Critique my maibock

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Yooper

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Well, my pantry in the basement is at a solid 49.8 degrees, day and night. It's time for my first lager! I don't have a fridge for it, but I have a 60 QT igloo cooler that I made a new foam top for. I think as the winter progresses I can use frozen water bottles in that cooler in my root cellar to lager it just above freezing. For the diacetyl rest, I can bring it upstairs into my laundry room.

Here's my recipe. Does anyone have any suggestions, or thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Maibock
Crush grains and steep in 1/2 gal water @ 170 F for 20 minutes.
1 lb. (.45kg) Carapils malt
1 lb. (.45kg) Toasted 2-row pale malt (350 F for 10 minutes)
4 oz. (113g) German light crystal malt (20 L)
Strain the water from the grains into your brewpot. Sparge with 1/2 gal water @ 170 F. Add water to bring volume to 1.5 gal and bring to boil. Remove pot from heat and add:
6.6 lb. (3kg) Ireks German light malt extract
1.5 lb. (.69kg) Extra Light DME
1.5 oz (43g) Perle hop pellets (8.5 AA)
Add water to bring volume to 2.5 gal and boil for 45 minutes and add:
2.0 oz (56g) Mt. Hood hop pellets (3.2 AA)
1.0 tsp. (5ml) Irish Moss
Boil for 15 minutes. Remove pot from heat and add:
1 oz (28 g) Mt. Hood pellets
Let steep for 10 minutes (aroma hops). Chill wort and pitch 1 liter of yeast starter:
Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager
Primary ferment @ 50 F for 12 days. Raise temp to 60 F for 2 days (Diacetyl Rest). Rack to secondary @ 55 F for 12 days. Slowly lower temp (5 degrees per day) to 35 F and "lager" for 4 weeks.
OG 1.066 FG 1.014 ABV 6.6% IBU 38 SRM 6 (deep golden)


I'll be making a starter right after Thanksgiving, and brewing after that.

Thanks,
Lorena
 
That looks like a good beer, no that looks like a really good beer. It doesn't look all that much like a Maibock in the traditional sense however.
If you're going for tradition, you'll need to ditch the crystal malts and replace them with Vienna or Munich exctracts if you can find them, these should make up about 50% of your fermentables, the rest being extra light extract. Maybe you could go with 100% of the German extract you have.
You'll also need to ditch the aroma hops and have a single bittering addition.
Read more here if you like http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category5.html#style5A
Like I said yours looks good, and I would make it and drink it. Would I call it a Maibock? Probably not.
 
well, if not a maibock what would you call it? This recipe looked so good to me, so I guess I'm going to make it regardless of "style". I'm also interested in making a true maibock, so I'll give that a try, too. I'd like to make a maibock like Capital's. That's one of my husband's favorites. I think I'll take your suggestions for my next lager- to ditch the crystal and use Munich extract (I don't have a problem finding it, at least not to this point).

I like crystal (and aroma hops), so I will plan on using this recipe for now. Thanks for the feedback- I appreciate it.


Lorena
 
Yeah, maybe American Maibock is good. As CC points out, there really shouldn't be any crystal in an authentic Maibock (or Oktoberfest for that matter), but American breweries are absolutely enamored with crystal IMO and will put it in anything.

I like the idea of the toasted 2-row...I bet that will make a nice contribution. Do try a brew at some point as CC suggests with just Munich and/or Vienna as the character malts and some 2-row. Perhaps add 3-4oz of melanoidin to get the flavor contributions that a traditional decoction mash would add. I bet you'll be really surprised with the results.
 
lorenae said:
well, if not a maibock what would you call it?

I'd also call it an american Maibock b/c of the higher bitterness and the aroma hops. Or it could go as a Pilsner Bock.

How do you plan to pitch this batch? With that I mean amount of yeast and pitching temp.

Also, I'd lower the temp to lagering at a rate of about 2F/day. That's what the literature I read suggests. And before you start lagering, make sure that your attenuation is close to the final attenuation. Though the yeast should still ferment some of the sugars during lagering, you may cool it down to early and be left with a fairly sweet beer.

Kai
 
Thanks for all the feedback! As far as pitching, I'm planning a huge starter, and wanted to pitch it at right at 50 degrees.

I understand that you're saying to make sure it's just about fully fermented as far as s.g. before I start lagering, to make sure that the yeast has done it's job, right?

I will lower it 2 degrees/day, too- that's actually a little easier anyway for me to accomplish.

Again, thanks so much!

Lorena
 
Have you ever had a bock in/from Germany? It has a particular flavor that is difficult to copy.

Whatever you call it it would still not be a Bock without the proper yeast.

I recommend WLP833 German Bock yeast to impart the bock flavor to the brew. I've used it before and was/am very satisfied with it.:D
 
It's been years since I've had a true German beer. (I lived in Germany in the early 80s when I was in the Army.) At that time, I was a pilsner fan. I can't remember what a true German bock tastes like!

I've already bought the Bavarian Lager yeast, so I'll have to use that. I'm "bastardizing" it anyway- but my next batch is going to be different, thanks to the advice I'm getting here!

Lorena
 
As much as I like to keep true to a particular style, I've found that using the "right" ingredients doesn't always lead to the "right" taste. I'm brewing up a bock this afternoon and was looking for suggestions. (Read thread here). From what I understood, most modern bocks will have a combination of four grains: Munich malt, 2-row/pilsner based malt, crystal, and chocolate. In the true sense back when this beer was born, the brewers used single malts and didn't have adjuncts. So a lot of beers had whatever malt grew in the region (kiln dried to their particular specs), whatever hops grew in the region, using whatever water flowed through the region. So my question, is what really matters more...the "right" recipe or the "right" taste?! (knowing full and well that this all depends on who you ask!;) )

Marc.
 
lorenae said:
I understand that you're saying to make sure it's just about fully fermented as far as s.g. before I start lagering, to make sure that the yeast has done it's job, right?

I'm saying that, so you have some insurance against the yeast crapping out during lagering. German brewers start chilling down the beer fairly early and even hold the "diacetyl rest" at 4-6*C (40-44F). They rely on the yeast activity during lagering to get them to the anticipated final attenuation. This is pretty risky for the home brewer since the fermentation can easily get stuck when you deal with lager yeast at lower temps. That's why I suggest that you wait until the fermentation is pretty much complete until you start lagering.

With reards to the yeast, the Southern German Lager yeast will be just fine for the job.

Kai
 
homebrewer_99 said:
Where were you in Germany?

I lived right in Frankfurt, downtown. I was at V corps headquarters some of the time, and at 3rd Armored Division the rest. I came home in 1983, so it's been a while!

Thanks again for all the tips and suggestions and ideas. I really appreciate it.

Lorena
 
I resurrected this thread to tell you about my Maibock.

It's so goooooood! Similar to Rogue's Dead Guy Ale, but cleaner and crisper tasting. I'm not usually a lager fan, but I like this one.

I'm going to have to try a "real" Maibock next time but this turned out really well! I'll do this one again sometime, and convert it to AG when I do it again.

Thanks for all your input- I appreciate it! :mug:
 
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