I just got in from the garage after taking gravity checks and taste samples of the Oktoberfest and the Malted Cider.

Here’s the progress report:

Mike-toberfest:  OG 1.065  currently 1.024
Malted Cider: OG 1.068 currently 1.000!

So the cider is pretty much done. There is a nice level of residual sweetness and it still tastes like apples.  Surprisingly, it has a great acid balance.  I was afraid I was going to need to add back some acid blend to “brighten” it up.  But it seems just perfect as is.  I moved it to the chest freezer set to 38F.  My hope is to crash some more yeast out (its currently at 65F) before I rack it to a keg.  I’ll probably try to do some fining with gelatin or sparkaloid in the keg to try and make it crystal clear.  After I force carb it up, I am going to bottle off the keg into 22oz bombers for storage.  I’ll try and cap off 6-8 12ozers too just in case I decide to enter it in an upcoming competition for feedback.

The oktoberfest got off to a rocky start.  The half price yeast I bought didn’t seem to want to kick in until 5-7 days after pitching.  But it did get going.  I am not surprised that it has pooped out at 1.024.  Actually, I don’t really know if its pooped out, because it’s the first time I have checked the gravity.  However, I did over shoot my mash temp at 158F, and I over boiled it so the starting gravity was almost 10pts higher than I expected (however, my mash efficiency was really great too, which obviously contributed adversely to a high OG).  Well despite all that, the beer seems to have no detectable levels of diacetyl or acetelaldehyde, which are all indicative of weak or incomplete ferments.
I moved the O fest into the basement where my furnace is.  Its about 68F in there these days.  My hope is to warm it up and drive the OG down a few more points.  Hopefully, under 1.018. Then I’ll transfer to the keg and maybe cut it with a little water to “dry” it out further if it needs it.  Again, remember my OG was about 10 points higher than I wanted it to be.   Then I’ll force carb and drop the temp to 32F to lager until just before the big reveal!
But for my first lager attempt it seems pretty clean.  The flavors are good, although I think it could use more hops actually.
This one is really malt driven, which I like.  It must be the~45% Munich Malt and the touch of melanoidin in there.  If it dries out some that may mellow a bit post lagering.

That’s it for now.

BREW ON!