This is my recipe to brew a Märzen without having all the refrigeration control needed to brew a proper lager.

  • Original Gravity: 1.048
  • Final Gravity ....: 1.011
  • IBU ....................: 23
  • SRM ..................: 11
  • ABV ...................: 5.3
  • Boil Volume ......: 5 Gallons
  • Final Volume ....: 6 Gallons

Ingredients

6lbs

Light Dry Malt Extract

1lb

Belgian CaraMunich

1/2lb

German Munich

1/2lb

Belgian Aromatic

1/2lb

Belgian Carapils

1oz

Tettnanger Whole hops

1oz

Hallertau Whole hops

2 Packages

Safale S-04

You can use pellet hops, but use about 20% less hops since the pellets are more concentrated.

Brew Day

  1. Start by prepping your yeast in a starter (1 cup of water at 80 degrees per package)
  2. Mash all the grains in 4 quarts of water at 165 degrees for 30 minutes.
  3. Rinse all the grains with an additional 4 quarts of water at 155 degrees
  4. Bring 10 quarts of water to a boil in your kettle
  5. Add sparge water to the kettle
  6. Add DME to the kettle
  7. Let boil for 45 minutes (DMS removal)
  8. Add Tettnanger hops and boil for 15 minutes
  9. Add Hallertau hops and boil for 20 minutes
  10. Add irish moss and boil for 10 minutes
  11. Quickly cool down to 72 degrees (or as close as you can get)
  12. Rack to your 7 gallon carboy, and bring water level up to 6 gallons
  13. Pitch the yeast

Followup

These instructions are what I do as I have a spare refrigerator for cooling my kegs. Additionally, I force carbonate. If you plan to bottle carbonate, just use your typical lager methods.

  1. After the first week, the krausen should have dropped. You can rack it to the secondary carboy if you desire. That's what I do.
  2. After the additional week in the secondary, if you can move your beer into a cooler location for another week. I have a second refrigerator in my house where I store my kegs at 38 degrees. I put my entire carboy in there with my kegs in order to cold crash the beer for the third week.
  3. 3 weeks should have passed by, now you can rack the beer to your keg and force carbonate for a week.
  4. By this time, 4 weeks have passed and you can start consuming your beer. One thing I have learned though, is the longer it sits at 38 degrees, the better it gets.