Boxing Day Bock

Classification: lager, bock, all-grain

Source: Spencer W. Thomas (Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu), HBD Issue #1101, 3/19/93

Well, I was going to wait until after this beer won the Bock is Best competition :-) to post this, but a friend asked for the recipe, so I'll kill two birds with one stone. Since this was the first batch in my new mash/lauter tun, the procedure required some fine-tuning. Thus the multiple infusions, etc. This may make it difficult to exactly reproduce the recipe!
It came out as a borderline "Helles Bock." Probably should have left out the chocolate malt.
This stuff is yummy. Wonderful malt nose & flavor. Nicely hopped. Friends have said it's one of the best beers they have tasted.

I have to attribute much of its goodness to the ingredients: Belgian malts and hops plugs. This is the first time I've ever really smelt the "spiciness" of Saaz hops. I wonder whether the little decoction I did to get the mash temperature up had some effect on the maltiness.

Ingredients:

10# Belgian Pilsener Malt
3# Belgian Munich Malt (above Corona crushed)
.5# M&F Crystal malt
2 oz chocolate malt (above pre-crushed by roller mill at the HB shop)
4oz Hallertau plugs @ 2.9%
2oz Saaz plugs @ 3.1%
Wyeast Munich Lager yeast (2308)

Procedure:

Mix Pilsener & Munich malts in mash tun, infuse 10.5qts H2O@170F (mash temp 137F -- oops!), infuse additional 3qt @boiling (mash temp to 145F - -- sigh!), decoct 3qts (pretty thick) to boiling (mash temp to 156F -- finally!) Meanwhile, steep crystal in 1qt H2O @165F. Mash 1hour. Infuse 3gal @boiling to 165F, add crystal & chocolate malts & stir. 15min rest. Start sparge, recirculate 6 qts. Sparge to 6.5gal (ending sparge gravity 1.010@150F == 1.026??)

Boil 1.5 hours. Hop schedule:
2 oz Hallertau @ 30 min
1 oz each Hallertau & Saaz @ 60 min
1 oz each @ 75 min

Chill & rack. Yield approx 4 gal @ 1.066.

Pitch yeast from 1pt starter. Move to cellar @58F. After two days, krauesen is evident, move to fridge @50F. Primary time: 6 weeks 24 hour diacetyl rest at end. Bottled at FG 1.022, lagered in bottle.