it's the most wonderful time of the year for beer:
Oktoberfest! And this year i'm making my own at home. this lager is known for being
malty yet crisp and a little bit on the strong side and i'm going to show you how to make it
in just two weeks! i'm Trent Musho and this is the Bru Sho, let's prost to Oktoberfest!
Oktoberfest is the world's largest beer fest held every year in Munich, Germany
and takes place over the last few weeks in September. i was lucky enough to visit for
my birthday last year and was a trip i highly recommend for any beer lover. the energy is
extremely positive and everyone is there just having a good time with great beer and great food.
for the most part there are two types of beers served: Märzen, an amber and more malty lager and
Fest Bier, a lighter body and paler lager. Märzen is German for March and it's named
that because typically this beer is brewed in March and is stored in a cold cellar or lagered
for six months until the festival. today i'm going to brew a somewhat hybrid and we're
going to use a few techniques to help speed up the process by about five and a half months.
Before we get started please take a second to subscribe if you haven't already so you
can learn more about how to brew your own beer at home now let's brew! For this recipe we're
making a five gallon batch using the brew in a bag method (BIAB). i start by heating up 6.7
gallons to 161 degrees Fahrenheit i'm adding some water adjustments to improve the flavor i'm going
for a standard lager water profile this is an optional step but it's highly recommended once
the water is heated up i add the green bag and then the grains for that i'm using 71% Munich
malt this has a good malty biscuit flavor and adds some nice color plus it makes sense
since this is a Munich-based beer then 21% pilsner another classic German malt and perfect for lagers
and 8% vienna malt for more added maltiness and color. i plan to mash it at 152 for 45 minutes
after the 45 minutes i pull the grains and bring the wort to a boil for 30 minutes
at the 25 minute mark i add my favorite bittering hop, for me a half ounce of magnum
then at the 15 minute mark i add one ounce of Tettnanger this hop is native to southwest Germany
and commonly found in beers from the area it has floral and herbal notes with a touch of spice
overall i'm aiming for 23 IBUs out of these hops.
do you have a favorite German beer style? let me know in the comments!
also at the 15 minute mark i had the wort chiller and a whirlfloc tablet. lagers are known for being
very clear so the whirlfloc will help with clarity. at the end of the boil i turn on
the wort chiller and chill down to 65 degrees at which point i transfer into the fermenter
using a hydrometer i got an original gravity of 1.057
now i add the yeast two packets of SafLager 34/70 for a long time the standard practice
was that if you can't ferment your lager at temperatures below 40 degrees then you could
not make a lager the higher fermentation temperatures would create undesirable off
flavors and with lagers already being so light in flavor there's not much room to hide mistakes.
there have been more studies and experiments that show that you can actually ferment lagers closer
to ale temperatures around 67 degrees without any noticeable difference or apparent off flavors.
this was an exciting discovery when i first found out that this could be an option
maintaining ale temperatures is manageable for me and i found 34/70 to be very forgiving for a
lager yeast so to just better my chances for a healthy yeast colony i throw in two packs
and set the fermenter in the coolest part of my house i also place my fermenter inside a large
bucket filled with ice packs and water to keep the temperature as low as possible by replacing
the ice packs every 8 to 12 hours i was able to average a fermentation temperature of 65 degrees
the added benefit of fermenting lager slightly warmer is that the beer ferments faster
instead of having to brew this back in March i'm able to have this fermented completely in one week
after five days the airlock activity started to slow down so i took the fermenter out of
the ice bucket allowing the temperature to rise for what is called a diacetyl rest.
diacetyl is easy to minimize by allowing the beer to warm up to about 70 degrees and fully ferment
out that extra time at a warmer temperature will give the yeast a chance to clean up the diacetyl
and leave your beer with a cleaner taste so after seven days total fermentation i took a
final gravity reading and i got 1.013 meaning this comes in at 5.9%. we officially have beer! before
kegging the beer up i wanted to try a clarifying agent that was new to me this one is called bio
fine clear it's a vegan friendly product that reduces the haze in your beer. clarifying a beer
naturally happens when you store your beer at cold temperatures aka lagering but i wanted to
drink this beer fast so i thought this was a great time to try it out the instructions said to start
small so i added a half milliliter to the keg and then transferred the finished beer into the
keg and applied my desired pressure then after a few days i checked the beer to see how i was
clearing up and i felt it wasn't clear enough so i added another milliliter and then checked again in
a few days to be honest i did this a few times and all in all i added three milliliters to the entire
five gallon batch if you're bottling then you can add this to your fermenter and allow your beer to
settle out for a few days before bottling so once i couldn't wait any longer it was ready to drink
the malt of this beer really shines through i get a strong bready, biscuity flavor and
a nice balance of body and crispness and the color on this beer is a beautiful gold with a
slight amber hue for the clarity i think i could have definitely gone with more biofine but since
it was my first time using it i didn't want to overdo it but that's all part of the process
of home brewing try something new take notes so that next time you can make improvements
if you've used bio fine clear before i'd love to hear about your experience let me know what
kind of dosing you used or your thoughts on the product in the end this was exactly the beer i was
hoping for the perfect drink to wash down a fresh homemade pretzel there's only one thing missing...
That's better, prost to everyone and happy Oktoberfest! if you enjoyed this video be sure
to hit the like button and subscribe and while you're here check out some of my other videos