Hello fellow brewers, I just created a recipe for a maibock/hellesbock. This is an extract recipe (sorry all-grainers, I’m saving up for a system). This will most likely be my first attempt at lagering so any advice would be great too. Hope I came close to something delicious.
“Bock Wild”
Grains: 4.0 oz Weyermann Caramunich III (56.0 SRM) 4.0 oz German Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
Malt Extract: (Boil for 60 min) 2 lbs 8.0 oz Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) 6lbs 4.8 oz Munich Malt Liquid Extractv(~8L, blend of 50/50 pale and munich malts)
Hops/Addition: 1.0 oz German Magnum @ 60 min 1.0 oz German Tettnang @ 15 min 1.0 oz German Tradition @ 10 min 0.25 tsp Irish Moss @ 10 min
Looks like a very good recipe. A few suggested tweaks based on my experience:
Assuming a typical alpha acid of 14% for Magnum, I calculate 57 IBUs for this beer (using Tinseth method which is most accurate), which is WAY too high. What is your alpha acid on your pack of Magnums? If it is anything close to the teens, you will want to cut way back on your bittering addition.
I’d make the final hop addition at 15 minutes, and keep it to one ounce. So decide whether you want that to be Tettnanger or Tradition, or a combination, and go with that rather than two late additions.
I predict the final gravity will be quite a bit higher than 1.016… more like 1.020. If this is too high for your taste, then trade a pound of extract for a pound of table sugar, and you’ll be good to go. A maibock can be somewhat sweet, so 1.020 would not be far off-base, but it’s up to you how sweet you want it to be. Table sugar would reduce the final gravity and help dry out the beer, because table sugar is 100% fermentable while extract is only somewhere around 70% fermentable and thus sweetens and thickens the final beer. It’s totally up to your personal preference on this one of course. If you’ve heard anything about sugar giving off a “cidery” flavor, ignore it, it is bogus, as proven by tens of thousands of homebrewers everywhere. The Belgians use sugar in all their beers to help dry them out, and they make many of the best beers on earth.
Oh yeah, I totally agree and I forgot to mention that. Yeah, I think you’ll want about a gallon-sized yeast starter for 5 gallons. A liter is certainly better than nothing but really doesn’t quite cut it to ensure great results.
Okay, would you recommend any different yeasts and/or malts instead of the Munich? Also, I have a 2L yeast starter that I could use, and should I build it up twice? This recipe is no where near final, so I appreciate the input guys.
This is a difficult beer to brew as an extract. An all-grain Maibock would be based on Pils and Vienna malt. I would ditch the 4 oz additions of crystal and Munich malt. Ideally if you can I’d consider a mini-mash with 2 or 3 lbs of Vienna, cut back on the Munich extract and replace with more light or pils extract.
I use Vienna as the base malt in mine. Just brewed one up today, double decoction and friggin 83% efficiency with no sparge! I was shooting for 68% efficiency – I was WAY off! I watered it down to get my desired gravity. But anyway…
I think Munich extract might be very tasty in a maibock, as long as it doesn’t get too dark, otherwise it’s really a doppelbock at that point.
I haven’t heard of the Tinseth method before. Could any of you send me a link to it? I have only been brewing for about a year and it has just been extract kits. How come the Tinseth method (57 IBUs in this case) so much different from BeerSmith2 of 26 IBUs? I changed the amount of hops to 2 oz. 1oz Magnum @ 60min, and then 0.5 oz Tradition and Tettnang @ 15 min. Just seems to me like a big discrepancy is all. Happy New Years.
Brad Smith says he uses Tinseth, so I’m not sure where the discrepancy came from unless perhaps I screwed up something in entering your recipe into my StrangeBrew software? Anyone care to double-check the math for us? Otherwise I’m not sure why there is such a discrepancy.
