WE LOVE BREWING GERMAN BEER! There’s something so awesome about having a well made Dunkel or Oktoberfest on tap at the house. So we decided to pull out our old Munich Dunkel recipe.
Now we’ve had some success with our original recipe but still not as much as we would like. So we’re revisiting the recipe and starting almost from scratch.
We got a big starter of White Labs 833 Bock Lager yeast going on the stir plate and we have been reading through articles, podcasts, and reviewing our old score sheets and have come up with a recipe.
In the past we have used a more complex mix of dark and light Munich and we have decided to go with just light munich. We also are going to try Midnight Wheat (over dehusked Carafa Special II) in this version as some of our previous scoresheets noted our recipe was too roasty.
We usually do a step mash on this recipe but we will just mash at 152 for this attempt and will use Perle hops from Yakima Valley Hops in the boil.
The brew day went smoothly even though Nick was also breaking in an offset smoker that he just bought. We hit our gravity and going into the fermenter the wort tasted good even though the ribs were burnt!
Lets get to the recipe:
Munich Dunkel Rebirth!
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.014
IBU’s: 25
92.7% Weyermann Munich I
3.9% Midnight Wheat
3.5% Rice Hulls
19 IBUs at 60 minutes from German Perle Hops
6 IBUs at 15 minutes from German Perle Hops
Mash at 152F for 90 minutes. Boil for 90 minutes adding Whirlfloc at 15 minutes left in the boil. Chill as low as you can and rack to a fermenter. Place in temperature controlled space and pitch large starter of White Labs 833 German Bock Lager yeast when wort is at 45 degrees. Ferment for a couple of days at 45F then set the temperature to 50F. Do a diacytl rest for two days then slowly chill over a week to 38F. Keg or bottle and allow to lager for at least 4 weeks.
We’ll follow up in a month or so with some tasting notes and side by side comparisons with other Dunkels.