Oktoberfest!

Last night I brewed my first lager, an Oktoberfest brew. I am very excited about this one both because it's my first lager, and I love Marzen style beer. The brewing process went well, I did not have any boilovers and made very little mess in general. Cooling the wort is the only part of the process that worries me - everything I read focuses on the importance of cooling quickly to minimize the risk of bacterial infection in my beer. The ice water in the sink method is not working. It took almost 25 minutes to cool the wort to 120 degrees last night, I which point I funneled it into the carboy which had cool water in it already. I then poured another half gallon of cold water on top and then took a sample. At this point I ran into a problem - my turkey baster wouldn't reach the wort in the new 6 gallon carboy, sooooo I had to siphon it, which was a pain, but it worked. My OSG was a little low at 1.041 instead of 1.056-1.058 so we'll see how that turns out. My suspicion is that I am adding to much cool water to the wort. A suggestion I have and will be using from now on is to measure out 5 gallons of water and pour it into all of your carboys - then mark the level. That way you know exactly when to add and stop adding water to your wort. Another difference between this brew and the first two was that I used the fabled StarSan sanitizing solution, a no rinse sanitizer. When you talk to people about it, or read about it, most people tell you "not to fear the bubbles". They aren't kidding. This stuff foams like a rabid dog, but I went on with the process, there were still some suds in the bottom of my carboy at transfer time and it does worry me. Mostly on account of the fact that it's a sanitizer and I don't want it killing the yeast. After that I pitched the yeast at 70 degrees and put the fermenter in the fridge at 50 degrees.

This morning there was no sign of active fermentation - adding to the worry of the starsan. However, many publications say that it can take up to 48 hours for the yeast to get moving in a lager so I'll wait it out and let you know how it goes.

A few more details about the brew: I used 6.6 pounds of Munich LME, 1 pound of Amber DME, and steeped 8 oz. of cracked Caramel Malt 60L with 4 oz. of cracked Caramel Malt 20L for 20 minutes prior to boil. For hops, I used 1 oz. of Willamette boiled 60 minutes for  bittering and another ounce of Willamette boiled 20 minutes for flavoring. The yeast used was White Labs' WLP820 Oktoberfest/Marzen.

And for the moment that's that.

Now, as I've mentioned I'm going to give you a chance to win your very own Upship! Brewing T-shirt. Here's the deal. I'm going to simply draw names out of a hat - literally. In order to get your name in the hat you need to comment on this post and in addition to whatever else you'd like to say you need to reveal your favorite style of beer. I'll draw the names sometime next week. So get commenting!