Roggenbier recipe - too much caramel?

[MaxStout]

I'm interested in brewing a traditional Roggenbier, BIAB. I found a recipe for a Schierlinger clone on BYO, the "Sehr gut" recipe. Basically, about 60% rye malt, 20% Pilsner, and 20% Caramel 60. That seems like an awful lot of caramel. Does the spiciness of the rye balance that out, or is it going to be too cloying?

 

[MaxStout]

*bump*

 

[roddog]

There is a roggen in the latest zymurgy, and it is 8oz of a 12# grain bill. I've never made one myself, but I just initiated a starter and will brew it up this weekend. Seems like a lot in your recipe.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I agree, it seems like a lot of crystal. Also seems like a lot of rye. I brewed a roggenbier once and it was 45% rye. I enjoyed it at first, but after a while the motor oil viscosity got to be too much for me and I ended up cutting the beer 50-50 at the tap with a hefe until the keg finally kicked. Also, I brewed it BIAB and the lauter was a nightmare at 45%. I can't imagine what 60% would be like. For my own personal preference, 20% rye is about my upper limit.

The traditional roggenbier I brewed was from Brewing Classic Styles and it contained 7% crystal (caramunich).

 

[MaxStout]

I thought that amount of crystal seemed like a typo. Good info, thanks, everyone.

I think I'll ratchet the crystal down to 6-7%, replace with some Munich or Vienna, and add a bit of dehusked carafa to make up for the color. I might back the rye down to 45-50%, but I want to keep it close to a traditional German Roggen. I plan to do no-sparge BIAB, but it will still be a sticky mess. At dough-in add a little, stir a lot, add a little, stir a lot...

There's also an interesting version by Deathbrewer I might consider.

 

[LLBeanJ]

That sounds good. I don't normally do mashouts with BIAB, but I do with rye to help thin things out when it's time to pull the bag. That rye is a force to be reckoned with.

 

[MaxStout]

That sounds good. I don't normally do mashouts with BIAB, but I do with rye to help thin things out when it's time to pull the bag. That rye is a force to be reckoned with.

Maybe I should hold back a couple gallons of water then do a pour-over sparge. Would rice hulls make it a bit more manageable? I know they are practically necessary for standard AG.

 

[mbobhat]

If I may add to possibly do a beta glucanase rest as well to take care of some of the gumminess for about 20 minutes. Treat it like you would unmalted wheat.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I routinely do a pour-over sparge with all my brews to help with efficiency. Regardless, in this case it probably wouldn't be a bad idea if it's not something you do normally. I'm not sure if rice hulls would help. The wort from rye is just so darned thick, even if there was more of a filtering bed, as the hulls would provide, the problem is getting that thick wort to pass through the pores in the bag and not so much to pass through the grain bed. At least, that's what the problem looked like to me whenever I've brewed with rye. With that said, I don't think I wouldn't bother with rice hulls. It will drain, but it just takes a lot longer and plan to do a lot of squeezing to force it through.

Edit: Yeah, what mbobhat said. I brewed a rye IPA (20% rye) not too long ago and I did a beta-glucan rest. Not sure if it helped, but it sure didn't hurt.

Oh, and I actually came back to comment on Deathbrewer's recipe you posted... It looks like it would be pretty good.

 

[kh54s10]

My recipe:

5 lbs Rye malt
4 lbs Munich malt
2 lbs Pale malt (2 row)
.5 lbs Red wheat malt
.25 lbs De-bittered Black malt.

1 oz. Hallertau Hersbrucker 60 min

SafBrew T-58

It was quite good.

I have no idea if it was to style and didn't really care.

 

[MaxStout]

If I may add to possibly do a beta glucanase rest as well to take care of some of the gumminess for about 20 minutes. Treat it like you would unmalted wheat.

Good idea. I'm trying to think through the mechanics of that with BIAB. Strike water at say, 115F, then dough in, rest 20 minutes at around 105-110...how best to bring to mash temp after that? I could hoist up the bag a ways (prevent scorching), fire up the burner and stir like crazy. Anyone do this sort of step mash with BIAB?

 

[LLBeanJ]

My B-C rest was actually a protein rest @ 125°. I searched the forums for B-C rest info for rye and the prevailing wisdom looked to be to just do a protein rest, so that's what I did. I doughed in around 120, let it rise to 125, held it for 15 minutes, then fired up the burner and took it up to 152, stirring all the way up, which took about 15 minutes to get there. My BK has a clad bottom, so scorching wasn't a concern.

 

[MaxStout]

My B-C rest was actually a protein rest @ 125°. I searched the forums for B-C rest info for rye and the prevailing wisdom looked to be to just do a protein rest, so that's what I did. I doughed in around 120, let it rise to 125, held it for 15 minutes, then fired up the burner and took it up to 152, stirring all the way up, which took about 15 minutes to get there. My BK has a clad bottom, so scorching wasn't a concern.

Looks like a good plan.
Sifting through some of the threads on rye beers, I found several instances of brewers getting "thick" beer. The B-C rest looks like a good way to lower that viscosity.

 

[mbobhat]

Yea Palmer says that if you have less than 25% of mash as rye or unmalted grain, you can just do a protein rest. whether you want to start a little lower for the beta glucanase rest is up to you if you are above that amount.

 

[MaxStout]

Yea Palmer says that if you have less than 25% of mash as rye or unmalted grain, you can just do a protein rest. whether you want to start a little lower for the beta glucanase rest is up to you if you are above that amount.

I'll have about 45% rye in the bill, so the beta-gluc rest might be in order.

 

[MaxStout]

I brewed the Roggenbier yesterday, BIAB. I used Deathbrewer's recipe, but with different hops and Weihenstephan instead of WLP300. Rye content was about 45%. No problem with the sparge, as I didn't do one. But there were a few other minor "challenges" I had to deal with.

I heated the water to about 113F and doughed in. After some vigorous stirring, the temp only dropped to 110 (I was shooting for 104), but I was still in the ballpark for a beta-gluc rest. I had no problems with sticky doughballs or anything like that. After about 20 minutes I hoisted the bag just a bit to get it off the bottom of the keggle and fired up the propane. Got the mash right at 150 and did a 60 minute rest.

After the sacc rest, I hoisted up the bag. The grain mass was very dense and I had a bit of difficulty shaping the oblong mass to a more rounded shape to allow it to emerge from the keggle. When the bag rubbed on the side of the opening while moving upward, it forced several ounces of wort to run out along the top rim of the Sanke keg, through the drain holes and down the sides. A bit of a mess to clean up, and perhaps a reason for me to reconsider using a keggle as a brew kettle. Maybe a "real" 15g BK is in my future.

After removing the grain, I tossed in 1/3 oz. of Perle directly, as a FWH. I fired up the heat and brought to a boil. I had a bit more trouble with foam in the boil, probably due to all those rye proteins, and had to use a few drops of Fermcap. I did a 90 minute boil (Pilsner malt in the bill), and added the remaining 2/3 oz of Perle.

After chilling, I racked to a 6.5g carboy. I always pour from the valve, through a large strainer I set atop a big funnel. This time, the strainer would quickly clog from all the trub. I had to gently scrape the strainer a couple times to get the wort to pass through.

After that, no problems. I pitched and it's fermenting nicely at 63F.

In all, a decent brew day, but a big bunch of rye does present some issues along the way.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Sounds like you had a pretty good day. Looking forward to hear how it turns out.

 

[MaxStout]

Update: The Weihenstephaner didn't disappoint. The fermentation went crazy and glad I set up a blowoff tube, even with the 1.5 gal. headspace in my carboy. It went full-throttle for about 3 days, then settled way down. It puked a little into the blowoff tube, maybe a few ounces. I replaced the blowoff with an airlock and it's going very slowly, maybe one bubble every 30 seconds or so. It's still at 63 in my ferm chamber.

But the beer looks pretty ugly. Lots of floaties--globs of sticky rye proteins, I assume. And a big layer of trub on the bottom. There's 5 gallons in the fermenter and I'll be lucky to get 4 out of it. I'm concerned that racking to a bottling bucket will bring in a lot of that goop, even though I'm usually careful with an autosiphon. I'm tempted to rack to secondary just to reduce some of the crud. Maybe cold-crash a few weeks before bottling? Any thoughts on this would be helpful.

I've never brewed such a messy beer, yet I'm excited to try it when it's done. Now I know why few breweries make that stuff.

 

[MaxStout]

Update...bad news. My Roggen got a bad infection. After bottling in mid-Oct, I conditioned for a month and tried one a few days ago. Cold-crashed in the fridge for 24 hours, and poured. I could smell the sickening sweet smell before I put my nose to the glass. Lots of foam, though I only carbed to 2.5 vols. The taste confirmed: it got some kind of bug. It tasted like some kind of really bad Belgian, if that makes any sense. Very vinous, and not in a good way.

Just to make sure it wasn't just one bottle, I put 2 more in the fridge and tried them. Same thing.

Trying to wrap my head around where I went wrong, as infections can come from many sources. The hydro sample I tasted on bottling day seemed OK, though the bugs could have been in there and I just couldn't discern it. I am always fastidious about sanitation--on the verge of paranoia. Maybe the plastic bottling bucket and/or the spigot was the culprit. I always remove the spigot and soak in StarSan before using. Maybe it's time to replace them.

I use a bottling wand with a short piece of tubing to connect to the bottling bucket spigot. That's getting an overnight soak in StarSan and new piece of tubing.

The infection may also have occurred during fermentation. I never racked to secondary, though there was one thing that happened during primary. I had the carboy in a ferm chamber and I remember the airlock running dry in a short time. I used 100 proof vodka and it got sucked in. Probably contraction on a temp down-swing. I have read a lot of argument over whether ethanol <70% has adequate sanitation properties, so maybe the 50% alc wasn't enough to kill germs. I refilled the airlock with StarSan and it didn't suck in again.

It was no fun uncapping 45 bottles of beer today and watching them gush like volcanoes into the sink. I cleaned each bottle with a good 10 sec. blast from a Jet bottle washer, then soaked in a bucket of StarSan. I now have a bottle tree full of empties to remind me of my screwup.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Aw, that sucks, man. Sorry to hear that.