German Brewing

Hello from Pennsylvania USA, I am a new brewer, former US army soldier, I was stationed at negligence barracks near Stuttgart, we drank stuttgarter hofbrau pilsner religiously and ridiculously, after 2 years of being a fool, I learned as much as possible about the German culture and then I truly began to enjoy the beer in Germany.

Now I drink hofbrau original or octoberfest when I can get it, I am trying to duplicate it, but have had no success, a member of another forum recommended this forum for help, and just the brief glance has me a bit overwhelmed.

I can not get stuttgarter hofbrau pilsner at all, I feel that munich hofbrau original is excellent and close enough to stuttgarter hofbrau to suite my taste. Now I am looking for a recipe that duplicates the flavor, the recipes I have tried aren't close to the flavor. So I am reaching out to you fine brewers for a fresh start.

So far I have been using german pilsner malt, Munich malt, melanoidan malt, hallertau hersbruker hops, and white labs southern german lager yeast. The short time I have been reading some posts here, leaves me to believe that my malts and yeast are the wrong ones to use to achieve duplicating the flavor of Munich hofbrau original.

Any and all recommendations, advice, or help would be greatly appreciated as german pilsner has my heart and taste buds.

I should explain my brewing system to help out.

I have a 2 vessel system, the rims setup is similar to the blichmann Brew easy system, 15 gallon boil kettle, and mash tun out of a 10 gallon cooler, the blichmann temperature controller gas burner, I have a temperature controlled fermentation chamber.

I am able to perform multi step mashes with this system, I have been doing this following temp schedule

104°f for 30 minutes
15 minutes Ramp to 140°f
140°f for 30 minutes
10 minutes Ramp to 154°for
154°f for 30 minutes
10 minutes Ramp to 170°f
170°f for 10 minutes
Flame out.

90 minute boil
1 Oz hallertau at 60 minutes
.33 Oz hallertau at 15 minutes
1 whirl flock tablet at 15 minutes

Pitched at 50°f
Placed in fermentation chamber set at 52°f for 2 weeks then a 3 day Ramp up to 65°f for a diacetyl rest for 3 days I add gelatin gently swirl to put the yeast back in suspension then I cold crash it to 35°f for 3 days, transfer to keg, lagered for 4 to 6 weeks.

The beer tastes very good, but its not munich hofbrau original nor is it stuttgarter hofbrau pilsner.

If any of you experienced brewers live near south Central Pennsylvania approximately 20 minutes south of harrisburg I would be happy to travel to your brew session if you don't mind me taking notes and asking questions and more than happy to bring the grub, I am brewing next weekend, a recipe posted in another forum, as I have an open fermentor and 2 kegs waiting to lager, currently have a lager fermenting.

Welcome aboard. Take a look at these baseline recipes, I think this should help you get close.viewtopic.php?f=13&t=323

http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com

Another great source of info

Thank you wobdee for the links, and welcome.

Griassdi Crunk

Oiso, bei den Saupreissn würd I net vorbeischaung.

Malz, Hofen und Hefe schaun pfundig aus, oba a Hofbräu wiard dös net.

Habedieehre!

(On the off-chance you understand Bavarian).

Welcome Crunk. Always nice to see new people around here.

Unfortunately I did not have enough time left in Germany to learn the language thoroughly, and that is to say just enough to get me in trouble, my bavarian reading and speaking is FAR worse.

That is my biggest regret about being in Germany I didn't have enough time.

Prosit!