Beer Name: Black Grätzer Beer Style: Grätzer Brew Type: All Grain Batch Size: ~5 gallons OG: 1.055 FG: 1.012 ABV: 5.6% IBU: 53.2 Rager, 45.2 Tinseth Efficiency: 88% (though my target was ~80%) Grain Bill: 5 lb wheat malt 3 lb rauch malt 1 lb Breiss midnight wheat 4 oz peated malt Hop Bill: 5 AAU (10g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 60 10 AAU (19g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 20 20 AAU (39g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 5 Yeast: Wyeast 3056 - Bavarian What Blend; no starter, just a smack-pack Process: Single-step mash at 149° for 1 hour; collected 6.5 gallons for the boil. I did a batch sparge; two batches of water at around 170-175°. Fermentation temperature was not externally controlled; I pitched at 68° and the temperature of the beer in the fermenter rose as high as 73°. Fermentation took off quickly and had completely subsided by about 90 hours; I left the works in the primary for about 7 weeks due to laziness.
Thanks for the post! 4 oz is a lot of peated malt. A third of the bill is smoked malt too. That's a lot of stank! You say it went down pretty smooth anyway? Anything you'd do differently next time around?
Oh you bet, it was not too much smoke at all. There were lots of competing flavors there, but it went down surprisingly easily. 4 oz is a lot of peated malt, but I happen to like smoke a lot -- that might be an area where you could pare back if you don't like that much smoke. As far as regular rauchmalt -- 100% isn't too much for me. I like Aecht Schlenkerla levels of smoke!
The only Graetzer that I've ever tried had a sour component to it (see: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/23495/75608/) I'm guessing they used lactobacillus or some other souring bacteria in the process. Have you ever tried this?
