I have been inspired

[pantsmachine]

I have had a great old time the past few months putting together kits and having a wee tweak here and there. I now fancy picking and choosing my own ingredients and making up a 5 gallon batch. I am currently sitting offshore reading various info mostly on this site.
I want to base my first extract effort on something i get to drink once a year, i am a bit of a jammy git and get to go over to see a mate of mine from childhood who lives over in Germany.

We both like a beer and one of our favourite breweries in Germany is SchlappeSeppel(Frankfurt) and its Keller beer is stunning. Its just a wee bit lighter in colour than a scottish 70 shill and its not as heavy either. Right in between a decent continental lager and a 70 shilling would be my guess, nice and malty as well.

Daab gave me some advice a couple of weeks back so my interpretation of his advice to achieve something close to a South Germany Kellerbeer would be as follows

2 of 1.6 kg light malt extract
1/2kg of crushed munich malt
20G Brewers gold hops
10G Halletauer hersbrucker hops
Safale S04 yeast

steep the grains (try 200g of crystal) in 2-3L or so of 60-70 deg c water for 30 mins, strain them off with a spotlessly clean seive,

use the hot wort to rinse out your extract tin(s)

add this wort to a large pan, add 20g of good quality hops such as goldings or fuggles, boil for 10 mins, add another 10g while it cools for 20 mins

Strain this wort off with a thoroughly cleaned and sanitised colander and add it to the extract in the fermenter then top up to final volume. If you want to increase the strength, use less water.

Now i'm going to follow the mans advice in italics above using 1/2 kg of crushed munich malt but i've got a couple of questions. Do i need to go for 2 tins of the light malt extract or can i use 1 tin and spray malt 1 kg to top up. I think i read that spray malt does not convert to alchol(complex sugar). Should i add something else(glucose), 1 kg of each or should i stop messing about and realise that 2 of 1.6kg tins of extract will be enough for a 5 gallon batch?

I don't know if any of you have tried the German Keller beers but if you have will 20G of brerwers gold & 10G of Halletauer hersbrucker hops be enough to give me the keller beer flavour?

At the moment i am limited for kit so i will do as Daab says in a big pan on the cooker and will use a 5 gallon carbuoy for primary with an airlock fitted, I will then do 2 crates of 1/2 ltr bottles for secondary and storage and the rest of the batch will go into a king keg for sec ferm and consumption straight from the tap. While i am here, for sec ferm on previous batches i have used normal table sugar, is that alright or should i be buying brewing sugar? Most finally will the 1/2 kg of munich malt give me the slightly dark look i am going for and in keller beers is it the malt or the hops that give them their distinct flavour. Sorry this is so long winded but i so want to get this right! Thanks for any advice.

Alomost forgot, what is the difference between John Bull LME & John Bull Marris otter LME or indeed brupaks, i have made a few of the brupak kits and they were fine but wondering what would be best for a kellerbeer?

[Aleman]

I'm concerned that you are steeping the munich malt as it really does need mashing . . . if you are steeping for 30 minutes at 65C then you may get away with it . . . but you could very well end up with a starch haze. If I wanted to add some colour to a lager then I would look at around 100g of Caramunich . . . a German equivalent of Crystal malt, and one that does NOT require mashing.

Spray malt does convert to alcohol, but where as 'sugar' converts 100% spray malt is only about 75% fermentable and so leave behind residual sugars contributing to mouth feel and the malty taste. Spray Malt is simply liquid malt that has been dried.

3Kg of Liquid malt extract should give you more than sufficient alcohol for your keller bier, as Daab said if you want it stronger use less water (20L instead of 23)

For carbonating your beer in keg table sugar is fine

Hop wise . . . Personally I would always go with Hallertau for German beers . . . Possibly Tettnang.

What gives the flavour Malt or Hops . . . Yes . .. Sorry but the answer has to be both . . . and add in another factor and that is yeast . . . I would not use SO4 but use Nottingham instead, it is a more flavour neutral yeast than SO4 and would be more appropriate for a lager fermentation

[pantsmachine]

Thanks for that aleman. After reading your comments on the crushed munich malt i realised that its a completely different animal to the crystal malt or caramunich(lots to learn). I am also going for a different yeast as per your advice. I'll post pics in a couple of weeks once i get back onshore and get going with the brew. My plan is as follows

Ingredients for Joes Bad Keller Beer

3.2 kgs litres Bulldog LME
200 G of caramunich crystal malt
250 G dark spray malt
30 grammes Hallertauer Perle hop pellets
1 tsp Irish Moss
Saflager S 23 yeast


steep the grains (200g of caramunich ) in 2-3L or so of 60-70 deg c water for 35 mins in a muslin bag, add ¼ kg Dark Spray malt after 25 minutes steep.

Remove bag from pan, use the hot wort to rinse out extract tin(s)

Rehydrate S23 yeast(use small amount of LME) and irish Moss at this point.

Add this wort to a large pan, add 20g of Hallertauer Perle boil for 10 mins, add another 10g and 5g(1 flat teaspoon) of irish moss while it cools for 20 mins

Strain this wort off with a thoroughly cleaned and sanitised colander and add it to the extract in the fermenter then top up to final volume. If you want to increase the strength, use less water.

Monitor temp and add yeast around 23 deg.

Twiddle thumbs till i can bottle, secondary ferment, keg and consume.

Any comments welcome.

[orable]

I spend a lot of time in Frankfurt, so I'll try to check this beer out through the week. The brewery is near Aschaffenburg so probably more influenced by Bayern tradition. The website describes* it as a unfiltered bottle conditioned beer, with good palatability due to the high degree of fermentation and cold lagering. The brewers yeast from the fermentation that gives the beer it's mild taste and slightly spicy yeast aroma.

So the Nottingham would be a very good choice of yeast for the style.

* fortunately I get paid for my IT skills rather than my translations

[pantsmachine]

A burg is exactly where we hang out. If you do get the time to go, head towards the big castle in A burg and ask anyone where the Schlappeseppel brewery is. Its the old brew house on a corner converted to a eating shop. Plenty tasty basic German scran big old stripped back pine benches and seats and big glasses of keller beer, the weis beer is also off the scale. Good luck i can't get there again thill Feb/March!

[Aleman]

As I'm not sure as the colour of the beer, please take my comments with some degree fo caution, but I would be tempted to change the dark spraymalt for light or extra light spray malt and derive any colouring purely from the caramunich, otherwise I suspect you will end up with a beer along the lines of a dark mild rather than a deep golden ale.

[pantsmachine]

Fair enough Daab not wanting to twist your advice too much! Only after sitting down and reading and asking advice for a few hours did i get close to the basic recipe i left above(let's face it its a simple recipe). It really brought home how many variables there are in making a brew and this is still at the extract stage, never mind AG! I am going to go the wet towels route wrapped around the carbouy and monitor temp(around 16 deg) as best i can in my garage. Here's hoping for a typical scottish July(cold and wet)! I will start this one soon after i get home and i am home for 4 weeks so plenty of time to let the yeast slowly work its magic. Aleman i was dreaming about ingredients last night! I agree with cutting the Dark spray malt from the recipe. I think i will pare this down to the following and adjust steep time on the crystal malt and hops to try and balance colour/flavour/aroma to what i remember the Keller beer to be like. Less ingredients cuts down on fault finding if i mess it up!

Ingredients for Joes Bad Keller Beer

3.2 kgs litres Bulldog LME
200 G of caramunich crystal malt
30 grammes Hallertauer Perle hop pellets
1 tsp Irish Moss
Saflager S 23 yeast

[mysterio]

If you are able to ferment cool, say 12C for that yeast, you will get much more of a cleaner lager flavour.

[pantsmachine]

I have a couple of 1/2 205ltr plastic barrels i used for chilling beer a couple of years back for a big bbq party we had. I suppose i could rip that idea and sit the carbuoy in one of the 1/2 barrels in the garage and freeze up a few sandwich boxes full of water and put a new one into the water surrounding the carbuoy every 24 hours or so. I don't mind doing a bit of extra messing about to get a good result. Just got to balance it against my wife shaking her head in sorrow and disbelief! I could also lose the Saflager S23 yeast and use the Safbrew T58 instead which will ferment at 'normal' garage temps. Or i could split the batch and ferment half with S23 at low temp and the other half at 20deg using T58. That would be a quick way to see the difference tween the 2 yeast and fermenting temps with the same base ingredients. Oh dear, this way lies madness!

[pantsmachine]

I forgot to ask a basic question on LME. IF i buy a 15kg batch and use a 3kg or 6kg batch of it will the rest keep or will i have created a breeding ground for bacteria until i go to use more of it. Should i stick with the 1.6kg tins and just pay the premium involved there?

[mysterio]

If you're going to use S23, then you will get the most authentic results if you can get a consistent temp around 12C. At the heart of these German beers is the clean taste you get from lager yeasts. If you're unable to do that, try a clean tasting ale yeast like Safale US-05 or Safbrew K-97, or even Nottingham. If you're using an ale yeast, try and keep it around 18C for a cleaner taste. I don't think T58 would be appropriate.

I think you're fine with the LME but try and use it as soon as possible and make sure you boil it.

[pantsmachine]

Thanks for that Mysterio. I'll stick with the S23 yeast, a floating thermometer in the 1/2 barrel with the ice blocks to keep temp down. The kids will love it. They can do a morning check before going to school. Really looking forward to this as its the first one where i will have cherry picked my own ingredients. As i am bored off my T**ts offshore i have been making up labels on photoshop for my belgian trappist triple which is waiting to be bottled when i get back and also for this as yet unmade keller beer. Ho hum the things you do when ye cannae brew!

[mysterio]

Good luck with it, i've had no problems keeping lager temps with the FV submerged in water. Two additions of ice a day usually does the trick. I just use old ice-cream cartons or tupperwares to make big blocks of ice.

[orable]

Managed to get a few bottles of the beer in question today, plus a few other to get me through the week Visited the self proclaimed 'largest beer and mineral water shop in the world' which I have to say does have a pretty impressive stock list, especially if you like German beers!

http://www.maruhn.de/bieruebersicht.php

picture really doesn't do this place justice!



Will post up a picture and tasting notes tomorrow.

[pantsmachine]

Now that is a proper beer shop! A shame we don't have the quality or quantity in the UK. My mate and i were paying 47euros for 60 1/2 ltr bottles at A burg.