RYE-toberfest

It's my first post here in the last few weeks.  I didn't mean to go dark on everyone, but I've been experiencing the joys of home ownership.  Between renting chainsaws, building garden boxes, and brewing beer I didn't have too many opportunities to post.  Here's the latest recipe I brewed two weeks ago now.  This is a Roggenbier (German Rye Ale) that I've brewed in honor of Oktoberfest.  Naturally, the recipe follows Reinheitsgebot (the German Purity Law) which only allows water, barley, and hops as beer ingredients.  The recipe is from one of my favorite recipe books, Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer.  I'll be serving this beer at small neighborhood Oktoberfest celebration at the end of this month with my friend Justin in Sacramento.

Batch Size: 6 gallons

Grains:
6.25 lbs Rye Malt
3.50 lbs Munich Malt
3.00 lbs German Pilsners Malt
1.00 lbs Caramunich Malt
2.00 ozs Carafa II


Hops:
1.00 oz Tetnang - 60 minutes remaining in the boil
0.30 oz Czech Saaz - 15 minutes remaining in the boil

Yeast:
Hefeweizen Ale - White Labs WLP 300

Hefeweizen Ale Yeast Starter

Mash, Sparge, and Boil:

Bring 4.6 gallons of water to a strike temperature of 171 degrees F.  I use a water to grain ratio of 1.33 qts per pound of grain.  Mash at 154 degrees F for 60 minutes.  

Mashing time....its so hot right now!

This recipe recommended increasing the pre-boil volume to allow for a 90 minutes boil to help reduce the DMS.  

Side note:  DMS is dimethyl sulfide and is produced during the boil.  This will usually be boiled off, but sometimes it may dissolve back into the beer and will give a cooked vegetable off flavor.

I sparged 5.2 gallons of water at 170 degrees F.  Once the wort was collected I boiled for 90 minutes, added hops per the recipe, cooled, and pitched my yeast starter.

Wort collection

Fermentation:  

The recipe recommends a fermentation temperature of 62 degrees F.  If you have the ability to control your fermentation that low, then try it out.  I fermented in my closet at room temperature and the fermentation went great.

OG = 1.054 (actual 1.056)
FG = 1..014 (actual 1.016)
ABV = 5.2%