Hey everybody,
My in-laws recently sent me a Doppelbock kit for x-mas… and while I am certainly thankful for the generous gift, this really isn’t a style of beer I’d ever considered brewing before. For one thing, I’m not really set up for lagering… I’m currently using a cool brew bag with frozen water jugs and I can pretty consistently keep fermentation temps in the 65 to 70 degree range, but I don’t think I can get it much lower than that. I have a kegerator that I keep around 42 degrees… I could possibly dedicate a keg for fermentation and use that. I live in Texas, so no nice cool basements around here… and even now in winter we get crazy temperature swings between 75 degrees and 20 degrees.
So, I think I have a few options…
1. I could try to exchange the kit for an ale kit… but I don’t think this is feasible. It came from a very small local shop in Maine and I don’t want them to be out any costs. Plus just paying to ship it back would be pretty expensive.
2. I could brew the kit and pitch an ale yeast… then ferment at 65-70 and maybe do an extended aging in the keg before I start drinking it. Would I use a Kolsh yeast? German ale yeast? I read somewhere that a guy used a Scottish ale yeast with a doppelbock kit and called it a wee heavy…
3. I could brew the kit, pitch a lager yeast and ferment it in a keg at 42 degress for a long time in my kegerator. This would tie up a keg and use up valuable beer storage space so I’d only want to do it if I had a reasonable chance of ending up with a decent beer…
4. Maybe I could hack the kit and make two smaller beers? It’s a partial mash kit with a can of Pilsen liquid extract, a can of Munich liquid extract, some unspecified steeping grains, and some German hops.
What do you guys think? Any other options I should consider?
Thanks,
Cody
My in-laws recently sent me a Doppelbock kit for x-mas… and while I am certainly thankful for the generous gift, this really isn’t a style of beer I’d ever considered brewing before. For one thing, I’m not really set up for lagering… I’m currently using a cool brew bag with frozen water jugs and I can pretty consistently keep fermentation temps in the 65 to 70 degree range, but I don’t think I can get it much lower than that. I have a kegerator that I keep around 42 degrees… I could possibly dedicate a keg for fermentation and use that. I live in Texas, so no nice cool basements around here… and even now in winter we get crazy temperature swings between 75 degrees and 20 degrees.
So, I think I have a few options…
1. I could try to exchange the kit for an ale kit… but I don’t think this is feasible. It came from a very small local shop in Maine and I don’t want them to be out any costs. Plus just paying to ship it back would be pretty expensive.
2. I could brew the kit and pitch an ale yeast… then ferment at 65-70 and maybe do an extended aging in the keg before I start drinking it. Would I use a Kolsh yeast? German ale yeast? I read somewhere that a guy used a Scottish ale yeast with a doppelbock kit and called it a wee heavy…
3. I could brew the kit, pitch a lager yeast and ferment it in a keg at 42 degress for a long time in my kegerator. This would tie up a keg and use up valuable beer storage space so I’d only want to do it if I had a reasonable chance of ending up with a decent beer…
4. Maybe I could hack the kit and make two smaller beers? It’s a partial mash kit with a can of Pilsen liquid extract, a can of Munich liquid extract, some unspecified steeping grains, and some German hops.
What do you guys think? Any other options I should consider?
Thanks,
Cody