Batch 91, Hacker-Psycho Oktoberfest

I got this recipe from a book titled "Brew Classic European Beers At Home". This is a clone of the Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest. When I was in Germany, we called it 'Hacker-Psycho'.

The recipe itself is pretty simple, but I'd never done a double decoction mash before, and that turned out to be a time consuming event. Usually, it takes me about 5 hours start to finish for a 10 gallon batch. Today took 8 hours.

10 gallon batch.

11 lbs Pilsner
10 lbs Munich

47g Hallertau
47g Tettnang

8:45 am, started by setting up equipment. Filled the HLT and started heating it. Ground the grain. Realized the propane tank was low. Went to Albersons to get a refill. Bought donuts too.

10:15 am, mash in at 122F with 28 quarts water.  Rest for 20 minutes

10:35 am, removed 3 gallons of thick mash to a second pot.  Mash tun stays at 122F.

10:45 am, second pot heated to 158F.  Rest for 20 minutes.

11:05 am, turn up the heat on the second pot to boil the mash.

11:10 am, second pot is boiling, boil for 20 minutes.

11:30 am, pour the mash from the second pot into the mash tun.  Raise the mash to 149F.  Supposedly, the heat from the boiling mash from the second pot should have done it, but it didn't quite.  Used my heat exchanger to get it up to temp.

11:48 am, mash in mash tun is at 149F.  Hold for 30 minutes.

12:18 pm, stir mash.  Remove 2.5 gallons of thick mash to second pot.  Bring to boil.

12:30 pm, second pot is boiling.  Hold for 20 minutes.

12:50 pm, add mash from second pot back to mash tun to raise temp to 158F.  Missed it again, used the heat exchanger.

1:02 pm, mash is at 158F.  Rest 30 minutes.

1:30 pm, started batch sparge.

2:18 pm, wort is boiling.  90 minute boil.

2:48 pm, added hops.

3:48 pm, flame off.  Set up CFC and fermenters, began chilling.

4:45 pm, all done for the moment.  Everything is cleaned up and put away.  Need to chill the fermenters about 10 more degrees before pitching.

I'm using 2 plastic buckets, 5 gallons in each.  One will get Wyeast 2206 Bavarian lager yeast, the other will get Wyeast 2633 Oktoberfest blend.

Edit: pitched yeast at 10:30 pm.

Recipe stats:

OG: 1.059, 1.066 actual
FG: 1.015, 1.012 actual
IBU: 22
SRM: 10
ABV 5.7%
Balance: 0.81


A few brew day pics:

Thick mash in the second pot.  This is probably half of the grain, but only about a third of the volume of the mash.

The thick mash starting to boil.

The big turd of hops. I use knee-high nylon stockings for pellet hops.

Beer Balance Calculators

These calculators are based on the formulas and ideas found in this
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Beer Balance Calculator

This calculator determines how balanced a beer is.
Values close to 1 mean the beer is balanced. Values greater than 1 means
the beer is out of balance toward the hoppy side, values less than 1 means
the beer is out of balance toward the malty side.
Enter OG and FG values in Gravity Units (GU). Gravity Units are the numbers right of the decimal point of the specific gravity without leading zeros, so, for example, if the original gravity is 1.055, enter 55, or if the OG is 1.110, enter 110.

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IBU Calculator

This calculator finds the IBU's necessary to produce a balanced beer with
the given OG. Since the intent of this calculator is to help formulate
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