This weekend I brewed a new organic recipe for my maibock. Last year I brewed a similar beer, and it spent close to 3 months in my garage lagering. I was fairly happy with the turnout, but not totally satisfied. It lacked some maltiness and something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I think part of the problem was that I lagered it for too long. When I tasted the maibock after a month I think it tasted closer to what I was going for than after the 3 months that I lagered it. I don't know if that makes any sense, but this time around I'm going to only lager it for 4 weeks.As I've mentioned before, maibock is one of my favorite styles of beer, so its a beer I really want to perfect. I redid the label and tweaked the recipe a bit, making it organic and changing some of the grain bill and the hops. I also poured it on top of a slurry of California 2112 Lager Yeast. The name comes from the my 3 year old golden retriever Maya, featured on the label.
I also transferred The Gringo (hence the slurry) and I have to say that I'm intrigued to see how this turns out. In the sample I tasted there was a huge grapefruit presence, which I would attribute to the Centenial hops I used. I'm excited to see where this ends up after lagering for a month.
Also this weekend I scored an old fridge, so I'm excited to have room to store more grains and hops in the freezer (just in time since I ordered 14 pounds of organic grains from Seven Bridges Co-Op last week.) I cleaned it out and am excited about using it for lagering year round. While I'm not a huge lager fan, I'm excited about the ability to make bocks and several other styles.
Friday I came home to a package of beer sent to me from Rick from Bob Woodshed Beer Blog as part of our exchange. He sent me three 22 oz bombers of organic beers I can't find here in Minnesota. Needless to say I was excited ! He sent me Bison Brewing Company's Belgian Ale, Green Lakes Organic Ale from Deschutes Brewery and Island Red from Roots Brewing Company. I'll post some reviews soon.
He also posted a review of my Northwoods Ale, and I was happy that he liked it. I completely agreed with his suggestion of adding more wild rice. I had read that it could be strong, but in both beers I've made with it, I found myself wanting more of a presence. Here's the link if you're interested: Northwoods Review
In addition to the reviews of the organic beers, I'm planning on posting about my recent visit of Summit Brewery. I had contacted them for an interview and I ended up getting a tour with their PR person. It was really cool, and I got to see some things not normally included in the tour like the lab, which was really interesting. It was a neat experience and again I was impressed by how nice and cool everyone was. That'll be coming this week.
Salud!
The Bearded Brewer
5 comments:
Are you doing a decoct on your Maibock? I did a doppelbock last year and I have to say it was by far one of the best brews I made to date. I did a double decoct and used the decocts as my temp infusions. Now most people will tell you that with today's highly modified base malts protein rests and decocts are not needed, but I think that there is a flavor that the decoct imparts into the brew.
I noticed a significant color change in the mash and considering the grain bill, it was a lot maltier that I would have ever anticipated. Plus decocts are not that bad in practice. A single decoct will add about 1/2 hour to your brew day.
Well worth the effort if you ask me.
Cheers!
No, I didn't. I do a single infusion mash, I've never done a decoction mash. Is it difficult? How exactly do you do it? I've read a little about it before.
Thanks.
well it can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be. For me, I do a protein rest at about 120ish for 1/2 hour and then use a plastic pitcher to draw off about 1/3 of the mash, gains and all, into a brew pot. You want the consistency to be like oatmeal so it's got to be wet, but not soup.
You bring that up to a boil for 10 to 20 min stirring constantly to avoid scorching and then dump the decocted grains back into the mash. At this point you should be at around 150ish and you do your alpha/beta rest and your done.
There are more technical ways to do it, but that works for me and doesn't add a ton of time, I am basically just using the decoct as a second temp infusion. I will actually draw some off sometimes if I have a really full mashtun to get up to mashout temp.
Here is a post I did on some of my decocts with pics:
http://www.cnybrew.com/2007/06/today-was-my-brew-day-for-doppelbock.html
Cheers!
Thanks Travis. I might have to try that. I'll check out your post on it. It sounds easy enough. What styles do you do it for other than bocks?
Again, that's an aspect of interpretation. There was a time when it was a pretty normal way to brew. However, the only other style that comes to mind besides the bock is a marzen or oktoberfest. Like I said, to me, there are some benefits to the extra step that come out in the malt flavors. I am sure there are plenty that disagree but I noticed a significantly greater about of malt flavor.
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