Saturday, March 5, 2011

Sour Cherry Bock

Well I decided to enter into the world of Lagers. Although half of this batch is going to have quite a twist. Since I have been brewing mostly 10 gallon batches lately I have been trying to do something "different" with "other" half of each batch. This time around I decided to brew a fairly traditional Bock beer. First thought was to brew a Doppelbock, however I set out to create a recipe that would fall on the "lower end" of the Doppelbock category in order to keep the abv under 8% (didn't want to kill the souring bugs). This recipe turned out to be more in line with the Traditional Bock category. Here is the recipe.

10.5 Gallon Batch
90 Minute Boil

Grains
20 lbs of Munich Malt
5 lb of Pilsner Malt
3.5 lbs of CaraMunich
0.5 lb of Melanodin

Hops
3 oz of Hallertauer (3.8% AA) for 60 minutes
1 oz of Hallertauer for 30 minutes

Yeast
WLP833 German Bock Lager – 2 vials with 2,000 ML Starter (built up three times)

Targets
Pre-Boil Gravity = 1.052-1.055
OG = 1.070
FG = 1.016
ABV = ~7 %
IBU = 20

Mash
9 gallons @ 155 for 60 minutes (might not fit the whole 9 gallons, start with 8)

Sparge
Fly sparge with 10 gallons of water

Fermentation
Ferment at 50 degrees F for up to a month.

The Sour Half
Second half with be soured with Lacto, Pedio and Brett along with 2 cans of Oregon Cherry Puree over the course of the extended souring secondary. Once the original beer has finished I plan to transfer to a carboy and start out with one pack of Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus and one pack of Wyeast 5733 Pediococus for the first three months along with one can of the pureee. After approximately 3 months I will add another can of cherries and a pack of Wyeast 5526 Brettanomyces lambicus. Let sit until ready (at least 10 months to a year). For those of you who are a little more experience in sour beer fermentation please let me know if you have any thoughts on this plan.

1 comment: