Boring Bock

Sampling my first dopplebock and I’m finding it kind of lacking in character compared to the commercial versions I like.

Wondering what I can add to the grist bill to give it something more
17 lbs Munich
4 oz carafa 2
4 oz victory.

I was hoping for a dryer toasty dopplebock but kind of missed the mark. Any suggestions for me?

What yeast did you use?

Wyeast Munich lager

I made this exact recipe only using 15lbs of munich and it turned out really well. I let it lager for 3 months before drinking it though. How long did you let it sit?

Interesting. I lagered for 8 weeks. Wondering if some pale chocolate malt would bump up the toasty factor or maybe more victory?

1 Like

That might be good. I may have actually scorched a little of my wort at the beginning of the 90 minute boil. Maybe that made it more “interesting” haha everyone seemed to love though. What was your OG?

Came in at 1.085

Mine was around 1.072 or something like that. I’ll look at my brew notes on that beer this weekend and see if I did anything differently. I did make a 1 gallon starter for that batch a few days prior to pitching the yeast and I cold crashed it and decanted the wort before pitching.

Pour up a pint… Take a very small pinch of calcium chloride add to your glass…
Sneezles61

1 Like

I was just going to say…could be the OP’s water treatment or lack thereof?

My doppelbock was always well received but it’s a bit malty for me to drink much so I haven’t brewed it in years. This 10 gal batch was for a buddy who loves it.

22 lbs 12.0 oz Avangard Dark Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 1 68.7 % 1.78 gal
6 lbs 8.0 oz Avangard Best Malz Pilsner Malt (1.9 SRM) Grain 2 19.6 % 0.51 gal
3 lbs 8.0 oz Caraamber (Weyermann) (36.0 SRM) Grain 3 10.6 % 0.27 gal
6.0 oz Carafa Special II (Weyermann) (415.0 SRM) Grain 4 1.1 % 0.03 gal
1.00 oz Hallertau Magnum [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 17.6 IBUs -
0.80 oz Hallertau [5.30 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 3.5 IBUs -
2.0 pkg Bavarian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2206) [124.21 ml] Yeast 7 - -

Doppelbock is usually about the malt so if you want it drier you’ll have to mash lower temp. It’s been a few years but here are the notes on my last one.

Very malty, good foamy head does fall off but never completely dissipates. Light chocolate, caramel, dark bread, very faint fig(?), good clean smooth beer, little to no alcohol presence on the palate but mine only clocked in at 7.2.

1 Like

Typically I don’t mess with my water too much, but I have some calcium chloride on hand so I’ll try that out at beer thirty.

Thanks for posting your recipe, I’ve been thinking about cutting the Munich with pilsner and using more specialty malt

I also cut mine with pilsner malt. I’ll add a little dark malt for color but other than a small amount of wheat malt it’s mostly Munich and pilsner. I’m going experiment with getting a 4:1 chloride to sulfate ratio

2 Likes

Everything Bock I had while living in Europe was dark and malty.

1 Like

This made a difference, thanks.

2 Likes

Now the fun part is to find out how much to add to the BK…
I’ve got lagers on my mind for my next series of brews… I should toy with calc.
Sneezles61

1 Like