First time brewing a Bock, any tips?

Just picked up the ingredients to brew my first all grain batch of Wee Willy Bock. Looking for any tips with mashing and fermentation process. The recipe is pretty basic and doesn't address the mashing techniques or anything about the fermentation length, etc. It just states to "pitch the yeast at 70F and start fermentation. At high krausen place in a cool spot at 55F for the remainder of fermentation". Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

Here's the recipe:

11.25 lbs German 2 row
2.00 lbs Munich Malt 10L
1.00 lb Crystal Malt 120L
.12 lb Roasted Barley

2 oz Perle 60 mins
1 oz Mt Hood at 30 mins

Wyeast Bavarian Lager liquid yeast

No tips on the mashing process. Tips for fermentation: pitch enough healthy yeast. According to Mr. Malty - link - "enough" is a 4 liter starter using two packs of yeast, assuming you're at about 1.070 SG.

Pitch your yeast cold, at or below fermentation temp.

Be patient. EDIT: Patient as in it will likely take quite a bit longer than an ale to ferment out, a couple weeks or maybe longer.

I have attempted to make 3 lagers and all 3 ended up under attenuated. For those 3 lagers I pitched the yeast cold(55F).

After talking to a number of knowledgeable lager brewers I have come to the conclusion that next time I will start the fermentation at around 70F for the first 24 hours. Then slowly dial it down to the mid 50's. So, that is my advice.

Also, pitch A LOT of yeast!!!

Q2XL said:

I have attempted to make 3 lagers and all 3 ended up under attenuated. For those 3 lagers I pitched the yeast cold(55F).

After talking to a number of knowledgeable lager brewers I have come to the conclusion that next time I will start the fermentation at around 70F for the first 24 hours. Then slowly dial it down to the mid 50's. So, that is my advice.

Also, pitch A LOT of yeast!!!

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Do you think there's any contradiction between, "ptich A LOT of yeast" - meaning enough yeast for a healthy, complete fermentation - and, "pitch your yeast twenty degrees warmer than your desired fermentation temperature in order to boost yeast growth and achieve a complete fermentation?"

Pitching that warm will leave off flavors. Pitching cold requires more yeast, and a bock needs a lot of yeast any way. The best way is to harvest the yeast from a previous batch.

Pitch a lot of yeast. Pitch cold for the reasons stated above. If you are into traditional methods do a decoction mash but it isn't necessary if you don't want the extra hassle and don't want to spend the extra time.

The best lagers are made with 1-1.5 million cells per ml per degree plato, fermented at around 48-50 and pitched a few degrees colder.

The problem is when you start to think about how much yeast that is. For me, 2 packs in 2 liters on a stir plate is enough to pitch my first lager about about 12 plato. For any bigger lager I repitch. Without variance, my best lagers are the ones where I repitch.

Drinking my first lager now, an American pilsner. I was fortunate to get an actively fermenting slurry of S-189 from a commercial brewery, so it was more than enough yeast to pitch cold. Gravity went from 1.045 to 1.018 in four days. Pitched and fermented at about 52F.

By the way, it was a No Chill beer, which meant I could take my sweet time getting the beer down to pitching temps. Worked great, with no DMS or diacytal present as far as I can tell.

Conroe said:

Pitching that warm will leave off flavors. Pitching cold requires more yeast, and a bock needs a lot of yeast any way. The best way is to harvest the yeast from a previous batch.

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Second. You could make a 3 gallon batch with DME at a OG of around 1.040 and let that ferment out, then pitch on the cake.

McKinley said:

Second. You could make a 3 gallon batch with DME at a OG of around 1.040 and let that ferment out, then pitch on the cake.

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To me it depends on what yeast you use. I pitch WL 840. @ 70 and set it in my cooler which is 54 degrees. That works fine. However, I did not have any luck with WL 830 doing it that way.