brewing in maine

The Oktoberfest is kegged. It came in at 1.019 – not fully attenuated at all, something like 65%, which was not intentional. This was the Northern Brewer recipe, and I thought I had good temp control but I didn’t make a huge starter. That’s probably why it didn’t go as far.

The taste of the sample I pulled before racking was very bitter, potentially oxidized, but hard to tell until it’s carbonated. This thing has been in secondary since February, having lagered at 33 deg for that month but coming up to the forties for serving temp because the Helles keg was in with it. It’s been through a lot. Fingers crossed!

I’ve kegged the Helles and it should be carbonated in a few days now. I was worried about the fermentation temps being a little warm and my suspicions might have been confirmed when I tasted it during kegging. It had a subtle high fermentation temp aroma and taste but again it’s my first finished lager and not yet carbonated so I don’t know what’s normal yet. The temps were within range for the yeast strain but not necessarily as low as I was looking for.

The sample final gravity was 1.014 for an attenuation of around 71%, just barely below the average for the Wyeast 2206.

Updates coming next week with tasting results.

So the 60 Schilling Scottish is done, kegged and tasty. It actually has a distinct malty, almost pretzel flavor that I think came from the honey malt primarily. The color is lighter than the photo lets on – much more of a reddish amber. Kegged at 5 psi for 1.5 volumes of CO2 at 50 degrees, and sitting in my basement.