino acids and malt sugars. Amber malt is well-modified, and then dried and rapidly heated to 200 °F. The temperature is then raised to 280-300 °F and held there until the desired color is reached.” The temperatures you listed where: · Lager Malt: 80°C (176°F) · Märzen Malt: 85°C (185°F) · Doppelmärzen Malt: 91.25 – 93.78°C (196.25 – 200.8°F) Just a quick observation but it seems that there are different schedules for malting. Your references only detail a single temperature but for some malts the BJCP Beer Study mentions a two stage process; for Munich Malt: first kilned at low temperatures (unspecified) and then slowly raised to a temperature of 210 – 244°F. In John Palmer’s book How to Brew he details how Lager malt is produced: “After germination, lager malt is carefully heated in a kiln to 90F for the first day, withered at 120-140F for 12-20 hours and then cured at 175-185F for 4-48 hours depending on the maltster. This produces a malt with fine mild flavor and excellent enzyme potential. It is used as the basis of most of the world's beers in conjunction with specialty malts for added flavors.” It seems that malting is a multi-stage process. For example to make Lager Malt: · Dry at 90°F · Wither (I am not sure what that means) at 120-140°F · Cure at 175-185°F In addition the timeframes of these stages can be varied. Cheers! Jack
From what I gathered from the description of Steinbruch's kilning there was a two level kiln where the malt was placed on the upper level for 8 hours during which time it is turned over an unspecified number of times depending on how much malt is placed on the upper level. After 8 hours the malt is almost completely dry and is placed on the lower level at which point the temperature is quickly raised to 50 C and the malt turned over, then the temperature is raised to 62.5-68.75 and the malt turned over once more and then three hours before clearing out the malt from the kiln the temperature is raised to the finishing temperature and the malt turned over a third time.
The only other reference to a doppelmärzen that I've come across is two analysis of "Budapester biere" from 1884 where both samples are called Doppelmärzen. So perhaps it was a local/regional product made by Dreher's Steinbruch/Budapest brewery only (although similar beers might have been produced elsewhere, but sold under a different name)? Doppel obviously didn't mean double anything compared to the regular Märzen, the original gravity was merely around one to one and a half percent higher, the malt kilned at a slightly higher temperature and containing more hops (i.e a beefed up Vienna-Märzen).
