Batch #4 - 4BC Altbier

Brewday again. I'm getting quite comfortable and confident now, hopefully not over-confident. I still refer to The Bible - John Palmer's "How To Brew" a lot but it's all becoming a bit more instinctive now.

Today's beer is a Dusseldorf Altbier (or at least that's what I'm aiming for). The recipe is:

• 2 x 1.6kg cans John Bull Pale liquid malt extract (LME)
• 0.5kg crystal malt (120L - quite a dark one)
• 0.5kg Munich malt
• 0.5kg Vienna malt
• 50g NZ Hallertauer hops (boiled for 60 mins)
• 40g Motueka B-Saaz hops (boiled for 10 mins)
• 1 tsp Irish Moss
• 5 tsps yeast nutrient salts
• 1 packet Safale German Ale yeast (K-97)

The speciality malts were steeped in 8 litres of water at 70 degrees centigrade for half an hour. Here's a photo of yours truly dunking one of the grain bags (fashioned from my wife's nylons!) into the pot.


And here's a photo of the resulting wort after 30 minutes steeping. As you can see it's pretty dark, but that's spot on for the style I'm aiming for.


This time I was very careful to ensure that the malt extract was fully dissolved. The first can was added after the steeping as I brought the wort up to the boil. The second can was stirred in 15 minutes before the end of the 60 minute boil period. When I came to pour the wort into the fermenter, no malt extract was stuck to the bottom of the pot so I seem to have solved that problem.

Yeast was rehydrated in warm water prior to pitching. Thanks to Kieran for the tip on the K-97 yeast - hopefully this will give me something that tastes close to the intended style.


The fermenter was then transferred to my hi-tech temperature controlled fermentation chamber (i.e. a fridge with a temperature controller) and left to ferment at 20 degrees for a couple of weeks.


I drew off a sample to test the Original Gravity - spot on at 1.046. I also had a quick taste of the sample - yum!! This is the best tasting beer at that stage that I've done. Lots of maltiness, underscored with a bit of hop bitterness. I'm hopeful that this could be a cracker!