I have been doing some Bier Tourismus in Germany. Currently I am Bräuerie Eck in Böbrach Niederbayern. They were brewing yesterday, and said stop in the brewery as we had a brewing experience there last year. A couple things were discussed with the degrees Brewer. I had a rough recipe of my Dunkel on paper, and we went over the grain bill. I had 1% Carafa II for color. He recommended adding that to the mash at Vorlauf, so you don’t get the sharp flavors. I said that technique had been discussed in American Homebrewing and I have done it, which he liked.
The Keller at the end of the summer was all the way up to 3.5C. It was 3 C last Dec. All natural, no forced cooling. Deep in the rocks, at some altitude, with trees and a Barn over the Keller help it stay cool.
I did bring up O2 in the brewing. He said that it is known that some breweries have a house flavor from O2, and their beer is not shelf stable. He talked a little about modern systems, and how they fill the mash tuns fro the bottom, rather than mixing and dropping down like his 1971 system. He does make some fine beers, and wins a fair amount of awards for the Dunkel.
I recognize logistics are different for you, but for us regular folks it seems like this should be as simple as running tubing from the mash to the bottom of the kettle. This is what I did on my last two brews, but I doubt I’ll be able to tell if it had any impact.
I have been at Bells when they were mashing in from the the GEA Huppmann Mill Star mill, that is wet milled, and the slurry is pumped in from the bottom. The boil kettle is also filled from the bottom.
I have not seen his, he was critiquing mine. Said to cut CaraMunich II down to 2.5% from 5%. He uses a small Maltster that is between his place and Regensburg for the base malts. My guess is that the specialty malts are Weyermann. The empty bag in the brew house for Carafa was Weyermann.
Filling from the bottom is easy enough with a pump. I could do it for mashing, but not sparge as I only have the one kettle and currently pour my sparge from buckets.
He has done a collaboration Dunkel with Infusion Brewing in Omaha. They got to be friends as those Brewers go to the Czech Republic, then to the Brewers convention in Munich/Nuremburg depending on the year, the Brewery is a convenient stop in between.
The Infusion guys are going to brew in Germany in November.
and there it is… While we debate on specialty malt %'s, LODO, mashing schedules, this malt is probably far fresher than anything we can get our hands on.
I don’t think so! After our morning hike, they were filling the boil kettle, and I don’t think they de-gas the water either (as far as I know). They boil pretty hard with a direct fired system, another thing that is avoided with a new system that is set to strip volitile compounds.
The Brewer has his schooling, but does the best he can on the older system they have. It is a business, a family business, and we all need to remember that.
Brutal… I can see this is going to be a sore spot for both sides for a long time. Being on the fence as I am, all I can say is it can’t hurt to try it.
But, Chris, on the topic of “traditional German flavor”, when I was in Baltimore, I had Steigl helles and another German helles on tap at Max’s Taphouse, and neither beer had the lingering fresh grain flavor (“it”) that I was expecting.
The brewery is Bräuerie Eck. They have won several Euro Star awards and a WBC Bronze for the Dunkel, which is the beer they are known for, an unfiltered example.
I also enjoyed a new beer he is making, a Saphir Heller Bock, which was really süffig.
