German Brewing

I just carbed up my Dortmunder I made last month. I set one keg aside to age and tapped the other one. Malty, very malty. I figured it would be malty, but brewing this for the first time I didn't know what to expect. I used 68% Weyermann Bohemian, 32% Weyermann Munich 6. I am not sure if I want to make this again as my usual Pilsner contains only 8% Munich 6. Tettnager ( 3.2% AA ) to 27 ibu. Anyone brew Dortmunders and what do you think about that style of beer?

That's close to the percentages I use for Dortmunder. A lot of it is in the water too. Perhaps you didn't use enough sulfates to allow the hops to balance out the malt. Also, what yeast did you use? WLP838 makes a good Dortmunder, in my opinion.

I used WLP833 my usual lager yeast. I can taste the Tettnanger hops. I think I just don't like all that Munich malt. I love the colour though, a nice golden orange.

I've liked much less Munich (10-15%), a small addition of carafoam or carahell and sulfate 70-100.

833 turned out the best though I often make it with 830 or an 830/850 blend that my local uses.

Doesn't sound like my Dortmunder and your pils would be that much to contrast though.

What are you guys using for a reference sample? I had a DAB tonight, and its pretty much nothing like what you guys are describing. Its a lower hopped (~30ibu) pilsner, and nothing short of REALLY good.

I agree that commercial examples like DAB are likely nothing like what the real thing used to be. Salty East German pilsners are probably the closest.

I don't understand why people refer to Jahrundert as a Dortmunder. It's brewed on basically the opposite side of the country from Dortmund, and has nothing to do with the style, other than it's brewed to export strength.

All "export" means is the beer was brewed to a slightly higher than normal gravity. Pretty sure the guidelines are 12°-13°P, or something like that.

Jarhundert is a Bavarian Helles. It uses helles yeast, helles hops, helles water, helles malt... the only thing differentiating it from a helles is the higher gravity, and correspondingly higher hopping rate.

/rant