German recipe book
 

I just got a book of beer recipes given to me from my dad who recently visited germany. The book is titled:

Gutes Bier Selbst Brauen
schritt fur schritt - mit rezepten by Hubert Hanghofer

Obviously the book is completely writtin in german. I picked a recipe out that I'd like to make and had my dad translate it for me the best he could. He speaks german very well but he has no knowledge of brewing techniques and its vocabulary in the language.

I was hoping someone could help me further understand how this recipe is telling me to brew the beer. I think it is going to be some sort of decoction or infusion mash but thats where I get lost in my dads translation: 1 because I've never done or know how to decoction mash and 2 because the recipe doesnt exactly translate to the vocabulary that I know. O! and I think its a 10 gallon batch. Id like to make it 5. I need help there too. So here it is:


DUNKLES HEFEWEIZEN

5kg wheat
4.7kg munich malt
.3kg dark caramel malt
80 grams roast wheat malt

(heres where i get confused)

-BREW WATER:
32 liters mash pour
34 liters after pour

-TUB MASH
mash(mix?) w/ 18 liters of water from 49C - 43C. After 30 minutes (temp sinks to about 42C) brew/cook 14 liters boiling water and add 40 liters of mash at 64C. Mash instructions: After 20 minutes pour in 16 liters of cooked mash bring to 70C-72C. Cook for 10 minutes and brew/cook the tub mash to 75C. let sit for 10 minutes.

-POT INFUSION
main pour- warm to 45C
bring mash to 43C
after 20 minutes heat to 61C-63C and to 70C-72C each time with 30 min rest.
mix mash at 78C




Sounds like some sort of infusion/decoction to me but again, im lost. If someone could help me nail down a procedure Id be willing to post the entire recipe! :)

-The Fermentalist

Yes the first instructions are for a decoction, the second ones seem to be a type of Hochkurz infusion. The decoction starts a a pretty low temp (108F) and has three rests so it's sort of old timey. Unless you are dedicated to doing the decoction the double infusion here would be simpler and I'm sure just fine for the beer.

So if you go that way:

30 min @ 144F
30 min @ 158F
mashout @ 172F

The recipe is probably for a slightly larger volume than ten gallons (40-45 litres) so I would use a little less than half the grain amounts for 5 US gallons.

Try something like this:
5 lb malted wheat
4.5 lb Munich
5 oz dark caramel malt
1.5 oz roasted wheat (probably OK to sub chocolate or Carafa here)

Hope that gets you started. :mug:

Just curious, but does that book have any recipes for bocks, festbier, alts or others?

Thanks BigEd! That will definitely get me started. Wondering if you could walk me through a double infusion? Never done one before and my research hasn't really gotten me anywhere. This book has classic recipes for a ton of german beers. Alts, bocks, weizens, kolschs, festbiers, marzens, pils, maibocks, lambics, dubbels and others. I'd be happy to send you some recipes but mind you, they would be in that broken english you saw earlier. Any chance you can read german? haha Cheers!

-The Fermentalist

Read German, ha, I'm still working on English. But as long as you have the list of ingredients and the temperatures that should be enough. I love German beers (other than wheats ;) ) so I'd love to look at some of those.

Doing a double infusion is pretty straightforward. You start with a mash-in at the first temperature and then add more hot water to achieve the second rest. If you have ever raised temp to mashout after a main rest you do the same thing. For your five gallon recipe there will be about 10 pounds of grain. You may need to do a little figuring based on the temperature fluctuations of your system but if you mash-in with roughly 3 gallons of water at 158-160F your mash temp should be close to the 144F first step. Then after 30 minutes at this rest you add more hot water to bring the temp to the 158F stage. Depending on how you do things that second hot water infusion can be used or direct heat or RIMS/HERMS technology will accomplish the same thing. Me, I'm a decoction guy but that's another show, as they say. :mug:

If your feeling generous enough to maybe post a kolsch, helles and/or marzen recipe, That would be much appreciated... I would be interested in a helles. Thanks in advance.

I'll try and get a couple recipes up in the next few days. Thanks again!

I have been in Bavaria for the last six years working with a local Brewery. I may be able to help you with the translations.

I apologize if this is a little off topic. I spent a little while in southern Germany a couple years ago. Apparently it is considered German "wine country" if there is such a thing (I tend to think of beer when I think of Germany). Anyway, when I was there, the beer selection was pretty limited where I was, but the one option that was always available was pils. Fortunately, I loved it.

Oddly enough, I haven't been able to find anything like it back in the States. The only place (hold the laughter) was in the German section of Epcot at Disney. My wife was with me and she loved it too.

If you have a good pils recipe, I'd love to try to brew it. I've only done extract, but I am more than willing to try partial mash. My gas stove makes temp control pretty easy.

Thanks in advance. From me and my wife.