German Dark Bock

[Trizza]

G'day all
It's summer, and I’m in the progress of planning my brewing for the year, since this is my time off from my favourite pastime.
I'm trying to make a German dark bock, and this is what I’ve come up with so far

3.00 Kg Amber Liquid Malt Extract @ Flameout
1.00 Kg Light Liquid Malt Extract @ Flameout
0.50 Kg Light Liquid Malt Extract @ 60 Minutes
0.20 Kg Cara Munich Malt
0.20 Kg Crystal Malt
0.20 Kg Crystal Malt* (uncrushed for toasting) - Toasted for 20 Minutes and the
0.125 Kg Chocolate Malt
0.075 Kg Caraffe Malt
40.00 g Hallertauer Hop Pellets @ 60 Minutes
20.00 g Hallertauer Hop Pellets @ 25 Minutes
Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager)
*I used Crystal Malt for the toasted malt as it wouldnt require a mash.

I got Beersmith and put everything through. It came up ok with around the amounts for colour and bitterness I was aiming for.

Any other suggestions?

Trizza.

[Trough Lolly]

Hmmm, great beer style...

A few questions re your recipe if I may...

Why do you have liquid malt extract additions at flameout? Are you boiling in a small vessel? I fear that boiling only a small percentage of the extract (500g of LME and less than a kilo of steeped grains) will certainly help hop bitterness extraction efficiency, but you have a lot of malt that won't be "keyed" in with the hop isomerisation during the boil (which is an important reason why we do the boil) and you'll end up with an overly dextrinous and sweet wort - especially with the 3kg of Amber LME and 1kg of Light LME at flameout...The one thing that computer recipe generators don't calculate is balance.

What's the A/A % of your Hallertauer pellets?

Have you used Wyeast 2206 before? It's a nice strain, but can be a bit of a handful when you use it on high OG beers such as dunkelbocks...and I'll assume you're controlling the fermentation temp? Are you making a decent sized starter before brewday? Apologies if you've got this all down pat, but it's better to know the potential hurdles beforehand...

Cheers,
TL

[Trizza]

Hmmm, great beer style...

A few questions re your recipe if I may...

Why do you have liquid malt extract additions at flameout? Are you boiling in a small vessel? I fear that boiling only a small percentage of the extract (500g of LME and less than a kilo of steeped grains) will certainly help hop bitterness extraction efficiency, but you have a lot of malt that won't be "keyed" in with the hop isomerisation during the boil (which is an important reason why we do the boil) and you'll end up with an overly dextrinous and sweet wort - especially with the 3kg of Amber LME and 1kg of Light LME at flameout...The one thing that computer recipe generators don't calculate is balance.

What's the A/A % of your Hallertauer pellets?

Have you used Wyeast 2206 before? It's a nice strain, but can be a bit of a handful when you use it on high OG beers such as dunkelbocks...and I'll assume you're controlling the fermentation temp? Are you making a decent sized starter before brewday? Apologies if you've got this all down pat, but it's better to know the potential hurdles beforehand...

Cheers,
TL

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm brewing in an 8L pot - so the maximum amount I can boil is about 6L, given my wish to avoid boil-overs. I start around 5L at the start of each boil, and go from there.
You mentioned the detriments of not boiling all malt extracts, which is very new to me. What is this concept of "keyed" malts with respect to hop isomerisation?
If I do a 5L boil with just the 500 LDME and grains will this be a large problem?
I don’t really have the facilities to do a full boil of all extracts, and if I could I’d seriously be looking at AG.

Since I haven't purchased them yet, I don’t know the AA of the Hallertauer, but I’ve based the recipe on around 4.8% (I think) which is what I got last time when shopping at G&G.

I've never used any liquid yeasts before, this year will see that new addition to my brewing retinue.
Do you have any idea what 2206 is like?
Would there be a better substitute for this style of brew?
I've never made a starter, but I’m not planning to culture this into several starters, as this will be my only bock this year.

I'm getting an old fridge soon, which I’ve tested and should keep temperatures at a constant 8 degrees.

Does this paint a fairly good picture of what I’m planning?

Trizza

[Trough Lolly]

G'day Trizza,
You've obviously got limitations regarding the boil volume so that's not exactly something you can overcome without investing in a large kettle...which I'd recommend you do if you plan on making big gravity beers such as this in the future.
Fortunately the bulk of your malt is in extract form, so we don't need to worry about boiling the wort to knock out DMS or generate hot break for clarity purposes etc. But one thing that you need to be aware of is the composition of malt extract and especially amber and dark malt extracts that do have more dextrinous compounds, compared to the light and pale malt extracts we use today.
Without totally going into beergeek mode, the boil performs a number of important roles including isomerisation of the hops which gives us the bittering and flavour aspects from the hop's volatile oils - the alpha acids give us a general indication of the hop's bittering potential but it's not until we heat the hop matter, via the boil, that we actually manage to extract that bittering and flavour notes in the wort.
Now don't get me wrong - I'm not foolishly suggesting you'll make a crap beer - you shouldn't with that good looking recipe - but if possible, I'd recommend you boil the whole malt and grainbill with the hops in the one vessel or split and boil in two smaller vessels. And since you can't do that, then the 8L pot will have to do. It's just something that I recommend brewers avoid and sure, you can tweak bittering and flavour levels with low gravity / low volume boils but I find a smoother tasting and generally superior resulting beer if you can manage a full volume boil...especially when you use a large percentage of grains in the recipe.

A good primer article on boiling wort and why we do it....is here...
Cheers,
TL

[Trizza]

Thanks for that TL, much appreciated.

I'll get a brewpot eventually, but this will require a wort chiller also to get it down cool enough after boiling.
Putting aside boiling everything, does this brew look good?
and is the 2206 Bavarian Lager Yeast a good choice for this style?

The Hallertauer pellets have an alpha acid around 4.5%, which means I’ll increase the quantities by a small amount.

Trizza.

[drsmurto]

Chiller? Got a sink and some ice and some water. Voila!

[Trough Lolly]

....aaah the kitchen counterflow chiller!!