german bock - How's this recipe sound?

6.6lbs of DME
1 cup chocolate grain
1 cup crystal grain
1oz german tettnang hops
1oz german hallertau hops
1 pack Safbrew S-33

I steeped the grains in 2 gallon just below 170 degree for 15 minutes. Added dme, brought to boil and added tettnang hops 20 minutes later (I forgot about it at first) and added the hallertau 3 minutes to end of 60minute boil. Transferred wort to primary and added 3 gallons chilled spring water to aerate and left steeping bag in straining bag and squeezed gently the steeping bag. Let cool to 70 degree and pitched yeast. Sealed and airlocked and stuck in brew closet. OG was 1.020. Any thoughts, comments or suggestions on my technique? I'm not sure if I input everything in the brew calculator but my og seemed a bit low, calc estimated 1.040 range og. Thanks ahead of time!

* So, did the tettnang hops only get boiled for 40 minutes? Probably should have started your 60 minute timer again when you put them in.

* Steeping temp is reaching the high side, but not a huge deal. But, please tell me you didn't leave the grains in for the boil. If you didn't boil the grains, did you squeeze the bag into the wort after the boil was finished? Kinda confusing wording you have there. Also, what is the weight of 1 cup of grains?

* Which °L crystal did you use?

* Your recorded OG is low because you topped it off with water, I'm not going to explain why, as there are 999¼ threads on this already. Using my brain calculator, your OG probably should have been somewhere around 1.058 if you did 5 gallons.

* And you realize that a bock is a lager beer, while you pitched an ale yeast?

1. The tettnang hops was only boiled for about 40 minutes, as I didn't know the effect of boiling beyond the 60 minute mark (this is my 2nd batch at this point). What effect will this have?

2. I did not leave the grains in for the boil. What I did was drop the grain bag in the strainer while transferring the wort and chilled water into the primary, then removed the grain bag and squeezed gently. I did not weigh the grain, I used a measuring cup, it used up about 1/4 the bag (1lb bag, eyeballing it). So I would guess 4oz per grain. Is this a problem?

3. As for the crystal, I honestly don't know. The book I had and recipe called for crystal grains. I purchased from the LHBS "Muntons Crystal 2 row barley malt ebc 130-170/lovibond 49-64" I don't know what this means and I didn't know there was a difference. How will this effect my final product?

4. Like you said, you didn't explain, so I don't know what you mean by "topping off with water" or what effect this has on my brew and or OG reading. I steeped the grains in 2 gallons of water, boiled added DME, upon finishing, I added 3 gallons of chilled spring water to the wort in my primary, is this not standard procedure for partial boils?

5. I don't have lagering equipment, so I used an ale yeast, from my understanding it should come out rather tasty. I was trying to work with my basic understanding, I used what I had found at the LHBS, so I went with it.

Thanks for the reply, looking forward to more insight.

1. When you only boil the bittering hops for 40 minutes do don't get as good of utilization out of them. The boil lengths are determined by the hop additions.

2. Warm, moist grains can be a hotbed for bacteria. Probably not good practice to run your chilled wort through them.

3. There is a difference in both color and flavor extracted from different crystal/caramel malts. You won't get the same result from 15°L as you would from 60°L

4. That is standard procedure for partial boils. But I'll let you ponder on why a parital boil gravity reading may not be indicative of the actual gravity reading. HINT: you added pure water to concentrated wort.

5. Could be more like a low IBU brown porter, rather than a bock.

I'm still curious as to how you calculated a 1.040 OG. Even if you calculated using liquid malt extract it would be a little higher than that. 1.045-1.048

1. So I'm going to have more of a malty flavor than I would have otherwise if I boiled the hops for the full 60 minutes?

2. I didn't run my chilled wort through them. I took boiling wort off the stove, poured immediately over grain bag, then added chilled spring water. If we're getting into semantics at this point I understand. Shall I just let it ferment and see what happens?

3. So how do I tell the difference? I read you exactly what it said off the bag I purchased and it has no indication otherwise except what I typed in my reply. Do those numbers formulate into some sort of calculation? I'm not even sure what 15°L means vs 60°L.

4. I believe I might understand what you're getting at, is my OG reading supposed to be from the pre-water wort?

5. It is what it is. I'll keep the recipe in my files and see how it comes out.

I used http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe. I redid my calculations and the OG estimates 1.051 which is still way off of my OG, which is apparently skewed because I added water? Thank you again for the information.

I'm not trying to pick on you. You asked for recipe and procedure critique and I was just trying to extract more information out of you than you gave up in the OP.

1. Correct

2. Thanks for clearing that up

3. °L stands for degrees lovibond. Crystal/Caramel malts vary from 10°L to 120°L. The higher the number, the darker your beer gets. Chocolate is 300+°L. The lovibond rating relates to color. However, in regards to crystal malt it also relates to varying flavors as well. Check out this page from the Briess website for varying flavor notes from their different crystal malts based on lovibond rating.

4. Ok, I'll spill the beans. The reason that an original specific gravity reading is unreliable for partial boils is because when you mix pure water with your concentrated wort it is not entirely possible to get a complete homogeneous mixture.* Since your reading read very low, it is apparent that you got more water in your sample than actual wort. Just the same, you could have easily gotten more wort than water in your sample causing your reading to be higher than expected. THE GOOD NEWS: taking a starting gravity reading with an extract brew isn't all that necessary. This is because there are constants involved. We all know that dry malt extract will give you around 44 (±1) gravity points per pound per gallon (ppg). Liquid malt extract will give you somewhere around 36 ppg (±1).

This is how you can calculate your starting gravity.

44 ppg x 6.6 lbs = 290.4
290.4 points / 5 gallons = 58.08 = 1.058 OG
As long as you know your weight of extract, and the total volume in your fermenter you can figure it out easily using math.



*You don't have to worry about the mixture once fermentation has begun. If you've ever seen yeast at work through a glass carboy, you'll understand.

Thanks for all the info. I appreciate it!

I left this in primary for a while, bottled and carbed last week (1/4 cup turbinado sugar). Cracked a chilled one open last night and this beer is AMAZING! Great head, nice body, smooth sweet and delicious. This came out way better than I expected. My 2nd beer is a great success, I'm going to use this same method and make another one for sure.

OK, it's time for someone to pick on you since the previous exchange was for information gathering (this mostly is too).

Your time measurement is rather ambiguous. We tend to prefer units like minutes, hours, days, or weeks rather than whiles.

Since sugars can be compacted and may have different densities, units like ounces or pounds make more sense to us than cups. Using cups can lead to under or over carbonated beer.

I'm glad to hear that your beer came out so well, but I would have expected that. As you gain more experience and remember what that first beer was like, you may think differently of it but I'd still bet it beats what you may have been drinking by a long ways.

Sorry, I was a bit tipsy and really excited. 2 weeks primary, verified steady gravity over the last 4 days of primary fermentation. It was at 1.013. 1 week in the bottle. I don't know how many oz or lb a 1/4th cup of Turbinado sugar, luckily the swmbo did just buy me a scale for my brewing needs so I can be more specific in the future.

drathbone said:

2. I didn't run my chilled wort through them. I took boiling wort off the stove, poured immediately over grain bag, then added chilled spring water. If we're getting into semantics at this point I understand. Shall I just let it ferment and see what happens?

Click to expand...

To reiterate, don't ever do that. You run the risk of extracting DMS, tannins, and bacteria (all things that'll ruin your beer). what you basically did was sparge the grains, but this is a technique used when mashing and done pre-boil. glad you were able to escape any issues this time, but i wouldn't risk it in the future. good luck!