Bock recipe

[Fido97]

Hi, can anyone suggest a good Bock recipe. Would be standard 23 litre batch. Any pointers on yeast also appreciated. Cheers,

[seymour]

Here's a true-to-style starting point from BREWING THE WORLD'S GREAT BEERS, A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE, by Dave Miller, ©1992

NOTE: It's formulated for 5 US gallons, which is only 18.9 L. For a 23 L batch, multiply everything by 1.214.

DUNKLER BOCK
"Bock beer comes in two varieties, the dark (dunkler) one associated with winter and early spring, the pale (helles) with late spring (it is sometimes called Maibock.) Both are very strong, heavy, malty, and sweet."

Grains:
56.7% = 6.25 lbs = 2.83 kg, Pale 2-row malt
20.4% = 2.25 lbs = 1.02 kg, Munich malt
13.6% = 1.5 lbs = 680 g, Crystal malt 60°L
9.1% = 1 lb = 454 g, Dextrin/Cara-Pils malt
.3% = .031 lb = ½ oz = 14 g, Black malt

Mash at 152°F/67°C for 2 hours

Hops:
7 AAU pellets or 8 AAU whole hops: Hallertauer, Tettnanger, Perle or Mt. Hood, 2/3 added at 45 minutes remaining, 1/3 added at 15 minutes remaining.
Example: 1.5 oz/43 g, Hallertau @ 45 min + 1 oz/28 g, Hallertau @ 15 min

Yeast: Wyeast 2206 "Bavarian Lager" which is the Weihenstephan 206 strain, or Wyeast 2308 "Munich Lager" which is the Wisenschaftliche Station #308 strain, use a large starter. But any lager yeast will do just fine.

Ferment at 46-50°F/8-10°C

Priming sugar: ¾ cup sugar

Store bottles 14 days at fermentation temperature, then 8 weeks as cool as possible (32°F/0°C minimum.)

Stats (assuming 82% mash efficiency and 75% yeast attenuation):
OG: 1.065
FG: 1.016 – 1.020
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: 18
Colour: 14° SRM = 28° EBC

[Fido97]

Thanks that's just the ticket.

[Barley Water]

Might I kabitz a bit here?

I'm a little bit iffy with that recipe for a couple of reasons. First of all I would never put any amount of black malt in a German beer because even in really small amounts you don't want any roast at all in the flavor. Our buddies over in Germany came up with debittered carafa in three shades, that is what you want to use to adjust color because it adds no roast (and they have a product called symilar (spelling?) for our friends that do extracts). Bock beers are malty and somewhat sweet but you don't want the stuff to come out like pancake syrup because it will be too cloying to quaff. I personally would jack up the percentage of Munich malt and probably drop some of the crystal, remember malty does not equal sweet (I have a Double Bock on tap right now and it has less crystal than that recipe). I know you guys probably get sick of listening to me rag about drying out German lagers but if you do it you will thank me once the hangover wears off. Finally, they make a product called Melonodin malt that does really great things to beer when you want a malty presentation. I put the stuff in my Dunkel and I'm telling you, it really makes a nice difference (and of course a Dunkel is not nearly as malty as a Bock bier). Naturally, you will be doing a decoction mash, right?

In fairness, the recipe cited appeared more than 20 years ago and it is hopelessly outdated. There are many more quanlity malts available now than was the case when it was published and I am sure the author has updated his formulations several times since it came out in print. Although I generally screw around with almost every recipe I get my hands on you really should check out the book the great Jamil wrote. I know guys that brewed the beers straight out of the book and won metals in very large competitions. Since I just can't stand following the crowd I like to come up with my own formulations but I use his book for ideas and to sanity check stuff I come up with. I could see myself brewing a Maibock in the near future but I really need to get lower gravity beers into my kegerator as all the high test stuff I have right now is just getting me into trouble.

[seymour]

+1 to everything Barley Water said.

As I said, the outdated Miller recipe would just be a rough-draft starting point. You should make his recommended tweaks or get a newer recipe collection such as the one he mentioned Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew by Jamil Zainasheff.

[Fido97]

Thanks guys. I've not got round to brewing this yet so all useful input. A mate of mine (pro brewer) has offered me a lager yeast supposedly from St Petersburg circa 1917 (he gets his yeast from a specialist yeast lab and they have varioius' left field' cultures) so I'm planning to split the wort and use it for half the batch. Its probably a load of old boll#cks but I'll give it a spin.

[seymour]

Here's Jamil Zainasheff's award-winning bock recipe:
http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/Jam ... esBock.htm