Dunkel Bock

CrealCritter

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Up next is my take on a Dunkel Bock. Dunkel in German means Dark, so it'll be a Dark Bock for us Americans..

Bock's are very simple by following the German purity law. Where beer must contain only 4 ingredients, barley, water, hops & yeast. Germans take their beer very seriously. The ingredients of what goes into a German beer is governed by law.

Ingredients: (5 gallon batch)
6 lbs Munich dry malt extract
1 lb Pillsen Light dry malt extract
1/2 Lb Chocolate Malt
1/2 oz Hallertauer hops
1 package Saflager 34/70
6 gallons water.

This Dunkel Bock should have a malty Munich sweet forground taste that finishes with a just a hint of chocolate toffee flavor. It will be very low in bitterness to allow the malty sweetness to shine though. That's the plan anyways... I'll work on the label later.

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Plan is to brew this Saturday Dec 28.
 
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CrealCritter

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Add a gallon of spring water to a 3 gallon kettle. Put the crushed Chocolate Malt in a muslin bag and tie a loose knot in the end. Begin to heat the water to 155 degrees
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Maintain as close as you can to 155 degrees for 30 minutes (150 to 160 is good).
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Start your kettle with 3 gallons of spring water and stir in 6 lbs of Munich and 1 lb of pilsen light dried malt extract.
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Stir the kettle often to avoid scorched malt to the bottom of the kettle. Take a little taste of the malts oh how sticky sweet they are.

At the end of 30 minutes cut off the flame under the chocolate malt (if it's on) and suspend the muslin bag of chocolate malt above the smaller kettle. Allow it to drop back into the kettle. Pour 1 gallon of room temperature spring water through the muslin bag and also allow to drop back into the kettle. Squeeze the bag like you bought it to get every last drop of chocolate malt into the kettle.
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Chickens love me
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Now pour the chocolate malt wort into the large kettle of Munich and Pilsen. You will now have approximately 5 gallons of Dark Bock wort to heat to boil.
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Once boiling starts (stir often) add 1/2 ounce of hops in a small muslin bag and set your timer for a 60 minute boil. Stir often all the way to the bottom to avoid scorched wort. Kick back and relax, enjoy the smell of the wort boiling and man it's so sticky delicious sweet.
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At 50 minutes into the boil (with 10 minutes left) add the clean emersion chiller to sterlize it. At 60 minutes or flame out hook up the chiller to the sink and start cold water flowing through it. You'll want to contine to chill the wort into the mid 60's. Close enough...
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next pour your wort, into a clean and sanitized 6 1/2 gallon food grade bucket. Fish out the hop muslin bag, with a clean and sterile extra long handled mash paddle, rinse the muslin bag with ice cold spring water and squeeze it against the side of the bucket with the paddle, so it drips back into the bucket, then disregard. Also rinse the kettle with ice cold spring water and dump that back into the bucket. Top the bucket off to 5 gallons (you loose a good gallon to boiling). Add quart of Saflager 34/70 yeast starter and mix well. Cover and add the air lock.

There's nothing to do now but wait :) and clean up :(. One good thing about brewing a dark beer, every little spot shows up easy.
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Starting gravity 1.062, this beer should ferment out to about 6%ish ABV
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flowerbug

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with all the focus on sterility it might be a good idea to mention that squeezing could be done with food handling gloves or some other sterile instrument as for sure when i hear someone say squeeze i assume you are speaking of squeezing with the hands. which are massively laden with bacteria of many kinds... not that the alcohol won't kill them (after all that's predominantly what ales and beers were for back then), but after all that emphasis on sterile it just stuck out to me as something to mention.
 

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with all the focus on sterility it might be a good idea to mention that squeezing could be done with food handling gloves or some other sterile instrument as for sure when i hear someone say squeeze i assume you are speaking of squeezing with the hands. which are massively laden with bacteria of many kinds... not that the alcohol won't kill them (after all that's predominantly what ales and beers were for back then), but after all that emphasis on sterile it just stuck out to me as something to mention.

Poor choice of words on my behalf... I used One Step for making this batch, for cleaning l. Then followed up by Star San to sanitize everything that comes into contact with the wort once it's chilled, including my hands. I'll go back and edit my post to be more clear.

But you are 100% correct, cleanliness and sanitation is the top priority, when it comes to beer and wine making.

I also might add... One Step is great for, mopping the floor and cleaning counters before you start the brew. It's also great for cleaning up after your done.
 
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flowerbug

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Poor choice of words on my behalf... I used One Step for making this batch, for cleaning l. Then followed up by Star San to sanitize everything that comes into contact with the wort once it's chilled, including my hands. I'll go back and edit my post to be more clear.

But you are 100% correct, cleanliness and sanitation is the top priority, when it comes to beer and wine making.

I also might add... One Step is great for, mopping the floor and cleaning counters before you start the brew. It's also great for cleaning up after your done.

i read way too much stuff on microbes in general to think too hard about being perfectly sterile. my comment above should have used the more general term microbes too instead of only bacteria as for sure there are many more things on our hands than bacteria.
 

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My Dunkel Bock has finished primary fermentation. 9 days is about right for a 6ish ABV lager brew, fermented @ around 52 degrees. A sniff of the air lock smells like beer, that's a good sign :) now at least 3 days for diacetyl rest at room temperature and rack into a corny keg for lagering.

diacetyl tastes like butter, the diacetyl rest at room temperature allows the yeast to convert diacetyl into other compounds.

We don't want no butter flavored beer.
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with all the focus on sterility it might be a good idea to mention that squeezing could be done with food handling gloves or some other sterile instrument as for sure when i hear someone say squeeze i assume you are speaking of squeezing with the hands. which are massively laden with bacteria of many kinds... not that the alcohol won't kill them (after all that's predominantly what ales and beers were for back then), but after all that emphasis on sterile it just stuck out to me as something to mention.

Most styles of beer have a signature characteristic or two that dominate their profile may it be machine or hand squeezed. If it’s the pure, unobstructed, lugubrious essence of malt you seek nothing beats manual labour, traditional bock beer presents unfettered maltiness to the palate like no other style of brew.
 

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Most styles of beer have a signature characteristic or two that dominate their profile may it be machine or hand squeezed. If it’s the pure, unobstructed, lugubrious essence of malt you seek nothing beats manual labour, traditional bock beer presents unfettered maltiness to the palate like no other style of brew.

Bock is by far my favorite style of beer. It's a old style of beer, in which it's ingredients are governed by German law. It's not to be confused with "Old Style", which is an American Adjunct Lager style beer brewed by Pabst Brewing Company in Los Angeles, CA. The Bock style can be traced back to the 1600’s. Bock style beer is an exceedingly rich, malty style that tastes just like a fresh loaf of bread straight from the oven. I actually like to drink a good Bock beer at room temperature. Which would almost be a crime for any American style of beer.

This Dunkel Bock recipe should produce a deep amber-brown beer that has a slight alochol warming as it goes down. With just enough hop bitterness to prevent the malt sweetness from being cloying. But to keep the taste buds entertained, it should have hints of chocolate and toffee flavor in the background and finish clean and soft, enticing you to take another drink.
 

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on drinking your beer at room temp: Why do the British drink their beer warm? Because Lucas also sells refrigerators.
 

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After diacetyl rest, it finished fermenting @ 1.014 which puts it @ 6.30% alochol by volume on the nose. It tastes great, almost but not quite like a S'more. It's missing smoke and not near as sweet because most of but not all of the sweetness is offset by the bittering hops addition. But it does taste a lot like a S'more. Gramcracker, marshmallow and chocolate is the first thing that came to mind when I tasted it. It's very well balanced and smooth for green beer - Yum. It will be interesting to see how it finishes after lagering and carnbonates, but right now this Dunkel Bock recipe is a definite keeper.
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