I decided I wanted to try something more adventurous after doing a couple of extract kits and I came up with this recipe. I know it is not a traditional doppelbock but I am only 1/4 German so I don’t care. I am only calling it that because it fits right in the style by my calculations and it will be pitched with Celebrator yeast that I am harvesting. And thoughts on how this will turn out? I am not too confident yet so I am only brewing a 2.5 gallon batch. This is also my first lager.
The wheat berries and the rice will be a problem w/o doing at least a partial mash. They contain starch that needs to be converted to sugars through enzymes in the malt.
I’m 100% German an that is not even considered beer in Germany
Sounds pretty interesting. Since you’re going to need to do a partial mash to convert the starches in the wild rice and wheat berries, you might as well mash as much Munich/Vienna as you can with it. I’m thinking maybe something like 1 lb of Pilsner (to convert the rice/wheat), 1lb of CaraMunich, then as much Munich/Vienna as you can fit in your mash.
If you steep/mash CaraMunich you can also go with Munich LME instead of amber and probably get closer to a dopplebock in the end.
You need something with enzymes to do the mashing, the extract doesn’t have it.
There is a lot more to making a good lager than an ingredients list. Yeast selection, pitch rate, temperature and temperature control for the fermentation and lagering.
Thanks for the support guys. I also hope that my comment about beer in Germany is seen with tongue in cheek.
mudman, I think you’ll make beer and depending on how its fermented it may actually turn out good, but if you want to make something close to a Doppebock I think you’ll have to work will all-malt. A good Munich malt extract with some crystal and maybe a little roast will work well. And don’t forget to age the beer. That’s when those desirable flavors are created.
Thanks for the links and info guys. And I agree with you Kai that this will not be much like a real doppelbock, but I am in this one for the adventure and learning experience. I seem to have a great place in my basement shop for fermenting. So far I have been able to control my fermentation temps in there very well.
If you substitute the amber for Munich you would get closer. If you want extreme blasphemy you could put your wheat berries and wild rice in after cooking in a pot of 150F water with some enzymes for conversion.
Somewhere out there in the ether I had found a site that purported to list out which beers did and did not. This was helpful in stopping me from trying to culture Franziskaner yeast.
you won’t find any yeast in a bottle of German lager unless your are dealing with Keller or Zwickelbier. Only Weissbiers might have yeast in them and not all have live yeast.
Thanks for bringing that up Joe. I totally forgot to research which ones have yeast in them, and I know that many breweries bottle condition with different yeast than they ferment with so I will check out the links above. I want to try to harvest yeast from a commercial brew rather than buy it if possible. Just because I want to. I have a sourdough starter for bread that is 4 years old and I don’t ever have to buy yeast if I don’t want to. I just like playing around. If I can’t find one to harvest then I will break down and buy one.
Thanks for the links Kai and Joe. I have thought about printing them out and going to the liquor store to see what I can find. Then I thought I should leave the list at home and buy all the German imports that I can find and if they aren’t on the list, oh well.
Mike, keep in mind that most beers require a pure yeast culture for fermentation. This is because there are lots of unwanted off flavors that can be created by wild yeast and bacteria. This is desired in sourdough and “wild” beers, but would be definitely distracting from the taste of a lager, for example.
because of that and the inevitable contamination that happens with constant reuse of yeast, you will not be able to keep your yeast culture going. Unless you get into yeast ranching and sterile yeast storage/propagation techniques you’ll have to buy a fresh culture of yeast at least one in a while.
