Mai/Doppelbock

I've been trying to get around to brewing a big lager for the start of spring since I started brewing. The recipe I came up with doesn't fall neatly into a style category, but is more of what I really wanted out of my bock: pale in color, slightly hoppier than average, and big, simple malt flavor from good German Munich malt.

The brew went off without a hitch. I overshot my target OG by a few points. It seems that a lot of brewers using this Avangard Pilsner malt find it gets an extra few points in efficiency vs others. I've had the same experience.

The brew team loves the new 24" whisk.

Brew notes:

Prepared 2L starter w/ 550ml of harvested yeast from Munich Helles three days before brewing. The yeast overload made this starter hit 1.010 in less than 24 hours.

Added 5g calcium chloride and 4ml of lactic acid to my strike water to reach a water profile of:

Ca: 52
Mg: 5
Alkalinity as CaCO3: 69
Na: 20
Cl: 74
SO42: 33
RA as CaCO3: -13

Mashed in low at 122 degrees for a protein rest. It was one hell of an endeavor temperature mashing up to 156 degrees. I was fighting my pump, which loses its prime when there is too much heat applied. It ended up taking around a half an hour to get up there and I scorched the bottom of my mash tun a bit. I need to improve this process.

Added 5.3ml of lactic acid to sparge water. The sparge water pH was brought down to 5.35 from 8+.

Initial mash pH was 5.6. Added 5ml lactic acid. Ended up with a final mash pH of 5.48. I don't want to add much more than 5ml of acid to the mash. Next time I brew this, I'll adjust my brewing salts or cut my water with distilled to get closer to where my pH should be. In my DIPAs or other pale hoppy beers that I use my municipal tap water for, I find that I add enough Gypsum to get my pH closer to 5.2 without such

PB OG: 1.060 @ 14 gallons. Added wort throughout the boil from the mash kettle, until the runnings were very low in gravity (by taste). The wort did not taste tannic, perhaps because I treated my sparge water to get into mashing range.

OG: 1.078 @ 12+ gallons. Set the fermenter at 48 degrees, but it never got down there. It hovered at 49-50 degrees, hinting at some yeast activity. I'll ramp it up 2-3 degrees per week and then on week four, go up to 65 degrees or so for a one week diacetyl rest. Then crash and lager.

Looking forward to enjoying this one in early May.

Recipe:

Batch size: 12 gallons
Estimated OG: 1.075 SG
Estimated Color: 8.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.2 IBUs
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
5.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   1        -             
4.00 ml               Lactic Acid (Mash 60.0 mins)             Water Agent   2        -             
17 lbs                Pilsner (Weyermann) (1.7 SRM)            Grain         3        51.5 %        
16 lbs                Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM)           Grain         4        48.5 %        
1.00 oz               Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min         Hop           5        24.2 IBUs     
1.0 pkg               Octoberfest/Marzen Lager (White Labs #WL Yeast         6        -             


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 2 Step, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 33 lbs
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Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Protein Rest      Add 41.25 qt of water at 129.3 F        122.0 F       30 min        
Saccharification  Heat to 156.0 F over 15 min             156.0 F       30 min        
Mash Out          Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min             168.0 F       10 min        

Sparge: Fly sparge with 8.85 gal water at 168.0 F