Alan's and Melissa's Recipes

Bodensatz Brewing

Lochiel Lager

Full Mash

This is a recipe I made up to honour my uncle Johnny Davidson, who passed away on November 25, 1989. He took a heart attack after shovelling snow in the back yard. Many of my oldest and dearest memories are of times spent at his cottage on Lochiel Lake, then called simply Two Mile Lake. The name has since been returned to the original name given to it by the early Scottish settlers. Canadian through and through, Johnny was also a pioneer homebrewer. As long as anyone can remember, he's had a batch on behind the stove in the kitchen. After he passed away, my aunt Mary gave me 2 trout (from Lochiel Lake, of course) he'd had in the freezer, along with 3 or 4 dozen of the really old quart bottles he'd used for his brew. To this day I tell people that I can't imagine a better inheritance.

I can't.

Oh, and of course I use the bottles.

This first version of Lochiel Canadian Lager is not yet a real Lager since Wyeast 1056 was used, but future versions will be brewed with a real Lager yeast (probably Wyeast 2112 California Lager), and at lower temperatures.

Lochiel Canadian Lager

Ingredients Extraction Points

7 lb Pale Canadian 2 Row 7 x 35 = 245.0

8 oz Wheat Malt 0.5 x 39 = 19.5

1.5 lb white rice 1.5 x 39 = 58.5

total 323

Optimal Gravity 1.065

OG (25 litre) 1.037

OG (adjusted to 19 litre) 1.049

Effeciency 75%

actual O.G. 18 litres 1.047

diluted with 1 litre water 1.045

1 tsp Gypsum in strike water

1/4 tsp acid blend in sparge water

1.0 oz Randy Lawrence's Homegrown Hallertauer boiled 60 min

0.5 oz Liberty Hops (5.5%) boiled 30 min

0.5 oz Liberty Hops (5.5%) boiled 15 min

Wyeast 1056 American Ale starter 500 ml

Method

First prepared rice. Boiled 1.5 lbs rice in 5 litre pot full of water, about 1 hour. Note that this would be the very bare minimum sized pot for 1.5 lbs of rice. It would be a lot easier to do it in a bigger one. Set rice aside, uncovered, and monitor temperature until it comes to the desired temperature for a protein rest -- in this case 130F. Stirring deep and folding helps bring down temp more quickly. As temp nears 130F, prepare mash.

Put 6 litres of 156F water and 1 tsp Gypsum into pre-heated cooler and monitored/stirred until it came down to strike temp of 153.3, then mashed in for 131.5F -- a bit too high. Mixed in 800ml of cold water (whoops, forgot to use dechlorinated water and took it from the tap). This brought mash to the desired 130F (129.7F). Mix in rice mixture which was at 131F to bring mash to 130.5F. Begin protein rest at 6pm, rest until 6:23.
Mash pH 5.3

Add 3 litre boiling water to bring to 146F. Decoct a very loose (almost completely water) 3.5 litres and bring to 192F ( this was my guesstimate) and return to mash at 6:40pm to bring to 153F. A bit higher than my desired 150F, but I decided to let it be. Rest until 7:55pm (75 min).

Iodine test verifies conversion, temp 152F. Decoct a very loose 3.8 to 4 litres and bring to a boil, then immediately return to mash to bring to 161F. Not quite mash-out temp, but fine for me.

Recirculate 11 litres until 8:15, then begin runoff. End runoff at 9:25 (70 mins), collecting 25 litres of wort. Siphon into brewpot.

Begin boil at 9:35, wort comes to boil at 10:10. 15 minutes later, at 10:25, add 1.0 oz Randy's Hallertauer Hops. Then 30 minutes later (10:55) add 0.5 oz Liberty, and 0.5 oz more Liberty 15 minutes after that (11:10). Turn heat off at 11:25, wait 5 minutes then whirlpool. Begin shiponing through chiller at 11:35. Done and pitched by midnight.

Data

brewed: Nov 09, 1996
pitched: immediately (12pm)
racked: Nov 17, 1996
bottled:
O.G. (25 litres) 1.037
O.G. (19 litres) 1.045
S.G. Nov 25, 1996 1.018
F.G.
Extract Efficiency: 75%

Pitching

Used a starter of Wyeast 1056. Unfortunately the package did not swell until the day before I brewed, so I was unable to step up the starter very much, thus ended up with only a 500ml starter.

Fermentation

Lag time of good 18 hours, but that 's to be expected with only a 500ml starter. Otherwise fermenting away nicely at 18-20C. Fermented quickly for first few days, then slowed down significantly. As of Nov 26th, still fermenting slowly, airlock bubbling once per 10 seconds. This slow fermentation is likely a combination of the low pitching rate (only 500ml starter) as well as the lower ferm temperature of 17C, which it's been at since the kraeusen dropped.