Dunkles - Bavarian Dark Lager

It has been a marathon week - 3 batches of beer in 5 days! I want to get the stockpiles up while I'm still unemployed - start the new job on May 1st. My first 4 batches so far this spring have been "quick" beers - from very quick beers like Hefeweizen and Belgian Wit which can be ready to drink a mere week after brewing, to relatively quick beers like the Stout I made last Friday, which can be ready to drink in as little as 2 weeks after brewing. All of these of course to get the stockpiles up quickly.

Now it was time for a slow beer. Something that will take 3 to 5 weeks to ferment, and then require another 5 to 8 weeks of lagering at near freezing temperatures. I knew I'd brew a lager, I just wasn't sure until this morning just what type of lager. But I recalled that I had a fair amount of German Weyermann Dark Munich Malt on hand, which is a base malt that has enzymatic power to convert starches to sweet sugars for the yeast. So I decided upon a Dunkles!

I also had about 6kg of Canadian 2 Row malt on hand that a friend had given me when I lost my job, and added to it a bit of the same type of malt that I had left over from the last sack I'd bought myself. Add a smidgeon of Weyermann Carafa I malt for colour, and we're in business.

Here is what I came up with for a grain bill

Grain Bill

• 6.5 kg Canadian 2 Row malted barley
• 3.4 kg German Weyermann Dark Munich Malt
• 100g German Weyermann Carafa I

Mash Schedule

I went with a simple single-infusion mash at 153F. That's my general-purpose mash temp that suits my own taste buds, not necessarily the style of beer I'm brewing. It is a good balance of fermentability and body, and usually gives me a final gravity of about 1.012 from a start of about 1.048. Purists would probably want to bump that up to 155 or 156 for a bit more body and to bring the malt out a bit more.

For a number of years now I have been doing batch sparging after the mash, which means I completely fill the mash tun with water, then drain it quickly. Then completely fill it again, then drain quickly. (2 batches). Versus fly sparging, where you slowly add water to the top as wort slowly drains out the bottom. I just find batch sparging to be easier, and I'm all about simplifying my life.

Hop Schedule

Naturally I had to choose something German for this beer, because even though I am not a style-purist, I do enjoy my German hops! I wanted something with a little pizzazz for this, so I chose my German Tettnanger and German Spalt, both of which have their own character, and an amazing aroma. Normally I chose a very simple hop schedule, but today on the brewers' list we were discussing "complexity vs simplicity" in recipes, so I thought just for kicks and giggles I'd do something a little more complex than I normally would.

• 50g Tettnanger, 6.1% AA, 60 minutes
• 15g Tettnanger, 6.1% AA, 20 minutes
• 15g Spalt, 3.6% AA, 20 minutes
• 15g Tettnanger, 6.1% AA, 0 minutes
• 15g Spalt, 3.6% AA, 0 minutes

I didn't punch that into a calculator so don't really know what the approximate IBUs are. Based on a previous recipe that I did punch in, I'd guess maybe 20 IBUs (International Bittering Units).

Fermentation

The whole thing about lagers is that they are fermented at a lower temperature with a special yeast that can do the job at that temperature. There are dozens of strains of lager yeast to choose from these days, but they are all descendants of the original Bavarian yeast. Hundreds of years ago, the Bavarians realised that beer brewed in summer was not as tasty as beer brewed in winter (because of higher rate of spoilage, which they did not yet understand), so being the smart beer-loving people they were, they decided to try to brew all their beer in the winter and store it in Alpen caves for summer consumption. Over hundreds of years, yeasts were naturally selected which could still ferment at those low temperatures in the ice caves, when most yeasts would conk out and go into dormancy.

There is even mystery, intrigue, and international espionage around the special Bavarian lager yeasts. A couple of hundred years ago someone from Denmark managed to steal some of the highly guarded Bavarian yeast, and with it started up the Carlsberg breweries!

I'm using DCL / Fermentis S-189 yeast, which is a dry lager yeast from the now defunct Huerlimann brewery in Switzerland. Two short decades ago, dry lager yeasts were not available because lager yeasts could not survive the dehydration / rehydration cycle. But science marches on, and eventually they did figure out how to do this! I still use liquid yeasts, but S-189 is my house yeast. Very handy to use since it is dry - no starters required! Which means no need to plan your yeast days or weeks in advance!

I added 2 tablespoons to each fermenter - each holding about 23 litres of sweet wort. I know, I know, rehydrating the yeast before pitching is healthier for the yeast. I've even done the side-by-side experiments to prove that the fermenter with the rehydrated yeast starts fermenting 6 or 7 hours earlier than the one to which you add the dry yeast directly. But still, I just add it directly. It's easier, and still makes really good beer.

I'll let this ferment 2 weeks in the primary buckets in my grotto, which is 10C. Then I will transfer to secondary glass carboys, and move it to the fridge where I will start turning down the temperature over the next week. I'll update this article as I do each step.