Oktoberfest, extract style

[Ruddager]

I've been looking into making an oktoberfest(/marzen) lately, but as a guy living in a small unit I just don't have the space for AG gear so I'm brewing extracts and partials (and the occasional K&K ... shhh). This puts me on the back foot straight away because a lot of the malts used aren't available in extract form. Goody.

So from what I've seen it seems that Oktoberfest = pilsner + vienna + munich. Briess do a munich extract that's 50/50 with munich and base malt, so that's going to have to be the starting point (even though most oktoberfests seem vienna-heavy) with 1.5kg of vienna, mini-mashed. Another common thing is that they're bittered with hallertau and have an addition of tettnang at 20 mins. Some have even later additions but most do not - I won't be doing this because it's all about the malt.

Starting with 3kg of the Briess malt was difficult because it's quite dark, so I've had to design this recipe to 26L. That takes care of the colour problem, and 500g of DME brings the OG to where it should be as well but probably doesn't help the malt character.

So, not too complicated in the end:

3kg Briess munich LME
500g light DME
1.5kg vienna (mashed)
45g Hallertau @60
25g Tettnang @20
26L
S34/70 yest … for no particular reason (suggestions?)

OG: 1.051
FG: 1.013
IBU: 24.6
EBC: 25.3
ABV: 5.4%

So, there we have it, I think that's an okoberfest (style) recipe. Is there anything missing? I don't have any specialty grains in there - some of them have caramunich but I don't know if that's made redundant by the munich LME.

Suggestions ... begin!

 

[technobabble66]

i'm afraid i'm not much good in helping as i've not done an Oktoberfest; however it looks good to me in theory, and i'm particularly keen to hear feedback as i'm learning about the whole Oktoberfest thing at the moment as well.
How are you doing the lagering step?
Best of luck with it!

 

[Ruddager]

Well, not properly, that's for sure. Lagering will be done in the back room through spring and summer ... not ideal.

 

[technobabble66]

so long as it's kinda cold, it should be peachy.
At least below 10°C, preferably below 6°C, seems best. Again, i'd stress i've not done it myself, but that seems to be roughly the collective wisdom (hopefully).
If it's above that, it's probably more conditioning than proper lagering, but i'm sure it'll still be tasty!

 

[Ruddager]

Actually, my sister has a cellar, I should make use of that. Glad you asked the question - I would've just complacently conditioned (as you pointed out) it instead.

 

[Ruddager]

Incidentally, I used IanH's spreadsheet to work out the gravity and whatnots for this one. I had to add Vienna malt myself and gave it a "potential" of 1.03, but I don't really know what that means nor do I know whether the spreadsheet is accurate for a mini-mash. Any help?