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Tuesday 07th of February 2012

Home Mr. Beer Tripple Dopple Amber Tackle Bock
Tripple Dopple Amber Tackle Bock
Written by Hunter Cobbs   
Friday, 10 April 2009 14:22
Well I must say, I'm very impressed with this concotion of mine.  Just to give you a quick run-down.  This is a no-nonsense all-malt heavy gravity beer with apporx 12%abv.  The head  retention is the best I've had to date.  After taking a few sips, and letting it sit for 10 minutes, I've still got a health 1/2inch of head on the beer. It's adhearing to the glass nicely and I'd say that this will even outlast a Guinness on head retention.

So, How did I make such a brew?  I did it all with good-old fashioned time and Mr. Beer.

Ingredient list:

Equipment List:

  • 1x Mr. Beer Fermenter
  • 1x Can opener
  • 1x Large Table Spoon
  • 1x 4qt Pot
  • 1x Large mixing bowl
  • 1x 1 Cup measuring Cup

Misc. Items:

  • 2x Store-bought Spring Water (saves the difficulties of sanitation)
  • 1x 1/2 Capful Iodophor Food-grade Sanitizer
  • 1x 1/2 Capful of Oilve Oil (I'll get to this in a bit)

 

0 - Activating Yeast

This can be the most fun(and frustrating) part of the recipie.  It all depends on how long you've left your yeast in the fridge.  The longer you've left it... the longer this step will take (first time I did it, it took three days for the yeast to activate)

  • Place Yeast Packet on hard surface
  • "Mush" the packet around so that you can bunch up the inner nutritional packet into one corner
  • Slap the corner with the packet with the heel of your hand so that it breaks the inner packet
  • Place the packet to your ear
  • If there is a "fizzing" sound, you did it right
  • Let it sit at room temperature untill the packet has swollen to an inch thick (first time took three days for me)
  • Don't start your brew process untill the yeast is fully activated

1 - Sanitation Steps

Most of the time you get decent enough results out of the One-Step that comes from Mr. Beer, but I never liked the residue that can be left over.  And, frankly... after a failed batch, I didn't trust it enough for this recipie that requires at least a month of fermentation.

So, I turned to Iodophor.  Its simple enough to use and it even has a nice tell-tale color (light amber color to the water) to let you tell that you've got the right concentrations.  But, the cool thing is that coupled with a Mr. Beer keg, its almost impossible to mess up.

  • Place xME's in a HOT(130F+) water bath (helps them pour and somewhat sanitizes)
  • Fill your keg halfway with tap water
  • Pour in half a cap full of iodophor
  • Stir with big spoon
  • Top off keg(all the way to the top of the vents)
  • Seal with lid
  • Wait 5 minutes(more than is really needed)
  • Drain half of the keg into the large mixing bowl thourgh the spout
  • Place other utensiles to be sanitized in the bowl (including active yeast packet)
  • Reseal lid and shake a bit
  • Empty keg and reseal

By this time all your equipment will be sanitized.

2 - Wort Creation

This is what I call the Mac-n-Cheese step to Mr. Beer.  Generally, this is one of the most labor intensive parts of creating beer.  And it still is for the Mr. Beer.  However, you can do this step in under 15 minutes after a few practices.

  • Measure 4 cups of water into your large pot
  • Return Measuring cup to sanitized solution
  • Pour the remainder of the gallon into your sanitized keg
  • Bring Water to a boil
  • Remove from heat
  • Open an xME and scrape the malt into the water
  • Return spoon to sanitized solution
  • Repeat previous 2 steps for each can
  • Stir wort untill there is even resistance (it will feel thicker in some parts at first)

3 - Wort Pour, Pitching Yeast, Fermentation, and Bottling

This is when you get ready to make some real beer.

  • Pour fresh wort into keg that has the gallon of water to absorb the thermal shock
  • Add the remaining gallon of spring water
  • Pitch yeast into wort
  • Prepare to areate

Now, if you are following the standard Mr. Beer Brew processes, you probably noticed I didn't include a whisk, but instead included a toothpick and olive oil.  This is a neat trick I picked up from other forums that was originally developed by a Belgium brewery.  The basics of it is this:

Yeast need oxygen to generate fatty acids on their outer cell wall to help them survive longer.  However, oxygen also increases the rate that a beer will go stale.  Well, it turns out that olive oil has the proper fatty acids in it that the yeast needs.  So, why go through the trouble of aerating the wort when you can simply add a SMALL amount of olive oil and the yeast will be just happy as they can be.

Ok science lesson over, back to the beer.

  • Sanitize the toothpick (could even be the tine of a fork or an ice pick... just SMALL)
  • Dip toothpick into the olive oil so just the point is coated up to the shaft
  • Let ONE drop of olive oil land on the wort (seriously, that's all thats needed)
  • Seal Keg
  • Place in a cooler area for fermentation.  Bocks typically like the High 50s, Low 60s F.
  • Let this ferment for four weeks as this is a high-gravity beer and need extra time to use up the "fissionables" as I like to call them.
  • After bottling (use standard primer sugar amounts) let it condition for at least three weeks at the brew temperature or as low as 45 F(add another week or two at this temp).
 

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