Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Roktoberfest

So, another brew day is in the books and five gallons of Oktoberfest is in the fermenter. Lots of folks asked why I was brewing an Oktoberfest in March, which is a good question.  Wikipedia's HISTORY entry here will explain.  Oktoberfest, as a beer style is really a Märzen.  Maybe that will explain a little better...

Brew day went fine with no hitches to speak of.  I didn't forget any ingredients or components today.  The right hops went in at the right times.  I'm still sorting out some issues with the new 10-gallon brew kettle.  I'm not having a lot of luck dialing in the boil-off volume for consistency purposes.  My volume into the brew kettle was supposed to be 7.05 gallons, and I was just a tad shy of that at 6.9 gallons.  My gravity into the kettle was supposed to be 1.049 and I was just a bit under at 1.045.  Those variances are, in my opinion, insignificant.  I was a little off base after the boil though, and I'm not sure why.  My target post boil volume was 5.5 gallons with a gravity of 1.063.  I ended up with 4.9 gallons (significant difference) at 1.065.  The gravity was on target so I'm not so worried about the volume difference, but I'd still like to know where it went.  I have the evaporation rate on the kettle set to 15% per hour.  I changed that from 17% on my last boil because I didn't boil off enough on my last two batches.  With a 75 minute boil, I should have boiled off about 1.3 gallons from the 6.9, leaving me at approximately 5.6 gallons.  I'm not sure how I ended up with only 4.9 gallons.  Anyway....

The beer smelled fantastic and I can't wait to taste it.  I'll be fermenting for 14 days (approximately) in primary and then 21 to 28 days in secondary before bottling this beer.  I have a lot of weekend work coming up at the hospital (3 out of the next 4 weekends) so my brewing schedule is going to be a little strange... My next brew will probably be on a weekday in the middle of the week sometime in the next two weeks...