BJCP Style: 6C - Dunkels Bock
This is a bigger, maltier version of the Dunkel I made recently. Style-wise it sits somewhere between a Dunkel and Doppelbock. According to BJCP:
Less alcohol and malty richness than a Doppelbock. Stronger malt flavors and higher alcohol than a Märzen.
Full recipe is on BrewersFriend but here's the TL;DR:
- Brewday: 2019-11-10
- Malts: Munich I (6°L) and a bit of chocolate malt for color adjustment
- Hops: [Magnum] (Sterling)
- Yeast: WLP833 - German Bock
- OG: 16.4°P, FG: 2.8°P, ABV 7.4%
- Kegged: 2019-11-29
Cleaning the mill rollers in hopes of avoiding the dreaded slippage. Spoilers: it didn't help. Mill still slipped at first which required some back and forth with the drill until it decided to catch. Why can't we have a geared system where both rollers are driven?
Grains: Munich I and a bit of chocolate malt
Once the mill decides to actually feed grain it does a good job...
Mash water heating up
Mash temp
Brew session beer from Green Mountain: purveyors of tasty lagers
Mash complete - bag out
Floor Manager Steve working outside
Sterling hops (Saaz substitute)
Forgot the hop spider for the first addition but got it in there for the late hops
Into the fermenter
Wort sample
OG came out to 16.4°P
Trying out a new lager yeast: WLP833 / German Bock
Decent temp for out in the open in the basement
Away we go
2019-11-13 (+3): slow and steady fermentation
2019-11-30 (+19): kegged sample
2019-12-03 (+23): Dark sample. This is 99% what it will look like from here on out. Clarity is almost there but not quite. I'm guessing a couple of weeks of keg lagering will do the trick. Taste is fantastic. Such a great winter brew! Not having tried any commercial versions of the style that I can think of, I would probably put this in the doppelbock camp. Not a bad thing at all. Malt forward with a pleasant, sweet, but clean finish. This one's a keeper. I might even merge this with the doppelbock recipe and go a bit bigger. This would be very nice up around 8-9%.
2020-1-3 (+54): 100% clear and tasting great. Got much more malt character from this batch over the Doppelbock from last year. Which is interesting as the only differences were a bit of dark malt for color and WLP833 yeast instead of 34/70.
