Day 23: Traditional Bock

Back to beer today. I splurged and opened up one of the refractometers on the shelf today. I had one that broke somehow after about 3 months of light use. I loved using it. It's really nice and easy to take a quick gravity read with. I need to start moving a few things in to secondary and a few things in to bottles...soon. Beer everywhere. Definitely need to organize and get my system in place, now that I have some understanding of size of fermenters, the space they'll take up, and the different times beers will be finishing at. Which is one tough thing about the process. A lager is going to take longer than an ale in most cases. I'm thinking of starting a spreadsheet, I was hoping to just use this blog as my tracking system, but it'll be easier with everything laid out in front of me in a spreadsheet-transfers, gravity readings, etc.

On to the beer...

Beer #22 - Rock the Bock

Style: Traditional Bock (5B)

Recipe: For 3 Gallon (Partial-Mash)

3 lb Briess Amber Dry Malt Extract
1.5 lbs Vienna Malt (steeped at 152F for 60 minutes)
1.5 lbs Munich Type 1 Malt (steeped at 152F for 60 minutes)
.5 lbs CaraMunich III Malt (steeped at 152F for 60 minutes)
.75 oz Hallertau Hops (4.5%) (40 minutes, full boil)
.5 oz Spalt Select Hops (2%) (40 minutes, full boil)


Beer notes: Boiled this batch 40 minutes, just long enough to get the minimum bitterness needed for the style. Used hops I had around. I mashed a couple pounds, got about a 57% efficiency. Was hoping for somewhere between 60-70%. Maybe could have sparged a bit better, a bit longer, than the gallon of water I poured over it and gently squeezed out of the sack. Pot looks like it's going to end with about 3 gallons. OG finished around 1.062, a little low.

Cheers!
Aaron