• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

Old Historical Recipe

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Okay, I'm having issues reading two of the fermentables listed. But correct me please if I'm wrong here as when I plug the info into brewfather this is for a 10000 gallon batch around. I'm thing about 2 pounds of yeast for the batch or 11 packs of German bock



  • 13,500Lbs Corn Flaked/Malt
  • 750LBS Caramel Malt
  • 400Lbs Black Malt
  • 1800Lbs Sugar
  • 4400Lbs Rice
  • 275Lbs Fresh hops not too sure what they subbed with but I'm thinking Fuggles and Saaz because of the times
 
Last edited:
First line is hard to read but it looks to me like it says malt and then has what could be a company or a mfg name after that. (Something) & (something) Carr? & “Inf”? Maybe abbreviations or short for something? Guessing. The word malt in the first line pretty closely matches the word malt in the second line where it says carmel malt.

Then its:
-carmel malt
- black malt
- hops
- sugar
- rice

Can’t imagine any beer made with mostly corn, carmel malt, a little black malt. Sugar, and rice.

Oreg means Oregon - hops from Oregon talked about by others above.

I went to Catholic grade school in the 60s and this writing looks exactly like what we are all taught - classic catholic school pennmanship. Especially all the capital letters.

Interesting they wrote “hofs” (clearly an “f”) and “rise” instead of hops and rice. Maybe the person who wrote this was German? Again a guess. I’m not a handwriting expert and I don’t play one on television.
 
Last edited:
Now that I look at the 3 Oreg lines again, it looks like they say 80 on the first line, 105 on the second line (looks like something was erased there and then written over) and 90 on the third line - which coincidentally add up to the 275 listed for hops. No times indicated but maybe these are somehow 3 hop additions according to whatever schedule they were using?
 
After some work in brew-father Here is what I've come up with. but might change out the Saaz for golding. not sure how to adjust for pellets so I calculated for whole hopps.

Historical Bock

6.0% / 14.3 °P
Recipe by
The Witches Cauldron
All Grain

Default

72% efficiency
Batch Volume: 5 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Mash Water: 4.37 gal
Sparge Water: 2.76 gal
Total Water: 7.13 gal
Boil Volume: 6.28 gal
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.044

Vitals​

Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.012
IBU (Tinseth): 33
BU/GU: 0.57
Color: 17.5 SRM

Mash​


Temperature — 150 °F60 min

Malts (9 lb 9.4 oz)

6 lb 12.6 oz (64.7%) — Barrett Burston Pale Malt — Grain — 2 °L
2 lb 3.6 oz (21.2%) — Briess Rice, Flaked — Grain — 1.3 °L
6 oz (3.6%) — BESTMALZ BEST Caramel Aromatic — Grain — 19.3 °L
3.2 oz (1.9%) — Bairds Black Malt — Grain — 443.5 °L

Other (14.5 oz)

14.5 oz (8.6%) — Brown Sugar, Dark — Sugar — 37.5 °L

Hops (2.19 oz)

1.49 oz (25 IBU) — Fuggle (Whole) 4.75% — Boil — 60 min
0.5 oz
(7 IBU) — Fuggle 4.75% — Boil — 30 min
0.2 oz
(1 IBU) — Saaz (Whole) 4.5% — Boil — 10 min

Yeast​

0 pkg — DrYeast Y26 German Bock 72%

Fermentation​

Primary — 68 °F14 days
Secondary — 68 °F30 days
Carbonation: 2.4 CO2-vol
 
If you want to stay true to the recipe they list hops 80/275 or 29% of the hops for 60 min addition, 105/275 or 38% for the 30 min addition and 90/275 or 33% for the 10 min. (Assuming the 60,30,10 schedule is what they were using)

This is the thing I find the most interesting about this old recipe - how most of the hops are going in for 30 min and under. And how so many recipes today are coming back to this, like they just came up with this themselves. 🤣

Though they dont give vitals like ibu and srm. If we went with their hopping schedule and used the same amount of hops then its likey the ibu would be lower. Modern bocks list bu:gu as around .27-.45 so in this case 15-26 ibu for a 1.058 beer. This recipe currently has 33/58 or a .56 ratio. Not too far out of line and not in pale ale or ipa territory or anything - plus we often hear how hopping was higher in the past.

I’d imagine you would get less bitter but more hop flavor with 38% of the hops at 30 min and 33% at 10 min. This really has me intrigued and I want to try this with a lager now!
 
Last edited:
Oh I know there was no truth to it. I’m just saying bock had sort of a bad reputation. Some of that I’m sure is that it was misundersood as you said by light beer drinkers.

I use BJCP guides for reference and framework. I don’t enter competitions so i’m not brewing for that. I know Gordon Strong and others in the BJCP have done much research and put significant effort into defining “styles” and giving history and context. Not everything fits into a style though. Sometimes we are trying to fit things into styles where styles don’t apply. But its a place to start. The recipe does say bock at the top.
Yeah I figured you knew all that stuff but figured I would throw it out there for somebody reading that that might not. I do think it’s funny how those old myths get told and repeated and how we both heard the same things as kids about dark beer😊
 
After some work in brew-father Here is what I've come up with. but might change out the Saaz for golding. not sure how to adjust for pellets so I calculated for whole hopps.

Historical Bock

6.0% / 14.3 °P
Recipe by
The Witches Cauldron
All Grain

Default

72% efficiency
Batch Volume: 5 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Mash Water: 4.37 gal
Sparge Water: 2.76 gal
Total Water: 7.13 gal
Boil Volume: 6.28 gal
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.044

Vitals​

Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.012
IBU (Tinseth): 33
BU/GU: 0.57
Color: 17.5 SRM

Mash​


Temperature — 150 °F60 min

Malts (9 lb 9.4 oz)

6 lb 12.6 oz (64.7%) — Barrett Burston Pale Malt — Grain — 2 °L
2 lb 3.6 oz (21.2%) — Briess Rice, Flaked — Grain — 1.3 °L
6 oz (3.6%) — BESTMALZ BEST Caramel Aromatic — Grain — 19.3 °L
3.2 oz (1.9%) — Bairds Black Malt — Grain — 443.5 °L

Other (14.5 oz)

14.5 oz (8.6%) — Brown Sugar, Dark — Sugar — 37.5 °L

Hops (2.19 oz)

1.49 oz (25 IBU) — Fuggle (Whole) 4.75% — Boil — 60 min
0.5 oz
(7 IBU) — Fuggle 4.75% — Boil — 30 min
0.2 oz
(1 IBU) — Saaz (Whole) 4.5% — Boil — 10 min

Yeast​

0 pkg — DrYeast Y26 German Bock 72%

Fermentation​

Primary — 68 °F14 days
Secondary — 68 °F30 days
Carbonation: 2.4 CO2-vol
Nice work you should give it a shot. I will probably deviate slightly and go with a little lighter sg. If all goes well I will brew it up next wknd. When done I will post results, recipe, & pic maybe.
 
If you want to stay true to the recipe they list hops 80/275 or 29% of the hops for 60 min addition, 105/275 or 38% for the 30 min addition and 90/275 or 33% for the 10 min. (Assuming the 60,30,10 schedule is what they were using)

This is the thing I find the most interesting about this old recipe - how most of the hops are going in for 30 min and under. And how so many recipes today are coming back to this, like they just came up with this themselves. 🤣

Though they dont give vitals like ibu and srm. If we went with their hopping schedule and used the same amount of hops then its likey the ibu would be lower. Modern bocks list bu:gu as around .27-.45 so in this case 15-26 ibu for a 1.058 beer. This recipe currently has 33/58 or a .56 ratio. Not too far out of line and not in pale ale or ipa territory or anything - plus we often hear how hopping was higher in the past.

I’d imagine you would get less bitter but more hop flavor with 38% of the hops at 30 min and 33% at 10 min. This really has me intrigued and I want to try this with a lager now!
The hopping schedule looks very like the one Heineken used in the 1930s, except the last addition was at 20 minutes. But with the same increasing quantity the later the addition.
 
The hopping schedule looks very like the one Heineken used in the 1930s, except the last addition was at 20 minutes. But with the same increasing quantity the later the addition.
Interesting I wonder what the original Heineken was like?
 
Well picked up a couple of pounds of piloncillo sugar but I jut noticed it has potassium sorbate. I know that stuff is used to slow fermentation but I’m not sure with 1.5 pounds I will be adding will make a difference. What do y’all think?
 
Decided to just go with Turbinado for this wknd I will report back how it all goes.
 
Well things went well today ended up with 12 gallons @ with SG of 1.051. I will keep you posted if your interested.
 
Almost forgot to post a pic of my interpretation. Turned out pretty good, taste like nothing I’ve ever had in a good way.

Went like this roughly
Pils Malt 65%
Flaked Rice 21%
Black Malt 1.9%
Crystal 60 3.6%
Turbinado Sugar 8.6%

Cluster hops 7.3 aau
.87 @ 60 min 1.15 @ 30 min 1oz @ 60 min

Baja Yeast from CellarScience
10 days in primary at 52f then 3 days at 64f. Transfer to keg and conditioned for 5 weeks.
 

Attachments

  • D282E725-C499-459B-99A0-31A260A5D0DA.jpeg
    D282E725-C499-459B-99A0-31A260A5D0DA.jpeg
    2 MB
Last edited:
Almost forgot to post a pic of my interpretation. Turned out pretty good, taste like nothing I’ve ever had in a good way.

Went like this roughly
Pils Malt 65%
Flaked Rice 21%
Black Malt 1.9%
Crystal 60 3.6%
Turbinado Sugar 8.6%

Cluster hops 7.3 aau
.87 @ 60 min 1.15 @ 30 min 1oz @ 60 min

Baja Yeast from CellarScience
10 days in primary at 52f then 3 days at 64f. Transfer to keg and conditioned for 5 weeks.
Looks lovely.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top