Friday, February 11, 2011

Brewing a Bock


This was my first attempt to brew a bock, but decided to do it using WY1007 German ale yeast that can be fermented at lower temperatures, but not as cold as a lager, and requires less aging so I could have the beer ready to drink sooner. Call it a pseudo-lager bock if you like, but the final beer tasted nice, lots of malt flavor from the huge amounts of munich malt.
Here's the recipe, 5gal batch as usual:
-10lb Briess Munich malt (10L)
-4.5lb Briess pilsen malt (1.1L)
-1lb Briess Caramunich malt (60L)
-1/2lb Briess crystal 120L
-2oz Hallertauer 4% for 60min
-1 pack WY1007 German ale yeast

Mashed 60min at 153F and fermented as follow:
-Day0 - 70F
-Day1 - 60F
-Day2 to Day4 - 55F
-Day5 to Day9 - 62F
-Day10 to Day15 -65F

A higher temp was used to start the brew so the yeast could get going faster, then the temp was decreased to 55 for the really active part of the fermentation, where most of the flavor develop.
As the fermentation activity started to slow down, temperature was increased to 62, then to 65 to finish the beer.

The final numbers were:
OG=1.066
FG=1.016
ABV%=6.5
IBU=24
SRM=20

Here's the fermentation profile. Click to see larger.