Welcome back, everybody. It's Brad again with Northern Brewer, back for another installment of
Behind the Brew. Today we're going to be talking about doppelbock, specifically our Northernator
Doppelbock Lager. It's got some rich history, so we will go over a little bit of history;
we'll go over some ingredients; and we'll go over some tips and tricks to make sure
you can pull this off in your brewery yourself. And before we step into the Brew Cave, if you like
these kind of videos -- the Behind the Brew -- make sure you hit that like button, hit subscribe,
hit the notification bell if you haven't already, and that way you can see all these videos and
you know what's coming up all the time. Little history behind the doppelbock.
It was hundreds of years ago, monks in Munich would actually brew this during Lent or times
of fasting otherwise to get a little bit of caloric intake, so they didn't have to fully
fast at all. It was a way for them to sustain themselves without breaking their fast. So,
hundreds of years old. That's the history, and amazingly it's lived to this day.
When you are brewing a beer like this for the winter you always got to make sure you're
dressed in your best winter garb. In this case, that hat kept me warm around the mash.
You know, you keep stirring that mash, and just keep her moving that way.
What is a doppelbock? Well, it is a very strong malty German lager. This particular recipe
comes out at about 9% ABV. We are talking Munich malt, Pilsner malt, a little bit of
Caramunich III, traditional Hallertau hops just for bittering up to about 24-25 IBU, and then
the star of the show is really the German lager yeast -- in this case it's Omega Yeast OY106,
which is the German Lager I. Everything just comes together so well. It's so rich and malty,
but it's not too malty. It's not too sweet because you got that little bit of IBU in there to just
kind of take the edge off the malty sweetness. And then the really clean German lager yeast just
wraps it all together. Man, it's a great sipper. We do test brew a lot of beers here when we're
coming up with our recipes. This one kind of threw us for a loop a little bit because
it is such a large beer, we actually had to physically change the vessels we were brewing.
Generally, for a 10-gallon batch I usually use a 15-gallon mash ton, but there was no way this was
gonna fit in there. So, I had to grab a 20-gallon kettle, outfit it with a false bottom just to make
this mash fit, and it was still pretty darn full. Luckily, we got a really good mash conversion,
and after the sparge we did indeed hit our 1.090 gravity. After a few weeks of fermenting at about
47F, once fermentation is evident ramp that temp up into the lower 50s, and then you will end up
with a really nice, healthy fermentation. Let that go until it's complete, make sure you give
it a really good diacetyl rest, about five to seven days; that will help to ensure there's no
off flavors in the beer. And then stick it in the fridge, let it lager for about four five or six
weeks -- the longer the better, but you can pull this off in eight weeks just like this beer here.
Besides having to upsize our mash tun the biggest challenge with this beer
otherwise was getting enough yeast in there to make sure it's got a healthy fermentation.
Being a 1.090 original gravity wort and being fermented cold, you are going to need a ton of
yeast. I estimate probably about 800 billion cells. So, that's either four packs of Omega
or two massive starters for this 10-gallon batch. Otherwise one massive starter. Because if you
under pitch yeast you're going to get some really funky, weird flavors: diacetyl, acetaldehyde,
things you don't want if you're going to put all this much effort into a beer this big.
Speaking of style guidelines for doppelbock, this color-wise comes in at about 17 SRM, which
is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the prescribed range for doppelbock. Also, the bitter
at 25 IBU (or 24) is right about there in the middle. So, we're shooting down the middle so far.
The gravity is a little on the high side; that's fun though because it's a challenge in your mash,
and the alcohol is a little on the high side which means you only need one or two.
It just turns out to be a wonderful beer. It's challenging, it's going to take you some time,
it's really going to test your technique, but man is it worth it.
Doppelbock is generally a beer that's consumed in late winter/early spring before it starts
to really get warm outside, but don't let that pigeon-hole you in brewing at any specific time.
You can brew this year-round. I mean, if you want a really nice strong malty beer
in the middle of summer -- you do you! You could even brew it now and age it until next winter,
and things would be incredibly smooth. You'd really see how the complexity develops, and
it'll make a night and day difference. Not necessarily good or bad, but the beer will evolve.
This is the Northernator Doppelbock Lager. You can find it on northernbrewer.com
available both in extract and all-grain versions.
Doppelbock might just be the greatest German beer of all time. The GOAT. [goat bleet sound].
[Music: “All That” from bensounds.com]