Dortmunder Export Recipe Advice

In the next month or two, I’m planning to brew a Dortmunder Export-style lager. I’ve fleshed out a potential recipe, and was hoping for some feedback (but also see constraints). My goal isn’t perfect adherence to BJCP style guidelines, but a great beer that will be pretty close to the spirit of the commercial examples out there. In looking at various published recipes (and there aren’t many), it seems like a dominant pilsner malt base with some measure of Vienna and/or Munich malts is typical. I’ve brewed plenty of other lagers/pilsners with good success, but am looking for a little extra feedback because this is a new style for me.

Draft Recipe

  • 91% Pilsen malt (Great Western)
  • 9% Vienna malt (Great Western)
  • Magnum hops (13.2% alpha), 60 minute boil, to reach 23 IBU contribution
  • Mt. Hood hops (4.6% alpha), 5 minute boil, to reach 2 IBU contribution
  • W34/70 or WLP830 lager yeast
  • Current stats clock in at 1.049 o.g., 1.011 f.g., 5.0% abv, 25 IBU, ~3 SRM
  • I’m thinking an infusion mash, somewhere between 148 and 152 degrees.

Constraints

  • Due to social distancing guidelines, I’m limiting myself to ingredients on-hand (I made a big supply run to the LHBS before things got really tight, so have a few months’ brewing supplies just in case). In addition to what’s outlined above, I’ve got a good supply of Munich I malt, Mt. Hood and Sterling hops, etc. I also have a supply of W34/70 and should be able to harvest some WLP830 when I keg a pilsner this weekend.
  • Our local water is carbonate heavy. I ran a home water test earlier this week, and got 40 ppm Ca, 14 ppm Mg, 94 ppm Na, 30 ppm sulfate, 110 ppm Cl, 210 ppm bicarbonate (generally in line with the annual water stats from our municipal water supplier). I am not running out for RO water, but do have pickling lime and the usual brewing minerals (calcium chloride, gypsum, epsom salts) on hand, and might try to drop out some bicarb that way. Or I could boil the water to precipitate carbonate? I also have plenty of lactic acid for pH adjustment.
  • I have a batch sparge, all-grain system, with 5 gallon batches and temperature controlled fermentation chambers.

Areas of Requested Feedback

  • Any thoughts on the grain bill? I’m leaning pilsen+Vienna malt, but could do pilsen+Munich malt, or pilsen+Vienna+Munich, or something else within reason (I have a spectrum of 2-row and crystal malts on hand, too, although I haven’t really seen them in any recipes).
  • How does the hop choice/schedule/intensity look? (remembering the constraints on hop varieties I have at home–I’m on an American noble hops kick these days, so that’s what I have in the freezer)
  • Thoughts on water? Should I bother with trying to adjust with pickling lime, or just let it ride with the high carbonate load?

Thank you in advance for any thoughts!

I like a 70/30 split between Pils/Munich in Export. Maybe 1% or so of Melanoidin if I have it but for me it’s not a show stopper. I have seen Vienna in other recipes.

I usually use Hallertau but ~25 IBU of Magnum at 60 and 1/2 to 1 oz  Mt Hood @ 10 and zero I think would work.

For lighter styles I like to use distilled or at least cut my water with distilled. It softens things up a bit. Lactic Acid if you have it could help with the Bicarbonate.  (and of course dechlorinate). Sodium seems a bit high though. Maybe add some gypsum to increase calcium and sulfate to balance the chloride.

As a side note, I drank a metric buttload of Export while stationed in Germany ‘87-‘90. Most folks went for the Pils but I preferred Export.

Adust your water!  Shooting from the hip, I would say use lactic acid mostly or exclusively as the carbonate and chloride loads are high.

I always wondered what distinguished a dortmunder (or export or helles export, etc) from a helles or pilsner.  Seems like it would be hoppier than a helles and dortmund always seems to be a little crisper, generally.  I wondered if it was hops or water composition.  Ayinger Jahrhundert is quite delicious.  I have called it a dortmunder but I have also been corrected that it was a helles export.  My water has 138ppm of bicarbonate so I use about 4ml of lactic acid in the strike water to neutralize that… sounds like you might need a bit more to cover the 210ppm.  Also, your water is leaning heavily towards chloride which brings out more of that round, full, malty character so I wonder if you need to get than balance more toward sulfate although I tend not to add too much sulfate to pale lagers.  I realize I’m not helping… I’m just bouncing the ball around.  But this style has always interested me and there isn’t much information available out there.  Also, if I had the choice I would use the White Labs 830.  Some people like to say that 830 and 2124 are the same strain but I don’t think they have the same character and the numbers for attenuation, flocculation, ideal temp range, etc. do not line up.  I like them both but 830 seems more dortmund-proper to me.  Keep us posted on how it goes.  I subscribe enthusiastically to this thread!  :smiley:

Having a bit of minerality from the water is a feature of the style. There is a Dortmund water profile in Bru’n Water, but I can attest that it’s too minerally for my palate. I’d say that roughly half the mineralization of that profile would be good enough. That is still somewhat minerally and notable.

I agree with Martin that the style should be a little “saltier/chalky” tasting than other Pilsners.  Dortmunders are slightly stronger and slightly darker as well.

I don’t have it in front of me but can anyone share the ratio between sulfate and chloride and the PPMs for Martin’s dortmund profile?  Then… cut it back a little bit based on Martin’s comments.  Can I also assume that the boosted edgier/chalky water profile would make the hops a little more pronounced as well?  We always hear that very soft water tends to mute hops and drier/chalkier water pronounces them a bit.  It’s interesting because I was in Vienna, Brataslava, Prague, Munich and Frankfort and we drank a lot of different beers.  There were plenty of brands of helles but there were also what I would just describe as “gold lagers”… Ottakringer, Bernard, Gambrinus, Zipfer, Zlatny-Bazant and a hundred others and they all had varying degrees of maltiness, crispness, hoppiness, etc.  A wide range for sure.  If anyone arrives at what they consider to be a very good water profile for this style, I’d love to hear it.  Cheers.

We tend to get confused by the term export. It is more of a strength designation.

I didn’t drink many Dortmunder Export when I lived in Germany. They weren’t around in too many places where I lived. They were hoppy and minerally. I preferred the German Pilsners much more.

Export Helles is a little stronger, a little hoppier than a standard Helles. Not near a Pils Level in my experience.

There are Export Dunkels. Once again, strength designation.

I don’t recall any of the Export I drank in Germany as ‘minerally’.  Of course, I’ve slept since then.

The one I had a few times was DAB, or was it DUB. From the city of Dortmund.

I don’t consider Ayinger Jahrhundert, or Augustiner Edelshof to be minerally.

DAB is one and it’s available here in the US.  Occasionally I’ll see a sixer of tall cans in a store for $4.99 or something and pick it up.  It tastes like a gold lager… not overly malty, not overly hoppy or minerally but just a well-balanced and refreshing German beer.  It’s not offensive and it’s not worth doing cartwheels over but it’s a nice beer.  If “more hops” or “more sulfate” or simply a drier finish was all it took, I would take a swing at it.  I feel like we need a brewer who likes to make a good helles and also a good pilsner to take a crack at dortmunder and then spell out the specific differences between the styles… malt, hops, yeast and water composition.  Let’s appoint Andy Farke!!  :smiley:

Gordon Biersch Golden Export was excellent. I am not sure if it was a Dort or Helles Export, but I loved it.

I was just thinking that there are commercial beers out there that are called [this style] but if you get your hands on the recipe or see it on the brewery’s website, you see that it seems a little off.  Bklmt2000 likes to make a version of Great Lakes Dortmunder gold that he really likes.  I don’t remember the recipe but I think it had some amount of crystal 60 or something in it which seems strange.  There is a locally-made beer here that the brewery calls a Kolsch but it also contained crystal malt as well as Nugget and Santiam hops.  Great beer, TBH but I just wish they would call it a blonde ale or maybe kolsch-style.

There is an article HERE that says that Gordon Biersch Golden Export is a 20-IBU, 5% Munich Helles.

HERE’s an article that sums it up pretty well.  He mentions the addition of gypsum but he doesn’t say how much, what his water is like or any final water numbers so it might be nice to get a better handle on that.  I drew up a recipe with pilsner + vienna + munich + an addition of Horizon as a FWH and then Hallertau at 30 and again at 5 minutes (I do 30-minute boils so I can’t do the 60-30-5).  The article did a nice job explaining where dortmunder fits in with helles, pilsner, maibock, etc.  Cheers.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Interesting on the Munich preference–that’s a bit higher than some recipes I’ve seen (more on the order of 90/10 or 80/20), but not entirely out of place, either. I wonder if Munich malt is more “authentic” (whatever that means)? I have a love/hate relationship with Munich malt at times; sometimes it’s a little too overpowering for me, and other times it’s exactly what I want.

As for the hops, I’ve been playing a lot with American equivalents of German hops, hence the Mt. Hood. I did a German pils recently using Crystal hops, and it was really nice on the hop aroma.

Yeah, I was a bit surprised by how high the sodium tested (or rather, calculated out). But, it seems within officially reported levels from our water distributor! This will definitely be getting a dose of lactic acid. And I agree some gypsum might help, too.

Cool, thanks! I had run across that article too, and it seemed like the most in-depth out there.

Re: your other post, Great Lakes Dortmunder gold is indeed listed as having crystal 60 on their website. But, it’s also a “classic” early 1990s recipe, so I suspect the grist might be a holdover from the Good Old Days when American breweries were doing a little bit of everything to approximate European beers. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad beer, of course, (I love their beers, and am in fact wearing a GLB t-shirt as I type this!), and crystal malt isn’t a completely unreasonable substitution if you can’t get Munich malt easily.

Thanks for the thoughts on this! (and to the rest who chimed in re: water). The minerality of our water is a major part of why I’m trying my hand at a Dortmunder Export–it’s one of the few pale lagers that seems to be easily adapted from my municipal water without getting RO into the mix! I’ll see what I can do to play with the water a bit using the tools at hand to get it where I need to be…

I agree with you completely.  Good beer is good beer.  I try very hard not to be a style-nazi but I assume that many brewers with a bit of style knowledge might look at a commercial beer that claims to be [something] but uses very nontraditional ingredients (for the style) might wince a little bit.  The beer can still be very nice but I wish they would sometimes just not use a term/style-name that is not really what they brewed.  The other part is that many beer-drinking people don’t really know what a Kolsch is or an Altbier or a Kellerbier or whatever so it’s weird to use those terms.  Years ago American craft breweries seemed to whiff mightily when they attempted German styles.  I think that’s changing now.  I have had a number of delicious, spot-on German beers from small U.S. breweries which is a good sign.  Cheers.

Update!

Thank you to everyone who chimed in previously. Your advice was really helpful as I crafted my recipe. I ended up at 70% pilsner, 15% Vienna, and 15% light Munich malt, with Magnum for bittering and Mt. Hood for flavor/aroma. The result was spectacular! I’m really pleased with my attempt, and find that it packs in a ton of malt character without being cloying or over-alcoholic.

For those who are curious, I have a full recounting at my blog: https://andybrews.com/2020/06/19/tremonia-lager/

Andy,

Reading your targeted water profile, I agree that you put the beer into a nice range that should have produced a notable minerality in the beer without being overbearing. What were your personal perceptions on that point?